THE WALL OF FACES

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. I am heartened you returned home after the passage of so many years though I wish it had been under very different circumstances. May you rest in eternal peace.

Dear CMsgt Edwin Pearce, Thank you for your service as a Munitions Maintenance Superintendent. I am glad you were identified in 1987. Welcome Home. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. It is Easter Saturday. Time passes quickly. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

I grew up with Jack. He enlisted in the Air Force, I was drafted a few years later. After I came home from my tour in April 1970 we got together for a few beers. He said he was going back. In 2007 I read his name as well as his entire crew at the 25th anniversary of the VN Memorial in DC. Think of him and his family often. Rest in Peace my friend.

Jack Pearce is the uncle I never met, though my grandfather and mother devoted their lives to bringing him home.

In 1943, my grandfather jumped from a burning B-17 bomber over Germany. Missing in action for months, his parents finally learned he was a prisoner of war in Stalag 17. He survived nearly 3 years in prison camp and a march across the Alps before returning home.

Grandpa Ed’s eldest son and namesake, Edwin “Jack,” followed his father into the Air Force. But on the night of March 29, 1972, Jack’s plane vanished over the mountains bordering Vietnam and Ed’s past came roaring into the present. Because my grandfather survived, he always believed his son did, too. He devoted his life to searching for him.

In the wake of my mother's death, I uncovered boxes of declassified CIA documents and letters chronicling my family's 36-year search to bring Jack home. In 2013, I went to Laos in search of answers. I spoke with the families of "Prometheus," the AC-130 Jack was flying in on 3/29/72, CIA officers, veterans, and refugees. My uncle's story is now a book: "What We Inherit: A Secret War and a Family's Search for Answers." He will never be forgotten.

Chief Master Sergeant Edwin Jack Pearce, Served with the 16th Special Operations Squadron, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, 7th Air Force.