THE WALL OF FACES

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. It remains my fervent hope you will be returned home after the passage of so many years.

Dear Maj James Shanks, Thank you for your service as a Tactical Aircraft Pilot. You are still MIA. Please come home. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. It is another new year. Time moves quickly. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage, guidance and faithfulness, especially now. Be at peace.

As your 91st birthday approaches, your sacrifice is not forgotten.

POW-MIA...Never Forget

HOOAH

I am a Air Force veteran and was at an event in Tucson AZ, way back in 1987-88 time frame. I went to an event about POW’s and MIA’s from the Vietnam war. For a donation, I acquired a bracelet with James L Shanks name on it, showing he was missing from 24 May 68 and from NY where I am also from. I wore this for the rest of my Air Force career and even while deployed to Desert Storm. I thought about James often and prayed for him and his family. This was prior to the internet days, so I had no real idea who He was and anything about his family. I continued to wear this for years and always wondered about him and felt a connection to him and his family. I knew what it was like to go to a war and I could not imagine missing in action and being left behind and or my status being unknown to my family. I moved several years ago to Idaho and somehow in the packing and move the bracelet disappeared. I just found the bracelet two days ago in our shed as we went through boxes preparing for a garage sale. It was like finding an old friend and it hit me hard as it was so close to Memorial Day. For the first time I looked up James information online and found this site, wow, there he was with his family, the man and the family I had prayed for, for many years. I could only imagine him for so many years, now here he was. He went to war with me, he was always in my thoughts and now we are back together again. I will never forget, his service and the sacrifice paid by him and his family.

This was my Father, Major James Lee Shanks who was shot down, along with Col. Emmitt Rucker and SGT. Herbert Schmidt on 24 May, 1968 in a USAF C-123 defoliating to help save American lives. Thank you to all the Veterans with Ranch Hand that I have personally met who remember him and told me personal stories.
Please feel free to contact me by email.

God bless us and God bless America.