Families of MIAs Remember

LA HABRA — Shirley Brown has an indelible image of the last time she saw her son, Special Forces Staff Sgt. William T. Brown, before he left 28 years ago for Vietnam. Her husband, William, angry and crying, was standing in the foyer by the front door of their home demanding to know why he had volunteered for a third combat tour.

He responded by telling them he felt it was his duty to return.

Less than six months later, on Nov. 3, 1969, Brown and two fellow U.S. paratroopers were overrun by North Vietnamese soldiers in Laos. He and the others were never seen again and are listed among the 2,124 U.S. servicemen--including 208 from California and 11 from Orange County--missing in action.

On Monday, families throughout the nation will visit cemeteries to honor loved ones who died in America’s wars. But relatives of men listed as MIAs in Vietnam, like the Browns, will observe Memorial Day in their hearts. There are no flag-decorated cemeteries where they can stand by their sons, brothers or husbands.

This is the story of three families from California who have to find their own meaning for Memorial Day.

The Browns will relive their bittersweet memory of the last time they saw their son before he left for war, and that haunting Saturday morning when two Army officers knocked on their door with the painful news.

Their hope that their son might still be alive is gone now, and they will never grow accustomed to life without him. The only thing left, they said, is closure. They want to find out exactly what happened on that Nov. 3.

“We’re not the only ones who are still asking questions,” William Brown, 80, said in an interview at the couple’s La Habra home. Shirley Brown, also 80, began to cry and excused herself from the dining table. Her husband tried choking back his own tears.

“There are a lot of parents like us who are still demanding answers about their sons,” he said. “All we get is a lot of vague answers from the Army and the Defense Department.”

The Browns and relatives of other men listed as MIAs say government officials cannot be trusted and that their anger will resurface on Monday when they think of the violent deaths suffered in Vietnam.

“I don’t think I can ever believe my government again,” said Shirley Brown, angry that she and her husband were never told how their son died.

“Why can’t they tell us the truth?” asked William Brown.

Defense department officials declined to comment on any case and did not provide information about specific cases. All inquiries were referred to the Library of Congress. One official said he was sorry to hear that families criticized the government, but declined to offer explanations.

Staff Sgt. Brown was 20 when he enlisted in the Army after attending Cerritos College, where he competed in swimming and golf. He was the youngest of three sons and graduated from La Mirada High School.

On Nov. 3, 1969, he was 30 miles inside Laos when his patrol unit, made up of three Green Berets and six Montagnard mercenaries, was overwhelmed by North Vietnamese troops. (Montagnards are a people from the hills of central Vietnam.) In addition to the missing Americans, two Montagnards were killed but four escaped.

According to reports of the Montagnards, Brown was shot below the rib cage but apparently not killed. The other two U.S. soldiers were wounded in grenade explosions. They reported that enemy soldiers were shouting “Capture the Americans” as they attacked.

Pentagon officials said that of 455 Americans known to have been captured in Laos, only 12 were freed after the war.

The Browns have not been told whether their son was taken prisoner or if he died that night.

At the time he disappeared, Brown was assigned to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group. SOG reconnaissance teams, usually consisting of three enlisted Green Berets, performed some of the most dangerous commando missions of the war in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam.

They and a handful of local mercenaries patrolled deep behind enemy lines to assassinate high-ranking enemy officers, kidnap North Vietnamese soldiers, tap enemy communication lines, sabotage enemy munitions, locate enemy troops and free allied prisoners.

SOG members conducted their missions “sterile,” meaning they carried no identification, rank or unit insignia. Even their uniforms and rucksacks were Asian made. They were required to sign an agreement which, if they lived, prohibited them from talking about their missions for 20 years.

The Browns said their son would not share details of his missions, but he frequently expressed concern for the mountain tribesmen who fought alongside Special Forces troops.

“He seemed to feel he was doing all he should to help these people out,” Shirley Brown said.

She recalled that on three occasions she sent him a dozen pairs of blue jeans that were distributed to the mercenary troops with whom he fought and lived. The third shipment was returned after his death.

In the last letter the Browns received from their son, he told them he would be going on a mission for a few days. Their last letter to him was returned unopened.

The Browns said they are proud their son belonged to one of the most elite units in the U.S. military.

“I don’t think he is alive, but I still visualize him walking through the front door one day telling us that he is home,” said William Brown.

“I hope he is not alive because I would not want him living over there in those conditions for this long,” Shirley Brown said.

*

Like the Browns, the family of Army Pfc. Brian Kent McGar still has questions about his death in a firefight described in Army reports as “brief but intense.”

McGar, who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley farming town of Ceres, remained an MIA for 30 years until his remains were identified in January 1997. His remains were buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

“Our case had an ending. Kent’s remains came home. Other families are still waiting for an answer,” said his sister, Kathy Plummer, who now lives in Winnemucca, Nev. “But my family is very bitter with the government and the Army. We’ve lost faith in both. Getting a straight story from them was near impossible.”

Plummer said the accuracy of the government’s information was questionable and she cited a document the family received from the Defense Department that said one of McGar’s sisters was killed in Vietnam. Neither of McGar’s sisters has ever been in Vietnam.

Plummer said her brother’s death in Vietnam has grown in significance over the years, especially now that she has become a parent.

“I can’t imagine what my parents must have gone through, losing a child,” she said. “My dad died two years ago, and in the last couple of weeks, my mother was going through some boxes and found some letters that Kent had written from Vietnam. The hurt began all over again.”

McGar’s mother, Charlene, who lives in Phoenix, does not talk about her son’s death and she flatly refused to read her son’s unclassified military file after the Army made a copy for the family, Plummer said.

Plummer said her brother joined the Army “to straighten out his life.”

He had dropped out of high school and enlisted in December 1964 after he turned 17.

Three years later, McGar was placed on the missing in action list.

His five-man Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol was wiped out in an ambush May 31, 1967. He had completed one tour with the 25th Infantry Division and was ending a voluntary six-month extension when he was killed. Before leaving on his last patrol, McGar requested a second six-month extension.

Incident reports written by other soldiers who searched the ambush site afterward said that hundreds of brass casings littering the area suggested an intense firefight. About a dozen blood trails were reported.

The bodies of two patrol members were recovered from a shallow grave the day after the firefight. The searchers missed a grave containing the bodies of McGar and the other two soldiers about 100 yards from the first grave.

McGar and the two soldiers were placed on the missing in action list for 30 years, until their remains were excavated from a potato field in 1994. A team of U.S. officials recovered 89 teeth, skull fragments, bone fragments, part of a jungle boot and a shredded belt.

Army scientists in Hawaii were able to identify McGar and the other two men in January 1997 through DNA testing.

Plummer said the family felt relieved that her brother had “come home.”

“We were among the lucky ones,” she said.

But the family had trouble getting information from the Army before, she said.

An Aug. 28, 1974, entry in McGar’s file documented the family’s frustration with the Pentagon over his case. His parents “expressed great doubt that anything at all was being done to locate [their] son. . . . Request specific information in this regard in order that we may relieve some of their anguish,” said a note written by an Army major then assigned to assist them.

The family’s anguish was compounded by mistakes made by the Pentagon in investigating her brother’s case after the remains were recovered, said Plummer, 50. The Army lost her brother’s dental records, and Plummer had to provide investigators with a copy.

“But the worst was yet to come. When it came time for Momma to sign off on my brother’s remains, the Defense Department sent her a form that had the name of another of the soldiers” who was killed and buried with McGar, Plummer said.

Her mother had been asked to sign a document that identified the remains of Pfc. Joseph E. Fitzgerald from Northridge, Mass., as those of her son.

Plummer said the family had known disappointment before.

In 1973, a man who lived in nearby Keyes told them he had seen their son in a prisoner of war camp in 1967. Army investigators determined that the man was never a POW and had received a bad conduct discharge.

“It was terrible because for a time, that gave my father a little bit of hope that Kent was still alive,” Plummer said. “The saddest thing about this is that Daddy died without knowing about Kent.”

*

For Charles and Jean Ray, their hope that their son, Army Pfc. Jimmy M. Ray, is still alive has not faded. Jimmy Ray was 18 and had been in Vietnam four months when he was taken prisoner March 18, 1968.

The Rays, who used to live in the San Fernando Valley and Santa Maria, have been active in MIA issues since 1973 and guardedly discuss their son’s case.

“They [Pentagon officials] told us not to discuss his case because it would hurt Jimmy and the other guys. They want to keep everybody quiet. What good does it do anybody for us not to comment and say anything about Jimmy’s case? How much more can we hurt them, 30 years later?” asked Jean Ray, 71, in an interview from the couple’s home in Port Angeles, Wash.

Their son’s case is cited repeatedly by MIA activists who believe that American soldiers are still being held as prisoners in Indochina.

Jimmy Ray had been assigned to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Advisory Team 38, when he was wounded and captured by Viet Cong troops after a firefight. First Lt. John G. Dunn was captured along with Ray.

Dunn and Ray were sent to the same POW camp in Cambodia, but later were separated. Dunn was freed in 1973.

According to Army records, Ray died on June 11, 1969, while in captivity. However, the Army awarded Ray a Silver Star for an escape attempt on July 4, 1969, after his reported death.

Another report by the Pentagon’s Joint Casualty Resolution Center said Ray died on Nov. 6, 1969. Documents given the family include “witness statements” from three former POWs who contended they either saw Ray die or knew about his death sometime between October and November 1969.

But when the family contacted the witnesses on their own, one wrote in a 1983 statement that “I never know [sic] or saw” Ray. Another wrote in a similar statement in 1984 that the information about Ray’s death that was attributed to him “are not facts and not things I said or know.” The third witness wrote in July 1986 that he may have been the last American to see Ray alive, but that he never saw him die.

“How would you want your son to be declared dead on evidence like this?” said Charles Ray, 73. “The point is that no American saw Jimmy die or dead. The date of death accepted by the Pentagon is based on information given by the Viet Cong. That’s not good enough for me.”

For more information about POW/MIA issues, contact POW Network (816) 928-3304, e-mail: [email protected] or Advocacy and Intelligence Index for POW/MIA (516)-567-9057, e-mail: aiipowmiai.