The DMZ in Hue is a bar with attitude. It boasts black walls under ultraviolet lights that visitors are invited to autograph, flashy neon lights, pool tables, and a kickin’ sound system. Many Western tourists find their way to the DMZ eager to have a conversation in English, and this night the bar was packed. Everyone in our group had agreed to keep silent about the grave at the Old French Fort until we heard from the JTF. When I overheard a young man from Alabama ask another Westerner, “Have you heard? Someone found the remains of an American G.I. in Khe Sanh?” I was so surprised I almost dropped my bottle of Bier La Rue. Word-of-mouth is the most effective communication system in Vietnam. The NVA and Viet Cong used it to spread propaganda during the war, and dubbed the method a “whispering campaign.” Now I was very worried about the grave at the Old French Fort.
Danny was quiet as the last homes on the outskirts of Hue disappeared from view as the taxi rolled down Highway 1 towards Da Nang. It was dusk when we reached the Cau Hai Lagoon. The lanterns on the fishing boats flashed as they rocked on the waves. The picturesque scene caused me to imagine the families on the boats, sitting on the deck to watch for shooting stars, talking and laughing, then tucking the little ones in for the night, all cozy and together. I missed my family, especially Sam and Max. As we came down the Hai Van Pass, the alluring lights of Da Nang welcomed us. “It looked just like this when we used to fly in here at night,” Danny said spellbound, “beautiful, just beautiful.”
I wondered how my life would change if it was indeed Jerry under that mound of dirt. I didn’t assume he was my brother, but if it were Jerry, we would finally know his fate without question. I stopped myself from the “what if’s.” There was no point in speculation; none of the possible conclusions comforted me anyway. I shook my head, as if that action would clear away the disturbing questions I couldn’t answer, and took a deep breath. I decided it best to move forward in the manner I’d become accustomed to, one step at a time. Danny had verified the loss location. All that remained at this point was the recovery of the soldier in the grave and possible identification. This was more knowledge than I had ever allowed myself to imagine, more than many POW/MIA families would ever have.
China Beach, September 2003.
On our last night in Da Nang, Danny and I walked along China Beach as the tide thundered in under the stars. He had me raise my arms with hands palms outward to feel the surge of hydrokinetic energy created as the ocean waves broke forcefully against the sandy shore. Hours later, unable to sleep and restless, I decided to dress and go back to the beach and video the sunrise for Danny. Outside of the hotel gates, I became aware of a crowd of people gathered on the beach, eerie and enchanting at the same time. I stood unnoticed in the background to watch twenty or thirty Vietnamese in black silk pajamas practice Tai Chi in the hazy morning mist. They shifted in graceful unison throughout their “moving meditation” until the sun was above the horizon, and then quickly dispersed to go about their daily lives.
After breakfast, Danny and I took a taxi to Dale’s house to pick up the rest of our luggage and to spend some time with Dale before going to the airport. Dale’s mother-in-law told us in broken English that he had gone to the doctor. We gathered our luggage, and sat on the porch to wait for word. After an hour or so, Grandmother appeared again. With tears welling in her eyes she choked out, “Dale, Dale, he in hospital. He no can breathe, maybe he die.” I tried to comfort the fragile old woman with soft words and gentle pats on her stooped shoulders. After a while, she settled in the living room with a mortar and pestle to grind red peppers as quiet tears slid down her sad, old face. Danny and I stayed until it was time to go to the airport. We had hoped Huong would call her mother back with news of Dale, but time restraints forced us to leave without knowing his condition.
In Saigon that evening, I checked email again. I was eager to open a brief note from Gary Flanagan. He had called the My Khe Hotel in Da Nang, but we hadn’t checked in, and would I please call him. He gave me the JTF office number and his cell number again. I immediately sent Gary an email and told him that we were in Saigon at the Rex Hotel, gave him my room number, and asked him to call as soon as possible. Gary responded quickly by email, said he had a meeting, but he would call me at six that night. Danny and I waited in my room until 7:30 for Gary’s phone call. Both eager to put some food in our bellies after a long day, I finally called Gary’s cell number. Gary answered on the second ring. “Gary, this is Donna. Danny and I have been waiting on your call.”
“I’m just walking in the door at home, Donna, let me put some of this stuff down and I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes.” Again, we waited. I was hungry and getting aggravated, so I called Gary back after thirty-minutes and asked him to call me because the hotel phones were too expensive. This time he did call back. I started to tell him about Dale’s accident, hoping he could find out some news for us. He surprised me; he had already talked to Dale, and to Dale’s doctors. How he learned of the accident, I had no idea. Gary informed me one of the fractured ribs had punctured Dale’s lung and caused it to collapse, but he was stable, and had his cell phone with him at the hospital.
Gary wanted to talk to Danny, so I put him on the phone. They had fifteen or twenty minutes of conversation before Danny handed the phone back to me. After the usual polite telephone banter, Gary bluntly asked, “Did you know that we were in Khe Sanh at the same time you were?”
“No,” was all I could manage to say. I was shocked into silence. How could the JTF have been only a few miles away and not even had the common courtesy to let us know they had things under control at the Old French Fort? Just knowing they were in the area would have gone a long way towards alleviating our worry, and Dale might not be laid up in a hospital from trying to ride a bike on bad roads at night. Gary mistook my silence for sanction, and went on to tell me the JTF had gone to Lang Vei to negotiate for the remains of the two MIAs, SMA (Sergeant Major) Kenneth Hannah and MSGT Charles Lindewald, Jr. A highway road crew had partially uncovered an old bunker, and after they left the site, a couple of local Vietnamese men uncovered the remains of two Lang Vei MIAs. They secretly reburied the remains, hoping to trade them for cash when opportunity presented. Word of the discovery and reburial leaked to officials, the Vietnamese counterparts notified JTF, and they eventually recovered the two men after hours of discussion and the assistance of Vietnamese officials.
This news definitely got my attention, and effectively sidetracked me regarding the lack of JTF response at the Old French Fort, especially after Gary’s comment that he would “see us soon.” I reasoned these two MIAs were as important as our possible find, and placidly allowed Gary to reassure me that JTF had notified the Vietnamese government of the probability of an American MIA at the Old French Fort. He claimed the USG would hold the Vietnamese government accountable for the safety of the remains.
Gary explained that the accounting command had undergone reorganization. The JTF and the Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) had merged to become the Joint Personnel Accounting Command (JPAC). A JPAC team would recover the soldier from the Old French Fort.
When I hung up the phone, Danny looked at me oddly, and then asked, “Did Gary just tell you something about Lang Vei?”
“Yes...” I answered hesitantly because Gary told me not to mention what he had just said to anyone.
“Well, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation, and it sounded like the same story he just told me, and he told me not to tell anyone either.” We weren’t sure what to make of the situation; Gary seemed to be playing some kind of game with us.
Danny and I called Dale’s cell phone and he answered on the second ring. He sounded a lot better than I expected. Dale caught us up on his medical diagnosis, and we caught him up on the group’s activities after he left us. He apologized for having the wreck, being an inconvenience, and not being able to stay in Khe Sanh.
“It was an accident,” I told him, “I’m just glad you’re going to be okay, Dale, and I
got a chance to thank you for helping me with my search for Jerry. I’ll call you again to see how you’re doing when I get home. I’ll try to find out when JPAC is going to open the grave. I just need to be there, to see for myself who is in that grave, so I’ll probably be coming back soon. I’ll see you then.”
Danny and I decided to eat at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant. It was a nice place with lots of plants and marble statuary, and the food was good. We sat at a table awaiting our drinks when the sirens went off and firefighters appeared. Smoke drifted up from in front of the building. Danny and I began to look for escape routes, but no one else seemed concerned. A passing waiter casually told us it was only for practice. We laughed; a Vietnamese firedrill was exactly the way to end our three-week trip.
I sighed with relief when our plane lifted off the next morning headed for Hong Kong, the first leg of our journey home. I looked out of the window to see Saigon under our wings, and summed up my feelings with two words, “Goodbye, Vietnam!”
Saigon from the air, September 2003.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Peace of Mind
As hard as it was to leave the grave unprotected, it was even harder to sit at home and wait for news regarding a recovery. I checked the mail everyday for a JPAC copy of the Danny Williams debrief, or an investigative report of the gravesite. After a long five weeks, I decided to contact Carolyn Floyd with Army Casualty at DPMO.
I asked via email, “Can you give me a timeframe for recovery of the remains buried in the shallow grave near the location Jerry was last seen alive, and will the entire area be excavated in an attempt to locate the upper body?” Floyd had no idea what I was talking about, but forwarded my original message to JPAC. Their anonymous response was tart, “There have been two instances that have resulted in possible remains being recovered in the August/September timeframe. Neither of these incidents were correlated to Case 1000, nor were they in the vicinity of the Case 1000 loss site. If Ms. Elliott has different information, we would sure love to have it so that we could follow-up.”
I was astonished. I assumed after our call to Gary Flanagan, JPAC would quickly arrange to investigate the location and secure the grave. Clearly, something as important as reporting the location of a grave the Vietnamese military insisted contained the remains of an American G.I. would trip a number of alerts within the chain-of-command. Apparently, this is not the case. I sent a carefully worded message back to DPMO and explained five U.S. vets, one a Case 1000 survivor, had personal knowledge of the grave. I told them we knew the exact location, and had informed Gary Flanagan by cell phone at the time of discovery as we stood beside the grave.
JPAC asked for the name of the 282nd AHC Black Cat veteran who was with me at the time. I found it incredible JPAC would not know Danny Williams’ name after Gary Flanagan and MAJ Dicken debriefed him for hours in Da Nang. Why was Danny’s long overdue debrief not in the Case 1000 file? I waited as case analysts slowly backtracked and gathered witness statements to verify my story. I waited for the site survey and witness interviews with the Vietnamese involved. I waited for confirmation that the grave would be opened and the remains recovered...I waited...and waited...and waited.
I considered this lack of response and official disregard by the accounting command a virtual slap in the face for all POW/MIA family members. Uncertain if the grave would remain undisturbed, realizing we may have found Jerry only to lose him, was nerve wracking. Having to beg for scraps of information from DPMO/JPAC was humiliating and frustrating. The vets who were with me in Khe Sanh had been excited to be a part of bringing a MIA home. However, as the months went by, their sentiment spiraled from elation to depression. A little compassion for the unusual circumstances and acknowledgement of the facts was all that I asked. This situation was inexcusable. How could an organization whose Director is presidentially appointed, and the Secretary of Defense administrates the mission, function in such an unaccountable manner?
Mickey Domingue was a long time Indian Motorcycle employee, and a former 3/26th Marine vet who served with India Company on Hill 881 in Khe Sanh. In May 2003, he rode a customized 2002 Indian Chief POW/MIA bike from California to D.C. with Run For The Wall. At Mickey’s request, the black and chrome motorcycle was hand-lettered with all three hundred twenty-four names of the Last Known Alive (LKA). Although not on the LKA List, Mickey requested the artist airbrush a portrait of Jerry on the back fender. His ride on the unique motorcycle brought much needed attention and publicity to the POW/MIA issue. After Mickey rode the bike across the country during the ten-day Run, Indian auctioned the bike, and Ed Burge bought the motorcycle to honor his dad, Bob, a Vietnam vet. Indian Motorcycle, at Mickey’s suggestion, generously donated profits from the auction to the POW Network.
Mickey Domingue with Indian POW/MIA motorcycle, 2003.
Chuck and Mary Schantag, founders of POW Network, credited Mickey “for being one that dared to remember, put it in words and pictures, take the ride, voice the concerns and never forget those left behind.” The following November, Mickey and his wife, Georgia, attended the organization’s Annual Military Gala and Banquet as honorary guests. The Schantag’s invited me to speak at the Moving Wall in Branson, Missouri, on Veterans Day. I accepted the honor with hopes media coverage would provide publicity, which would help get the grave at the Old French Fort excavated. I was worried; could I possibly explain the complicated situation concisely enough for people to comprehend the urgency?
Mick Powner served in Thailand and Vietnam as a cryptanalyst, or code breaker, with the Army Security Agency (ASA). Over the years, we had burned many midnight candles together pouring over Library of Congress POW/MIA records and other documents. He flew in from northern California for the Branson Veterans Homecoming and kindly became my captive audience. I recited my speech to Mick. We reviewed and revised as he tried to coach me on ways to conquer my obvious stage fright. After Mick went to his room, I tried to sleep the few hours until sunrise; but I was too nervous to rest.
Left to right: Sam, Randy, and Max brave the cold to pay tribute to Uncle Jerry on Veterans Day at the Moving Wall in Branson, Missouri, 2003.
Winter in the Missouri Ozarks is unpredictable, and the overnight temperatures had dropped to below freezing. Early the next morning, a small crowd of shivering patriots waited at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Traveling Wall, determined to remember and honor America’s warriors on Veterans Day despite the bitter cold. When my turn came to stand behind the podium, my knees knocked from the chill wind, and I realized if my numb lips accidentally brushed the microphone, they would probably stick to the metal. As I began my speech, my voice trembled. My task was to ask help for an excavation date at the Old French Fort, but would people believe the accounting command they trusted and admired was apathetic? Needing a familiar face to focus on, I searched the crowd. I finally spotted my buddy, alone on the fringe of the crowd, almost out of sight.
Like most Vietnam vets, Mick had his own special names on the Wall. Friends and neighbors like Bill Potter, Roger Beam, and John Michels, who are more than just a name, but also faces and memories. Thoughts of good men like John, one of 2,096 medics and corpsmen listed on the Wall, are what occupies the hearts and minds of veterans, causes them to question why they survived when others did not. From the uncharacteristic slump of Mick’s shoulders and downward tilt of his head, I knew he had chosen to bear his pain alone.
I couldn’t find Randy and the boys in the crowd. There would be no friendly eye contact during my speech as planned. I forged ahead and spoke about our recent discovery at the Old French Fort. We had been five U.S. vets on this mission—ordinary people who believed in each other. Danny, Dale, Geof, and Steve, all agreed that in some respects our efforts in 2003 ignited in them the same feelings all Vietnam vets shared during the war. A time when soldiers went out of their way to make certain their buddy’s were safe, or they tried to recover friends, even though they knew they were dead. The Vietnam vets had left soldiers behind only when
they had no choice. Even if it wasn’t Jerry in the grave, it was still an honor to be a part of bringing even one American MIA home.
Driving back to Arkansas that evening, my cell phone rang. I answered and a male voice in a deep Texas drawl asked, “Is this Donna?” It was H. Ross Perot. I was so surprised I had to pull over on the side of the road. Mickey Domingue had met Perot at the POW Network Military Gala, told him about Jerry, and the grave we discovered at his loss site.
“Don’t you know people over there?” Perot asked in his warm Texan drawl, “Can’t you just go dig him up and bring him home?” I explained this wasn’t as easy as it sounded due to possible destruction of collateral evidence, unexploded ordnance, legal issues pertaining to transportation of bones through customs, and finances. Perot told me if it was a matter of money to write a letter to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “Tell him I’ll foot the bill if the United States government can’t afford to bring one of our own home!” I promised I would pass the message. Perot gave me his personal office number, told me to call anytime, and offered to help in any way. He said a photo of Jerry would be on his desk until he came home. I appreciated his time, the gesture, and the sentiment.
In between the trips to Vietnam, I tried to recover physically and financially, and spend as much time with my family as they could spare. Randy was now a single parent, and occasionally needed help with Sam and Max. When he decided to go back to college, I promised to be there for him and the boys whenever they needed me. Both grandsons were in grade school, and active in karate, basketball, softball, and scouting. Often it took all the grandparents running in different directions to keep up. In my spare time, I scoured the World Wide Web for information on Case 1000, and engaged in agonizingly slow correspondence with DPMO.
Keeping the Promise: The Story of MIA Jerry Elliott, a Family Shattered by His Disappearance, and a Sister's 40-Year Search for the Truth Page 32
