Specialist Turner, 23, was a college senior who aspired to a career as a writer when he was drafted into the Army. His father, Marshall S. Turner, who was employed by the Public Buildings Service of the U.S. General Services Administration, said that his son wrote "profusely" from Vietnam. "He, like many other soldiers, didn't want to be there. He just did what he had to do," Mr. Turner said. 

Specialist Turner, a ground-fighter with Company B, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division, was killed during a mission to secure an enemy-held arms camp. One of his best friends, Spec. 4 Samuel A. Bond, also of Bethesda, served as escort when Specialist Turner's body was flown to the United States. 

He had attended the University of Maryland and Bellarmine College in Louisville KY, where 
he majored in English. Specialist Turner had already started to learn the publishing trade at Newsweek Magazine, where he once worked as a copy boy. 

As a young man, he lived in Cambridge in Dorchester County, and he graduated in 1963 from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Besides his father and mother, Mrs. Myra H. Turner, he was survived by two sisters, Mary Ann Turner and Mrs. Marsha Turner Bonner, all of the Bethesda area. 
-Fed Record