THE WALL OF FACES

WASHINGTON The U.S. military says it has identified the remains of a pilot from Ohio listed as missing in action from the Vietnam War. The Defense Department said today that bone fragments and dental comparisons confirmed the identification of Air Force Col. David H. Zook Jr. A burial with full military honors was scheduled Saturday in West Liberty, Ohio, about 45 miles northwest of Columbus. Zook's aircraft collided with another during a psychological warfare operation over South Vietnam on Oct. 4, 1967. He was 37. The pilot of the second aircraft said Zook's plane crashed and exploded. Teams of U.S. and Vietnamese investigators found the bone fragments and pieces of military clothing while searching the site between 1992 and March of this year.
Oct 2, 2008 (Photo Credit: Susan Barr) Rest in peace with the warriors.

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THIS CAREER UNITED STATES AIR FORCE OFFICER WHOSE NAME SHALL LIVE FOREVER MORE


DAVID HARTZLER ZOOK JR.

Name: David Hartzler Zook, Jr.
Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 22 January 1930
Home City of Record: West Liberty OH
Date of Loss: 04 October 1967
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 111000N 1063000E (XT635350)
Status (in 1973): Missing in Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: U-10B

Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

In 1962, when American involvement in Southeast Asia was little known to many Americans, Captain David Hartzler Zook, Jr. was at the U.S. Air Force Academy serving as assistant professor of history.

Zook was in the military despite his pacifist Amish background.

He had "left the flock."

In 1967, Zook found himself in Vietnam, now advanced to the rank of Major.

On 4 October of that year, Zook was given a mission in Binh Duong Province, South Vietnam, flying a U-10B aircraft.

When Zook's aircraft was about 5 miles west of Ben Cat, it crashed, and Zook was declared Missing In Action.

The U.S. felt that the Vietnamese could account for him.

He is among some 3,000 who remained prisoner, missing or unaccounted for at the end of the war.

David Hartzler Zook Jr. was promoted to the rank of Colonel during the time he was maintained missing.


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THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Sunday 4 January 1998

LOVED ONES STILL SEEK ANSWERS

FAMILIES OF MIAs QUESTION GOVERNMENT'S RESOLVE ON ISSUE

Ann Fisher

Dispatch Staff Reporter

A new year of hope and labor to learn the whereabouts of her father awaits Mitch McGouldrick Guess.

Nearly 30 years ago, Air Force Colonel Francis J. McGouldrick Jr was lost in a midair collision over Laos during the Vietnam War.

A few years later, Guess, then 12, bought her first MIA bracelet and began in earnest a search that has spanned the balance of her life.

She gladly would search another 30 years, the 40-year-old Guess said.

So it hurt when she read a recent newspaper report that interest in MIAs in Vietnam has waned in Washington's political and diplomatic circles.

"My husband was reading the paper on Sunday, and he looked at me and said, 'Oh boy, I don't think you're going to want to read this,' " said Guess, of Dublin.

Of course, she read it.

"It was like a knife in my heart. I thought, it's been 29 years of what ? All of this waiting and waiting, and then they tell us we're done," she said.

Mike Sasek, a spokesman for the Pentagon MIA / POW department, disputed the news reports.

"The search continues at the same pace that it has been," said Sasek, of the Defense Prisoner of War / Missing Personnel Affairs Office, adding that the government devotes about $100 million a year to the effort.

As many as 135 are employed in the Washington office, and another 170 work in the Hawaii-based Joint Task Force Accounting field office.

The fate of 2,099 Americans involved in the Vietnam War is unknown, Sasek said.

Of those, 113 are from Ohio.

About 8,000 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War, and 78,000 are unaccounted for from World War II.

"It's a very large, very important priority and a very dedicated group of people," Sasek said.

John Wheeler of Reynoldsburg said the money and the personnel of which Sasek spoke are part of an elaborate public relations front.

Wheeler has followed the government's progress for years, since his brother, a Marine Corps pilot, Major Eugene Lacy Wheeler, was declared Missing In Action in Vietnam on 21 April 1970.

"The monies they say they've spent to obtain data is misleading. That money has been spent on PR and people who sit in Washington, just to have the families of MIAs appeased as best they can without obtaining information," said Wheeler, 59.

Reaction to the newspaper report runs a gamut of emotions among some families of service personnel still missing in action and among those whose loved ones' remains have been found since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

"I have two feelings," said Patricia Zook, 65, of West Liberty in Logan County. "I think a lot of the families are going to be very distressed because it's their loved one.

"I also agree that it's been long enough. Our loved ones, as far as I'm concerned, are in heaven, and they're taken care of."

Zook, a retired schoolteacher, has her own stake in the issue.

On 4 October 1967, contact with Air Force Major David Hartzler Zook Jr, 37, was lost when the small, unarmed plane he was flying north of Saigon to drop leaflets collided with a larger U.S. plane.

The Air Force eventually promoted him to colonel, and, in 1978, declared him " presumed dead."

Two years ago, Mrs. Zook learned the Air Force thought it might have her husband's remains. They're still not sure, however, she said.

The government spends about $47,640 per Vietnam MIA every year in its attempt to find them.

Liz Flick said it's been worth the effort. Reports that politicians are losing interest in the fate of MIAs angers her.

"My first reaction was I wanted any of those (people) who say we should stop looking to face a family and tell them that," said Flick, state and regional coordinator for the National League of Families of Prisoners Missing in Southeast Asia.

"All you have to do is go to a funeral of a loved one who's been returned, and you realize how much that means to the family. Until you have something definitive, there's no closure."

Helen Purcell, 85, of Mount Gilead, said she knows that feeling.

The remains of her 30-year-old son, Air Force Captain Howard Philip Purcell, a B-26 bomber pilot, were identified in 1996 through DNA and dental records.

Word came 33 years after he was reported missing on 3 September 1963.

Purcell said she was astonished at the crowd that gathered on 3 November 1996, at the Trinity United Methodist Church in Mount Gilead for a belated funeral for her son.

"It has made a difference because we all feel that it's finished," Purcell said.

Since the Vietnam War, closure has become more important to Americans, Flick said. Her organization, founded in 1969, still sells $5.50 stainless steel bracelets that bear the name, rank and date the MIA was lost.

Before then, families had nowhere to turn but the government for support and information.

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, government officials referred concerned families of troops to the league, Flick said. The military also publicly vowed not to leave anyone behind in that war, she said.

Ella May Cates remembers the feeling of not knowing a loved one's fate when her granddaughter was reported Missing In Action in the Persian Gulf War.

Army Major Rhonda Scott Cornum, a flight surgeon and pilot in the 101st Airborne Division, was in a helicopter that was shot down during a search-and-rescue mission for an injured U.S. pilot. Five of the eight crew members were killed.

For four days, Cates didn't know whether Cornum, since promoted to lieutenant colonel, was dead or alive. She originally was listed as MIA then reclassified as a Prisoner Of War before her release after four days.

"It was horrible," Cates said of the interlude before learning Cornum was alive. If the military had abandoned efforts to find her, "I would have been furious," she said.

Still, Cates said she is of two minds about whether efforts should continue on behalf of MIAs from a war that ended 23 years ago.

"Sometimes people have to accept things. I know it would have been very hard for us. Of course you would be angry. But this many years afterward, what good would it do anybody? Sometimes I think closure is in your mind."

Public pressure to solve the remaining mysteries of the Vietnam War is largely what spurred those promises to quickly find MIAs and POWs during the Gulf War, Flick said.

"If our group has done nothing else but that, it will be an achievement," she said.





YOU ARE NOT FORGOTEN

NOR SHALL YOU EVER BE





R E M E M B R A N C E

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
(Public Affairs)

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 823-08

30 September 2008

MISSING IN ACTION VIETNAM WAR UNITED STATES AIR FORCE PILOT IS IDENTIFIED AND RETURNED TO FAMILY

The Department of Defense POW / Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Colonel DAVID HARTZLER ZOOK JR, United States Air Force, of West Liberty, Ohio.

He will be buried on Saturday 4 October in West Liberty.

On 4 October 1967, Zook was on a psychological warfare operation over Song Be Province, South Vietnam, when his U-10B Super Courier aircraft collided in mid-air with a C-7A Caribou.

The C-7 Caribou pilot said he saw the other aircraft hit the ground and explode.

Several search and rescue attempts failed to locate Zook's remains.

In 1992, a joint U.S. / Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) team, led by the Joint POW / MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), investigated the incident in Song Be Province.

The team interviewed Vietnamese citizens who witnessed the crash and saw remains amid the wreckage.

The team surveyed the site and found evidence consistent with Zook's crash.

While later examining the evidence recovered from the site, a small fragment of bone was found.

In 1993, another joint team excavated the crash site and recovered a bone fragment and non-biological material including small pieces of military clothing.

In March 2008, a final excavation was conducted and more human remains were recovered.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and also used dental comparisons in the identification of Zook's remains.

You have made the Ultimate Sacrifice. You are in our Prayers. God Bless you, and your Family.

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

Isaiah 6:8

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