Vietnam War-era Marines' remains ID'd

[thedrifter]

Vietnam War-era Marines' remains ID'd
Published: Nov. 5, 2008 at 9:28 PM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- The remains of four U.S. Marines missing from the Vietnam War 40 years ago have been identified, the U.S. Defense Department said Wednesday.

The four Marines were Lance Cpl. Kurt E. La Plant of Lenexa, Kan., Lance Cpl. Luis F. Palacios of Los Angeles, Lance Cpl. Ralph L. Harper of Indianapolis and Pfc. Jose R. Sanchez of Brooklyn, N.Y.

The remains will be returned to the men's families for burial with full military honors, the department said in a news release. Palacios will be buried Friday in Bellflower, Calif., and the others will be buried as a group in the spring in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington.

The Marines were aboard a CH-46A Sea Knight helicopter struck by enemy ground fire June 6, 1968, while trying to remove fellow troops engaged in a battle in the mountains southwest of Khe Sanh, South Vietnam. They were among 12 on board who died; 11 survived. The others killed were recovered earlier.

The crash site was surveyed and witnesses were interviewed three times between 1993 and 2005, and in 2006 a team began excavating the site, where some remains and other items, including La Plant's identification tag, were found. In addition, a Vietnamese citizen turned over human remains he claimed to have found in the wreckage. In 2007, another team completed the excavation and recovered additional human remains, life support material and aircraft wreckage.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines Missing from Vietnam War Are Identified
Thursday, November 06, 2008 :: infoZine Staff

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Washington, D.C. - American Forces Press Service - infoZine -They are Lance Cpl. Kurt E. La Plant, of Lenexa, Kan., and Lance Cpl. Luis F. Palacios, of Los Angeles, Calif. Remains that could not be individually identified are included in a group. Among the group remains are Lance Cpl. Ralph L. Harper, of Indianapolis, Ind., and Pfc. Jose R. Sanchez, of Brooklyn, N.Y. All men were U.S. Marine Corps. Palacios will be buried Friday in Bellflower, Calif., and the other Marines will be buried as a group in the spring in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

On June 6, 1968, these men were aboard a CH-46A Sea Knight helicopter that was attempting an emergency extraction of elements of the 1st Battalion, 4th Regiment, 3rd Marine Division then engaged against hostile forces in the mountains southwest of Khe Sanh, Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. The helicopter was struck by enemy ground fire and crashed, killing 12 of the 23 crewmen and passengers on board. All but four of the men who died were subsequently recovered and identified.

Between 1993 and 2005, joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), investigated the incident in Quang Tri Province, interviewed witnesses and surveyed the crash site three times. The team found a U.S. military boot fragment and wreckage consistent with that of a CH-46 helicopter.

In 2006, a team began excavating the site and recovered human remains and non-biological material evidence including La Plant's identification tag. While at the site, a Vietnamese citizen turned over to the team human remains the he claimed to have found amid the wreckage. In 2007, another team completed the excavation and recovered additional human remains, life support material and aircraft wreckage.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA and dental comparisons in the identification of the remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo/ or call (703) 699-1420.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Kansas Vietnam Veteran's Body Finally Recovered
He was shot down over Vietnam in 1968

Metro Source / Todd Pittenger

After more than 40-years, the body of a Kansas Marine is finally coming home.

After completing his first tour of duty in Vietnam, 19-year-old Kurt Laplant of Lenexa chose to continue working with his fellow Marines. But in June 1968, during a rescue mission, his helicopter was shot down.

The helicopter was trying to rescue a group of Marines who were out numbered and rapidly running low on ammunition. It landed under heavy fire.

Rapidly the Marines scrambled on board, and the helicopter lifted off. As it gained altitude, it was hit by intense enemy ground fire.

The helicopter crashed on a jungle-covered mountain ridge line. It rolled down to the bottom of the hill, and burst into flames.

All 12 people on board died but only eight bodies were recovered. Last year a search turned up the missing remains.

This spring, Laplant and the three others will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Ellie

[bootlace15]

REST IN PEACE. GOD BE WITH THEIR FAMILIES...................

bootlace15 out

[FistFu68]

REST IN PEACE,NOW BRING 'EM ALL HOME

[ecfree]

Thanks to who ever found them,and thanks to who ever brought their remains back state side.
God Bless the souls of the fallen brothers....

[greensideout]

I'm not sure how to say this without ****ing someone off but here we go---these Marines are not, "Vietnam War-era". They are Vietnam war vets, not just someone that was serving at that time---big diff.
God bless them and may they rest in peace.
Semper Fi

[doctorgolfer01]

Glad we're still bringing them back.

[Wyoming]

Glad we're still bringing them back.

Amen to that and welcome home to you also!!

[doctorgolfer01]

Amen, thanks, Same Bro!!

[thedrifter]

November 7, 2008
Returning a Marine, Shot Down in 1968
By ALAN FEUER

Forty years ago — before Richard Nixon was president, before the Chicago Seven were tried, before the shootings at Kent State — a 19-year-old Brooklyn man was shipped to Vietnam.

His name was Jose Ramon Sanchez and he was a private first class with the First Battalion, Fourth Regiment of the Third Marine Division, Headquarters and Support Company. On June 6 — D-Day — of 1968, his CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter was sent to extract a team of fellow grunts who were pinned down by the enemy in the mountains seven miles southwest of Khe Sahn. The craft took small-arms fire from a hillside. It crashed and burned. Private Sanchez and four others were D.O.I. Dead on impact.

For the next four decades, his death was no mystery but his remains were never formally identified — until, that is, last month. The military said this week that investigators from the Joint P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command, working with bone fragments and wreckage from the crash, managed to officially certify his remains and those of three other servicemen on the flight.

“I was amazed that after 40 years they found anything at all,” said Peter Sanchez, 51, who is Private Sanchez’s younger brother. Mr. Sanchez said he was at work, at his job at a hardware store in the Bronx, when the Marine Corps tracked him down and broke the news.

“My mother started crying,” Mr. Sanchez recalled. “She’s very ill, she couldn’t believe it. After 40 years. She’s looking forward to the closure. She’s been holding on for a long time.”

Mr. Sanchez was 8 when his brother went to Vietnam. He recalled Jose as an energetic, active man — a choirboy who also loved karate. After growing up in the Gowanus Houses on Baltic Street in Brooklyn, Jose attended John Jay High School, where swimming was his favorite sport.

At 18, he enlisted in the Marines.

“He said he wanted to be with the best,” Mr. Sanchez said.

After Private Sanchez died, the family tried, and failed, on numerous occasions to find his remains. It was not until 1993 that the P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command, which operates out of Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, was able to re-enter Vietnam and begin an investigation at the location of the crash.

Over the 15 next years, the investigators went to the site three times, said Capt. Mary Olsen, a spokeswoman for the command. Once, a Vietnamese citizen turned over human remains that he claimed to have found among the wreckage.

In 2006, when an actual excavation began, more remains were found along with several artifacts: a button, a set of dog tags and a small medallion of a saint. Mr. Sanchez said that both he and his mother sent DNA samples, taken from swabs of their mouths, to the military for comparison. The announcement of the positive identification was reported in The Daily News on Thursday.

Captain Olsen said the P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command has 600 people working worldwide to recover and identify the remains of American servicemen lost in conflicts reaching back to World War II. These include historians, researchers, negotiators, field excavators, DNA technicians and forensic anthropologists.

Along with Private Sanchez, the remains of the three others who were with him were identified: Lance Cpl. Kurt La Plant of Kentucky; Lance Cpl. Luis Palacios of California; and Lance Cpl Ralph Harper of Indiana.

Each will be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery sometime in the spring.

Ellie

[doctorgolfer01]

It's a funny thing, this brotherhood of ours. We love our country(each other) to the point of dying yet we remain different as individuals. I think that when the situation is tough what we will do is for our brothers knows no limit. When the **** is over, we settle back to petty differences. I think that this means that when it counts, Marines are SUPERHUMAN, above the trivia that divides and joined as one super power that can do anything given the resources. Later, we are mere humans given succeptable to the normal foils and failings. Our relationships are deep, forged in the most intense fire, and lifelong. It is a strange thing and from time to time brothers come and go, but are with us till the end.
God Bless

[thedrifter]

Final salute for Lance Cpl. Palacios
VIETNAM: Lakewood family buries Marine whose remains were recently recovered.
By Pamela Hale-Burns, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram
Article Launched:11/07/2008 11:04:38 PM PST


A lone Marine played taps and the military guns saluted, while family and friends surrounded the flag-draped coffin of Lance Cpl. Luis Palacios on Friday.

"Today we buried my brother, an American hero, a Marine, a Marine forever! Semper fi!" said his brother Robert Martinez.

The 19-year-old Marine was killed on June 6, 1968, when his CH-46A Sea Knight helicopter was hit by enemy fire and crashed in the mountains southwest of Khe Sanh, Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam.

Closure came for the family 40 years after Palacios' death, when his remains were finally identified and returned to his family in Lakewood. Palacios was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress.

In 2007, a team completed excavation of the crash site and recovered additional human remains and wreckage.

They brought out large amounts of debris and found parts of shoes, dog tags and skeletal remains, said Martinez.

"They found the arm bone that was my brother's and a tooth," said Martinez. "My brother had had some work done to a molar and they found that it belonged to him."

DNA from Yolanda Montiel, Palacios' sister, matched the remains and confirmed his identity.

"We lost men from Day One," said his commander, Ret. Lt. Col. Bill Negron, who was at the memorial service. "They were shooting at us, and we couldn't shoot back because it was sacred territory."

The crew, which lost 12 of 23 members, was trying to rescue Marines from the 1st Battalion, 4th Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.

"It was pretty hectic. We fought for three days and I lost 42 Marines in the three-day battle," Negron said. "We stayed for two more days, and they asked us if we needed reinforcement, food or water, I said no, just bullets."

Twenty-four-year old Martinez was already serving in the Marines when his younger half-brother Palacios joined.

"I was gone all the time, so I hardly got to see him," he said.

Today, 69-year-old Martinez can still recall the day word came of his brother's death.

"When he was reported missing on June 15, they came to the house and told my mom and stepfather he was missing," Martinez said, "and that the helicopter was hit and fell down a hill, and was still being hit by fire and burst into flames."

Although it's been four decades, the battlefields of Vietnam seemed fresh.

"That hill is still there. The jungle was thick," Negron said.

"It's a beautiful valley though. If I were to spend 40 years away from my family, it would be a good place to be, but it's better to be home."

All but four of Negron's men who died were recovered and identified. Enemy fire made it impossible to recover the body of Palacios and three others.

"I didn't want to show my Marines that I was hurt, so I got behind a rock and cried," Negron said. "I came out and said, `Let's regroup. The war ain't over."'

Martinez wanted to return to Vietnam after his brother was killed.

"I didn't know what to do, I was still in the military, and they tried to just ease the situation, asking me if I was OK," he said.

"Months later, it hit me like a ton of bricks about what was going on. There's nothing you can do, you feel helpless, and there's no one to blame, it was war."

Martinez, his three brothers and six cousins joined the military. Palacios was the only one killed.

"When my brother was first reported missing, I felt the need to go back over there and do something more," he said. "Once I was there, I felt relieved that I was doing something toward what caused my brother's death."

True to the Marine motto "Semper fidelis" - always faithful - fellow Marines came to see their comrade laid to rest.

Retired Los Angeles sheriff's deputy and Vietnam veteran Jim Kaylor was a member of the battalion that relieved Palacios' unit.

"The same day Luis was killed, we were ambushed," he said.

Palacios' helicopter was coming in to rescue my unit when they were diverted to save another group that was in more immediate danger, said Kaylor.

"That's when they were shot down."

Corpsman Mac Mecham was in Palacios' unit, but was wounded the day before Palacios was killed.

"I was the lucky one. I caught a round of shrapnel in my shoulder and my hand and I lost my thumb, so I was

`medevaced' (medically evacuated) out the first day," Mecham said.

Tears flowed as if only days had elapsed since the Marine's death.

"This day means everything - bringing someone home," Mecham said. "He served. He's a hero. We are able to stand here today because of what those who served did."

"It brings back memories of when it first happened," Martinez said.

Palacios was buried in a plot purchased when the family was notified of his death. A memorial plaque had been placed on the gravesite awaiting his remains.

"Most of the family who used to go to the plot on the memorial of his death stopped going saying, `there's no body there, and I'm not coming back until they find something,"' Robert Martinez said.

Unfortunately, one brother, Mario Martinez, and Palacios' parents would not live to return to the gravesite.

"This service means everything. He belongs home with his family. They deserve closure," Negron said with tears in his eyes. "I loved all my Marines. I loved Luis. God bless you. God bless Luis. And God bless the U.S. Marine Corps."

pam.hale@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1476

Ellie

RIP

[thedrifter]

Marine killed in Vietnam 40 years ago gets a final salute as his remains are buried in Cypress

Lance Cpl. Luis Palacios, who died in a helicopter crash, is honored with a full military burial. A U.S. search team recently recovered his remains, which were identified through DNA.
By Raja Abdulrahim
November 9, 2008
Yolanda Montiel was only 10 years old when her older brother Luis Palacios was killed in Vietnam. Her memories of him are few but endearing, like the time he bought her a yellow hat or when he gave her piggyback rides.

Over the years, Yolanda's siblings and her late mother would tell her stories about Luis, which included the nickname he gave her.

"I didn't remember who used to call me rag doll," she said, "and it was him."

The day the family learned that Luis had been killed, a relative came to Yolanda's school to pick her up and on the way home tried to explain death.

The 19-year-old Marine was on a rescue mission on June 6, 1968, when his helicopter was hit by enemy fire and crashed. Lance Cpl. Luis Palacios was one of four passengers on the downed aircraft presumed dead but whose bodies were not found.

Then, in early September, Yolanda's family received the news they had been waiting for for 40 years: a U.S. search team had found some of Luis' remains. He was identified through a DNA sample that Yolanda had given to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command more than a decade earlier.

Last week, Luis' remains were returned to California.

On Thursday, his family held a viewing at a funeral home in Bellflower. Yolanda, 51, walked slowly toward the open casket, partially draped by a U.S. flag. Inside lay a dress-blue Marine uniform and black rosary beads. Yolanda placed her hand on the gold buttons of the suit coat, decorated with four medals, including the Purple Heart and Vietnam Service Medal.

Underneath was all that remained of her brother: a tooth and an arm bone.

Earlier in the day, Yolanda held the bone that had been placed in a sealed plastic bag. She kissed it and told her brother she loved him.

"I definitely wanted to see the remains," she said. "I wanted to hold them. I wanted to say goodbye, because that's Luis."

Since his death, the lives of his nine brothers and sisters have moved on. They had children and grandchildren of their own. They mourned the deaths of their parents.

But their memories of Luis, who grew up in South Los Angeles, remained frozen in the '60s. They recalled a shy, teenage boy with a baby face and dark eyes who was eager to join the Marines because a brother and a brother-in-law already had enlisted.

"Mom, if you only understood I need to do this for myself," Martha Chavez, his oldest step-sister, remembered him pleading with their mother.

In 1968, the family held a memorial ceremony for Luis at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, Cypress, where a nameplate was laid for him.

"It was like, 'Why are we doing this when there is nobody there?' " Chavez remembers thinking at the time.

But the recovery of Luis' remains has made his family members feel like they are experiencing his death all over again.

"It's like reliving the ceremony," said stepsister Virginia Poyorena-Govea, 66.

"But we're doing it right this time," Yolanda said.

Luis was given a full military burial Friday at Forest Lawn in Cypress that was attended by Marines and dozens of Vietnam veterans motorcycle club members. As a member of the Patriot Guard Riders lowered a large black-and-white MIA/POW flag in the direction of the casket, seven Marines fired a volley of three shots into the air.

Luis was the last missing Marine to return home from retired Col. Bill Negron's 1st Battalion, 4th Marines' Charlie Company. Of the company's 140 members, three were still missing at the end of the war.

Negron drove all night from Arizona to attend Luis' funeral. He said it was a relief to finally have all his men accounted for.

Negron said he has visited the helicopter crash site -- an area he described as being like the rolling hills of Appalachia mixed in with lush jungle terrain -- to pay his respects.

"If I was going to spend 40 years [away] from my family, that's not a bad place to be," he said. "But it's better here."

Luis' father, Pete Sr., used to tell his children he wanted to be buried near his son in Vietnam. But Yolanda told him that was impossible. When he passed away in 1984, he was buried at Forest Lawn.

Luis' remains were buried under a pine tree, a few feet from his father.

Abdulrahim is a Times staff writer.

raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com

Ellie

[rick taylor]

Thank God,they have come home. I guess I need to double Meds after reading this post. It never gets any easier. Semper Fi T out