Coginchaug to Honor Purple Heart Marine at Thanksgiving Day Game

Sergeant Dennis Mannion has been selected as the Coginchaug football team’s honorary captain for the Cromwell game on Thanksgiving.

Sergeant Mannion enlisted in the Marine Corps in January 1967. After boot camp at Parris Island, SC and infantry training at Camp Lejeune, NC, he attended Naval Gunfire School in Coronado, CA. In September of that year he departed for Vietnam and was assigned as an artillery forward observer with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 26^th Marines.

Kilo Company and other Marine Corps companies were sent to the remote Khe Sanh Combat base in December 1967 in response to a build up of North Vietnamese forces in the area. Kilo Company was tasked with the defense of an isolated hilltop outpost, Hill 861, where Sergeant Mannion was solely responsible for the artillery support for the base at Khe Sanh.

In January 1968, Khe Sanh was attacked by an estimated 40,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. During the 77 day Siege of Khe Sanh that followed, Sergeant Mannion conducted over three hundred artillery missions that helped thwart the NVA attempt to overrun the base and its 6,000 U.S. Marine defenders. Twice-wounded on that hill, Sergeant Mannion was awarded two Purple Hearts.  He and the other defenders of Khe Sanh were awarded a Presidential Unit Citation. 

When the 26th Marines departed Khe Sanh at the end of April 1968, he was sent to the 12th Marines located at Dong Ha. For the last five months of his combat tour he was part of a small Naval Gunfire team that operated along the coast of South Vietnam above the Cua Viet River near Dong Ha and below the Ben Hai River in the DMZ.   

Home from Vietnam in October 1968, he served out the remainder of his enlistment at Camp Lejeune with 2nd ANGLICO.  As part of that unit he spent four months in Guantanamo Bay and also took part in a 1969 summer Med-Cruise with Marine and other NATO Forces in Greece and Turkey. He was honorably discharged with the rank of Sergeant in December 1969.     

Sergeant Mannion graduated from Notre Dame High School in West Haven in 1964 where he was a two year starter on the football team and a captain his senior year. He began his college career at the University of Notre Dame but he left South Bend after his sophomore year.  After his stint in the marines he resumed his college career at the University of Connecticut where in 1973 he graduated with honors with a B.S. degree in English/Education.  

That fall Sergeant Mannion began a 30 year teaching career at Sheehan High School in Wallingford, CT when he was hired as an English teacher and assistant football coach.  In 1990 he became Sheehan's third head football coach and held that post until 2002.   

In 1992 Sergeant Mannion was awarded the New Haven Football Officials Coach of the Year Award.  In 2002 he was presented with the Distinguished American Award from the New Haven Chapter of the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame. In 2010 he was inducted into the Sheehan High School Hall of Fame and into the New Haven Gridiron Club Hall of Fame in 2011.

Sergeant Mannion is a lifetime member of the National Organization of the Purple Heart, the Disabled Veterans of America, and the Khe Sanh Veterans Association where he is on the scholarship and by-laws committees.  His experiences at Khe Sanh have been documented on the History Channel, CBS TV, and the ABC Millennium Series as well as three books and one video documentary.   He has made numerous presentations to high school and college classes about this topic.

Sergeant Mannion is the proud father of 4 children -- daughter Brooke (and her husband Charles Davis); sons Jake, Blake, and Devin and grandchildren Grace and Campbell Davis.   His wife Joan -- who retired from her own 35 year career as an English teacher and Guidance Councilor at Sheehan -- and his children are visible proof that he has been fortunate all his life.

Submitted by Coach John Bozzi