Stephen M. Carnahan

Class of ’66

Stephen M. Carnahan ’66 Ex-Valley Tracker – Run? No, City Marine Stays, Kills Viet Snake. Stephen M. Carnahan was a speedy miler when he was on the track team at Valley High School last year. But he missed a chance to set a new track record several weeks ago while searching for Vietcong in a cave in Chu Lai, Vietnam. The First Marine Division reported that 18-year-old Carnahan came face-to-face with a seven-foot Krait, a poisonous snake, kin to the cobra. As told by the Da Nang Press Center, Marine Lance Cpl. Carnahan did not run, but reached for his K-bar fighting knife as the snake made a lunge for him. He swiped at the viper and managed to wound it. The snake uncoiled and retreated. Suddenly it stopped and coiled again. When it came at him the second time, Carnahan slashed and jabbed with his knife, wounding it severely. Then Carnahan lopped off its head. Carnahan, a rifleman with the 2nd Platoon, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, was participating in a search and destroy mission about 10 miles south of Chu Lai. While sweeping through one of the villages, the platoon discovered a cave, 500 feet long, extending the length of the village. A search team blew up a booby trap. Cpl. Carnahan had his encounter with the snake while searching the cave. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. George R Carnahan of 5609 Alder NW. A 1966 graduate of Valley High, Carnahan has been in Vietnam since Thanksgiving. Mrs. Carnahan said her son had not written her about the snake experience. However, she said he had written that he had suffered a broken jaw and the loss of four teeth as a result of an explosion in the cave. “He never was much for giving details in his letters,” said his mother. “He knows how easily I get shook up.”

Flag at Half Mast as Family Mourns G.I. Son by Urith Lucas, Tribune Staff Writer. When Stephen M. Carnahan went into battle last Thanksgiving, his parents proudly raised the American flag at their home. They made a daily ritual of raising and lowering the flag and it soared up the mast each day to flash a brilliant blue, white and red in the sun. Today, the flag flies at half-mast. Mr. and Mrs. George R. Carnahan learned yesterday their son, hey Marine Lance Cpl., was killed Sunday in combat in Vietnam. Sadly, proudly, his parents lowered the flag. According to flag etiquette, the flag may remain at half-mast until after the Marine’s funeral. A modest family, the Carnahans had quietly placed the flag in the backyard. However, their Paradise Hills neighbors at noticed the flag and had stood a little straighter when they glimpsed it. Today, neighbors grieved with the family. Although in combat much of the time, the Marine took time to become a big brother to a little orphan boy and sought gifts from home for the youngster. “Steve loved children,” he was particularly interested in a village family which did his laundry. His heart also went out to three or four boys whose parents had been killed. Two of the boys, who lived with her grandmother, were able to earn some money by working in the rice paddies. However, the seven-year-old was too small to work. “Steve wrote home for clothing and canned food to give the child,” Mrs. Carnahan said. Steve tried to write home at least once a week. His family wrote to him almost daily and sent newspaper clippings and news of Valley High School where Steve graduated in 1966. Steve recently wrote of being released from hospital where he was treated for a broken jaw suffered in an explosion while searching for the enemy in a Viet Cong tunnel. The Defense Department said his death Sunday was caused by a gunshot while on combat patrol in Quang Ngai Province. Active in school affairs, Steve was a member of the Student Council at Valley High, the Key Club and was a representative of the senior class. He was on the track team. Thoughtful about religious matters, Lance Cpl. Carnahan was taking instructions for the Catholic faith. Although his family is Methodist, his parents plan to have a Catholic Mass for their son since he was planning to become Catholic. A lover outdoor life, Steve had hoped to become a forester. A resident of Albuquerque for six years, Stephen was born near Chicago and the family lived in Colorado for many years before coming to New Mexico. The boy’s father is with the Atomic Energy Commission and had served in the infantry in World War II. Also surviving are two sisters: Ellen, 16, a senior at Valley High; Laurie, 12 today, a sixth-grader, and a brother, Matthew, 10, a fifth grader, both students at Sierra Vista Elementary School. The body is being returned to Albuquerque for burial.

Military Funeral for Cpl. Carnahan – Marine Lance Cpl. Stephen M. Carnahan was buried Tuesday with full military honors at the National Cemetery in Santa Fe. The burial followed an early Requiem Mass at St. Therese Catholic Church. Cpl. Carnahan, 18-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. George R, Carnahan, 5609 Alder NW, was killed April 2 in Vietnam. His former neighbors will put up a bronze plaque in his memory near the Paradise Hills Fire Department where the Marine was a volunteer fireman. Funds for the memorial plaque are being collected by Beta Sigma Phi, Mrs. Carnahan’s sorority.