THE WALL OF FACES

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Henry Kissinger once predicted that an "unfortunate" by-product of "limited political engagements" would be personnel who could not be recovered. On March 23, 1961, one of the first group of Americans to fall into that "unfortunate" category were shot from the sky by Pathet Lao antiaircraft guns. Most Americans at that time did not even know that the United States had military personnel in Southeast Asia. In fact, most Americans had not even heard of the name "Laos". The Geneva Agreements had yet to be signed; air rescue teams had yet to arrive in Southeast Asia. The C-47 aircraft crew consisted of 1LT Ralph W. Magee, pilot; 1LT Oscar B. Weston, co-pilot; 2LT Glenn Matteson, navigator; SSGT Alfons A. Bankowski, flight engineer; SSGT Frederick T. Garside, assistant flight engineer; SSGT Leslie V. Sampson, radio operator; and passengers MAJ Lawrence R. Bailey and WO1 Edgar W. Weitkamp. Bailey and Weitkamp were assigned to the Army Attache Office at Vientiane, Laos. The aircraft crew was all Air Force personnel flying from the 315th Air Division, Osan Airbase, Korea. This C-47 was a specially modified intelligence-gathering SC-47 which took off from Vientiane for Saigon. The passengers and crew were bound for "R & R" in the "Paris of the Orient". Before heading for Saigon, the pilot turned north toward Xieng Khouangville, a Pathet Lao stronghold on the eastern edge of the Plain of Jars. The crew, experienced in intelligence collection, planned to use their radio-direction finding equipment to determine the frequencies being used by Soviet pilots to locate the Xieng Khouangville airfield through the dense fog that often blanketed the region. Pathet Lao anti-aircraft guns downed the plane, shearing off a wing and sending the aircraft plummeting toward the jungle. MAJ Bailey, who always wore a parachute when he flew, jumped from the falling aircraft and was captured by the Pathet Lao. Bailey spent seventeen months as a prisoner in Sam Neua, the Pathet Lao headquarters near the North Vietnamese border, before being repatriated after the signing of the Geneva Agreements on Laos in 1962. The caves at Sam Neua were said to have held scores of American prisoners during and after the war. The seven men lost on March 23, 1961 were the first of many hundreds of American personnel shot from the sky only to disappear in the jungles of Laos. Four Lao sources stated that 7 of the 8 personnel on board died in the crash of the aircraft, and were buried in the vicinity. [Narrative taken from pownetwork.org; image from wikipedia.com]

Dear SSGT Leslie Verne Sampson, sir

As an American, I would like to thank you for your service and for your sacrifice made on behalf of our wonderful country. The youth of today could gain much by learning of heroes such as yourself, men and women whose courage and heart can never be questioned.

May God allow you to read this, and may He allow me to someday shake your hand when I get to Heaven to personally thank you. May he also allow my father to find you and shake your hand now to say thank you; for America, and for those who love you.

With respect, and the best salute a civilian can muster for you, Sir

Curt Carter

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

FOREVER REMEMBERED

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you....and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.....Be not ashamed to say you loved them....
Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own....And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle hero’s you left behind...."

Quote from a letter home by Maj. Michael Davis O'Donnell
KIA 24 March 1970. Distinguished Flying Cross: Shot down and Killed while attempting to rescue 8 fellow soldiers surrounded by attacking enemy forces.

We Nam Brothers pause to give a backward glance, and post this remembrance to you, one of the gentle heros lost to the War in Vietnam:
... and rest forever in the shade of our love, brother.

From your Nam-Band-Of-Brothers