Bill Sandersen ‘64 Made the Ultimate Sacrifice

Bill Sandersen ‘64 is the only CRMS alumnus known to have been killed in action serving his country. The following account of Bill’s life and legacy is told by his older sister, Carol Sandersen Hughes ‘62.

This photo (above) was taken of Bill two days before his death in Vietnam. Bill was on leave in Australia, where his mother and sister went to see him. The picture was taken by a restaurant photographer. He returned to his unit in the Tet offensive and was immediately killed.

By Carol Sandersen Hughes ‘62

What can I say about a young man whose life ended at age 22 in a jungle halfway around the world?

Bill was born May 1, 1946 in Connecticut, the second of four children. We moved to Aspen in 1955, when Aspen was a one-ski-lift town. Bill took to skiing as though he had been born for it. Watching him ski down Aspen Mountain was akin to watching a feather float. 

Bill and I arrived at CRMS in 1960; I was a Junior, he was a Freshman. We had just returned from Paris, France, where we had lived for 2 years. He had learned French faster and better than his siblings. He was an artist. Bill could also be very annoying, like the time on spring trip when he sang “1,000 bottles of beer on the wall,” in the green truck, driving everyone nuts. He was the most athletic of the four of us, but very accident-prone because he was very reckless; If he could find a way to have a head injury, he was all-in. In his Junior year at CRMS he managed to hit a ditch with his bicycle and got a concussion that sent him home for a couple of months. Somehow, that did not affect his ability to keep up with his classes, and he graduated in 1964. 

Bill attended the University of Colorado in Boulder in Engineering for one semester. On Christmas Day, 1965, he was skiing in Vail (probably going too fast) and another skier stopped suddenly in his way. Trying to avoid a collision, he braked too hard, and landed on his head. Because of his prior concussions, he was wearing a helmet, and his head went back and broke his neck. He was treated in Vail, where he was put in a body cast from his head to his hips. Because he had a warped sense of humor, he painted the cast silver so he looked like a man in armor. Fortunately, the cast was not properly positioned, and had to be redone. The toxic silver paint had gone through the plaster and coated his skin. Because the cast made his head point upward, he could not study and had to drop out of the University. 

After he had recovered, Bill moved to Denver and worked as a draftsman at a technical company. He received a notice from the draft telling him to report to Aspen for a physical. He requested to have the exam transferred to Denver, at which point they told him to put it on hold. Knowing that he was soon going to be drafted, he decided to enlist. He had a friend in Denver who had served in Vietnam, and told him how much fun he had riding around in Jeeps.  

Bill was told by his recruiter that because he spoke French and a little German he would most likely be sent to officer candidate school if he enlisted in “Armor,” so he did. Once he was in basic training, he was told that option no longer existed and was assigned to the battlefield in Vietnam, where the war was really heating up. In December of 1967, he shipped out for Vietnam. His letters home were clear in that he did not believe the U.S. should be there creating chaos and he hinted at events that disturbed him greatly. Of course, he could not be totally descriptive because of Army censorship. I still have those letters.

On August 18, 1968 Bill was hit by an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] and instantly killed. 

We buried him, with full military honors, on land my mother owned in Woody Creek on a beautiful blue sky Colorado day. He has since been reburied in the oldest cemetery in Aspen in an aspen grove, twenty feet from the only other Aspen boy killed in Vietnam. He had received the Purple Heart for injuries and the silver medal for bravery. Those medals are buried under the Vietnam memorial next to the courthouse in Aspen. My mother, Claire Sandersen, went to that memorial every Veterans’ Day and every Memorial Day until she died to speak about the horrors of war. She was a member of “Another Mother For Peace” and that phrase is carved on a memorial bench to my mother next to the Vietnam Memorial in Aspen.

I miss my brother every day. I can’t help but wonder what he would have accomplished had he lived.