Crafton wanted to become an artist, he wrote shortly before dying at age eightteen near Plei Me, Vietnam, on Nov. 6, 1965. The private first class, an assistant gunner in Company B of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Calvary, 1st Cavalry Division (Airborne), was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. He had run through small arms fire, then dragged a wounded soldier to safety although he himself was severely wounded. Crafton, a 1964 Benjamin Franklin High School graduate, was survived by his parents, four brothers and three sisters