bobdina
07-25-2010, 10:17 PM
Remains of missing pilot found in Vietnam
The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jul 25, 2010 16:20:37 EDT
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — The family of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot missing for nearly four decades in Vietnam says his remains have been recovered and will be returned to his native Oklahoma.
Shannon Wann Plaster told The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle that the remains of her father, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Donald Wann, were found in 2008 and the military recently confirmed the identification.
The military, through, the Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, has not announced a change in Wann’s status.
Wann was one of two soldiers, along with 1st Lt. Paul Magers of Sidney, Neb., deployed in a Cobra gunship on June 1, 1971, to extract a group of Army Rangers under attack, then destroy left behind ammunition and mines near Hill 1015, or Dong Tri Mountain.
Wann and Magers were hit with anti-aircraft fire, causing the helicopter to crash somewhere around the hill, about six miles southwest of Thon Khe Xeng. Six radio calls were made to Wann and Magers. None were answered.
Wann and Magers were both members of the 158th Aviation Battalion, 160th Aviation Group, 101st Airborne Division, now based at Fort Campbell, Ky. Their remains were never found after their helicopter crashed.
Search and recovery teams found items related to the crash in the ensuing decades, but never the remains of the two pilots. Then, Plaster said, she got a call out of the blue.
“I’m like, ‘You’re kidding,’“ she said. “Just the knowing of it was like ‘Oh, my god.’“ Plaster said her father’s remains will be returned Aug. 18 and a funeral held Aug. 21 in his hometown of Muskogee, Okla. He will be buried at the Fort Gibson National Cemetery.
The discovery of the remains has ended a lifelong mystery, Plaster said, even though she barely knew him before he deployed to Vietnam.
“I have been so sad, so tired, so depressed my entire life,” she said. “You have this open wound that never heals.”
“It’s going to be a welcome home party,” she said. “We’re going to celebrate his life. It’s going to be a lot of tears, but we’re going to have a lot of happy tears.”
Wann was a career soldier, though his distinguished military career began in the Navy, where he served from 1955-66. He was a photographer in the Navy, journaling top-secret missions he could never tell his wife, Ruth, about or even where he had been. He deployed to Antarctica as part of Operation Deep Freeze, one of just a handful of soldiers and sailors to do so in their careers.
For Plaster, the funeral is more than just burying her father, it is a relief.
“I feel like I got a million pounds lifted off my chest,” she said. “I have a resting place. Before now all I had was a name on a wall.”
The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jul 25, 2010 16:20:37 EDT
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — The family of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot missing for nearly four decades in Vietnam says his remains have been recovered and will be returned to his native Oklahoma.
Shannon Wann Plaster told The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle that the remains of her father, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Donald Wann, were found in 2008 and the military recently confirmed the identification.
The military, through, the Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, has not announced a change in Wann’s status.
Wann was one of two soldiers, along with 1st Lt. Paul Magers of Sidney, Neb., deployed in a Cobra gunship on June 1, 1971, to extract a group of Army Rangers under attack, then destroy left behind ammunition and mines near Hill 1015, or Dong Tri Mountain.
Wann and Magers were hit with anti-aircraft fire, causing the helicopter to crash somewhere around the hill, about six miles southwest of Thon Khe Xeng. Six radio calls were made to Wann and Magers. None were answered.
Wann and Magers were both members of the 158th Aviation Battalion, 160th Aviation Group, 101st Airborne Division, now based at Fort Campbell, Ky. Their remains were never found after their helicopter crashed.
Search and recovery teams found items related to the crash in the ensuing decades, but never the remains of the two pilots. Then, Plaster said, she got a call out of the blue.
“I’m like, ‘You’re kidding,’“ she said. “Just the knowing of it was like ‘Oh, my god.’“ Plaster said her father’s remains will be returned Aug. 18 and a funeral held Aug. 21 in his hometown of Muskogee, Okla. He will be buried at the Fort Gibson National Cemetery.
The discovery of the remains has ended a lifelong mystery, Plaster said, even though she barely knew him before he deployed to Vietnam.
“I have been so sad, so tired, so depressed my entire life,” she said. “You have this open wound that never heals.”
“It’s going to be a welcome home party,” she said. “We’re going to celebrate his life. It’s going to be a lot of tears, but we’re going to have a lot of happy tears.”
Wann was a career soldier, though his distinguished military career began in the Navy, where he served from 1955-66. He was a photographer in the Navy, journaling top-secret missions he could never tell his wife, Ruth, about or even where he had been. He deployed to Antarctica as part of Operation Deep Freeze, one of just a handful of soldiers and sailors to do so in their careers.
For Plaster, the funeral is more than just burying her father, it is a relief.
“I feel like I got a million pounds lifted off my chest,” she said. “I have a resting place. Before now all I had was a name on a wall.”