THE WALL OF FACES

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Mary Frye – 1932

The following article appeared in the 8 October 2005 online edition of The Washington Post:


At long last, honors for 12 Fallen Men
Remains of Veterans identified 37 years after deadly battle in Vietnam

By Annie Gowen


They had waited 37 years for this moment, but family members of 12 U.S. servicemen honored yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery approached the grave site cautiously, under a shield of umbrellas. Behind them, 12 soldiers stood in the rain, each holding a flag folded just so, the blue stars just visible.

For years, relatives never knew exactly what happened that day in 1968 at Ngok Tavak, a remote hill in Vietnam, after the North Vietnamese closed in. Some got out, led by a wild Australian Army captain on a trail blazed by napalm.

Others weren't so lucky.

For years, their families heard conflicting stories about what happened to them. They were missing. Out on a search party. Or dead.

Official documents listed Marine Lance Cpl. Raymond T. Heyne of Mason, Wis., with a string of inconclusive letters after his name -- KIA, MIA, POW -- his sister, Janice Kostello, said yesterday.

But after a 12-year investigation that included interviews with Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers and three excavations of the jungle site near the border with Laos, the Department of Defense recently was able to identify the remains of five servicemen who died during the 10-hour battle, as well as the remains of seven others who were interred in a single coffin yesterday. Heyne was buried privately in a separate grave yesterday, and four others were to be buried in their home states.

When the Defense Department finally called with the news that it had identified Heyne's remains this spring, Kostello said she was relieved.

"Because you always wondered," she explained. "It was closure. It was joy and it was relief and it's sad. You're elated because you can finally bury him."

She is 71 now, her hair curly and white. Her adored little brother was 20 when he disappeared.

Among the men who died with Heyne that day was Marine Cpl. Gerald E. King of Knoxville, Tenn., who was injured early on but continued to fight; Lance Cpl. Joseph F. Cook of Foxboro, Mass., a comedian-tough guy who died along with his best friend, Pfc. Paul S. Czerwonka of Stoughton, Mass.; and Pfc. Thomas J. Blackman of Racine, Wis., a lanky redhead who had talked about how he wanted to ride his bicycle from coast to coast after he got home.

Also honored yesterday were Lance Cpl. James R. Sargent of Anawalt, W.Va., Lance Cpl. Donald W. Mitchell of Princeton, Ky., Lance Cpl. Thomas W. Fritsch of Cromwell, Conn., Pvt. Barry L. Hempel of Garden Grove, Calif., Pvt. Robert C. Lopez of Albuquerque, Pvt. William D. McGonigle of Wichita, and Army Sgt. Glenn E. Miller of Oakland, Calif.

After the ceremony, more than 150 attendees and veterans who fought at Ngok Tavak and at a base nearby gathered at a hotel off Interstate 395 in Alexandria and swapped stories about their lost colleagues.

"Just say they took part in a major military action that was a total fiasco . . . 200 men, in the face of a [North Vietnamese] division of 8,000, who were told to stand and fight. Their chances were pretty slim," said John White, a retired Australian military officer who commanded the troops -- a mix of Marines, Australian soldiers and Chinese mercenaries -- on the hill at an abandoned French fort.

White, 63, said he can still remember the feeling of being trapped with his men and the sound of the enemy, their mess kits clanking as they stealthily surrounded the soldiers over several days. Finally around midnight one night, White warned the troops that they would be hit and hit hard.

"The moon went down at 3:15, and after that, all hell broke loose," said Greg Rose, 56, who was then a Marine private and now is a federal employee in Canberra, Australia.

The battle raged until dawn, with heavy casualties on both sides. During a brief respite in the fighting -- as they rushed wounded soldiers onto a medivac helicopter -- White decided to take a desperate measure to save his remaining men, who were surrounded.

He called in for airstrikes of napalm and led out the remaining 40 or so soldiers along a trail of burning chemicals. The foolhardy plan worked: "It was absolutely brilliant," Rose said.

But they had to leave the dead behind, and some have never forgiven themselves for that, or for the fact that they lived.

"Why me and not them?" Rose asked, tears in his eyes. "This has been the greatest day of my life and the hardest day. They've finally come home."

"An God said who shall we send.I answered I am here,send me."

Isaiah 6:8

Facta Non Verba

The following article appeared in the 11 August 2005 online edition of the Washington Times:


Remains of 12 Vietnam MIAs repatriated
By Martha Mendoza, Associated Press

When Army Sgt. Glenn E. Miller was listed as missing in action after a fierce gunbattle in Vietnam in May 1968, his girlfriend figured he had been killed -- even though there was never any proof.

Thirty-seven years later, the remains of Sgt. Miller, a Green Beret, and the 11 Marines who died alongside him have been identified and returned to the United States. It's the largest single group of MIAs identified since the Vietnam War, the Defense Department said Tuesday.

All the men's families have met with representatives of the Marines and Army, said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Pentagon's missing-personnel office. Five of the troops will be buried by their families; the others will be buried as a group in Arlington National Cemetery in October.

The troops were killed May 9, 1968, during a 10-hour battle on a football-field-size area along the Laotian border in South Vietnam, Mr. Greer said. They were part of an artillery platoon airlifted in to support a unit that was at risk of an attack from nearby North Vietnamese forces.

For Carol Fordahl, Sgt. Miller's old girlfriend, the news brought back a flood of memories. There was the evening that Sgt. Miller serenaded her with his guitar from on top of her roof, the fresh cherries he mailed across the country for her birthday, the pearl ring and charm bracelet she still keeps.

"I still miss him to this day," said Miss Fordahl of Livermore, Calif.

The last time Margaret Coplen heard from her brother, Marine Pfc. Robert Lopez of Albuquerque, N.M., was in a letter that arrived a few days after the military informed the family about what happened to him. In it, he described being able to squeeze in a bath in a river.

"He said he at least felt he was halfway clean," Mrs. Coplen said. "It was in a river, so he said when he came out, he was covered with leeches. I was just crying when I had read that."

Steven Fritsch of Cromwell, Conn., said the confirmation of the death of his older brother, Marine Lance Cpl. Thomas Fritsch, was "bittersweet" for his parents.

"Now we don't have to wonder anymore," Mr. Fritsch said, adding that his brother would be buried Sunday in Cromwell.

Brenda Scott, the sister of Lance Cpl. Donald W. Mitchell, of Princeton, Ky., who was among the recovered MIAs, said her family feels fortunate that Cpl. Mitchell's remains will come home.

Cpl. Mitchell's father, Herman Mitchell, died in 1998 without knowing his son's fate. His mother, Marjorie Mitchell, is now 80 and "feels finally at peace," Mrs. Scott said.

The other eight MIAs were identified as Cpl. Gerald E. King of Knoxville, Tenn.; Lance Cpls. Joseph F. Cook of Foxboro, Mass., James R. Sargent of Anawalt, W.Va., and Raymond T. Heyne of Mason, Wis.; and Pfcs. Thomas J. Blackman of Racine, Wis., Paul S. Czerwonka of Stoughton, Mass., Barry L. Hempel of Garden Grove, Calif., and William D. McGonigle, of Wichita, Kan.

There are more than 1,800 U.S. servicemen still unaccounted for. About 300,000 North Vietnamese soldiers are still listed as missing in action. An estimated 58,000 Americans and 3 million Vietnamese were killed.

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

No. 820-05

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

10 August 2005

TWELVE MIAs FROM THE VIETNAM WAR ARE FINALLY IDENTIFIED AND RETURNED TO THEIR FAMILIES

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today the identification of the remains of 12 U.S. servicemen missing in action from the Vietnam War.

Five of those identified are being returned to their families for burial, and the remaining seven will be buried as a group in Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.

The men who were individually identified are:

Corporal Gerald Eugene King, of Knoxville, Tennessee;
Lance Corporal Joseph Francis Cook, of Foxboro, Massachusetts;
Lance Corporal Raymond Thomas Heyne, of Mason, Wisconsin;
Lance Corporal Donald Wayne Mitchell, of Princeton, Kentucky; and
Lance Corporal Thomas William Fritsch, of Cromwell, Connecticut,
all of the United States Marine Corps.

Additional group remains are those of:

Private First Class Thomas Joseph Blackman, of Racine, Wisconsin;
Private First Class Paul Steven Czerwonka, of Stoughton, Massachusetts;
Private First Class Barry Lee Hempel, of Garden Grove, California;
Private First Class Robert Charles Lopez, of Albuquerque, New Mexico;
Private First Class William Dee McGonigle, of Wichita, Kan.; and
Lance Corporal James Ray Sargent, of Anawalt, West Virginia,
all of the United States Marine Corps.

Additionally, the remains of United States Army Special Forces Sergeant Glenn Edwin Miller, of Oakland, California will be included in the group burial.

The Marines were part of an artillery platoon airlifted to provide support to the 11th Mobile Strike Force, which was under threat of attack from North Vietnamese forces near Kham Duc in South Vietnam.

On 9 May 1968, the Strike Force had been directed to reconnoiter an area known as Little Ngok Tavak Hill near the Laos-Vietnam border, in the Kham Duc Province.

Their base came under attack by North Vietnamese Army troops, and after a 10-hour battle, all of the survivors were able to withdraw from the area.

Six investigations beginning in 1993 and a series of interviews of villagers and former Vietnamese soldiers led U.S. recovery teams in 1994, 1997 and 1998 to specific defensive positions within the large battle site. Additionally, maps provided by American survivors helped to locate some key areas on the battlefield.

Three excavations by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in 1998 and 1999 yielded human remains, personal effects and other material evidence.

JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,815 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,381 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 768 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war. Of those, 540 are from within Vietnam.



YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN

NOR SHALL YOU EVER BE