News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Coming Home

Date: April 13, 2001

"Remains of Americans Flown Home
By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - In a poignant echo of earlier services for long-lost soldiers, U.S. officials held a repatriation ceremony Friday for seven Americans killed last weekend while searching for the remains of Americans missing since the Vietnam War.

``All these men are heroes. They gave their lives for something they believed in,'' U.S. Ambassador Pete Peterson said.

He said the deaths of the seven Americans and nine Vietnamese in a helicopter crash last Saturday would strengthen both countries' commitment to account for people still missing in action from the war.

As a white-gloved military honor guard carried each flag-draped coffin aboard a C-17 military cargo plane at Hanoi's airport, dozens of American and Vietnamese mourners held their hands over their hearts or at their brows in salute.

The ceremony was a haunting replica of those held every time the MIA task force has recovered remains of soldiers who died decades ago during the Vietnam War.

The plane carrying the remains of the American servicemen was to make a brief refueling stop in Guam before heading to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, where waiting family members were to participate in an arrival ceremony later Friday.

The Russian-built MI-17 helicopter slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain in central Quang Binh province, about 250 miles south of Hanoi, on Saturday.

The Americans and Vietnamese were part of an advance team preparing to excavate six MIA crash sites next month.

A decision on whether the May excavation will be suspended or canceled will be made next week, said Lt. Col. Franklin Childress, spokesman for the MIA task force, based in Camp Smith, Hawaii.

Killed in the crash were the outgoing head of the Hanoi MIA unit, Army Lt. Col. Rennie Cory Jr., 43, of Fayetteville, N.C.; as well as the man who was to replace him in July, Lt. Col. George D. ``Marty'' Martin III, 40, of Hopkins, S.C.

The other American victims were Air Force Maj. Charles E. Lewis of Las Cruces, N.M.; Master Sgt. Steven L. Moser of San Diego; Tech. Sgt. Robert M. Flynn of Huntsville, Ala.; Navy Chief Petty Officer Pedro Juan Gonzalez of Buckeye, Ariz.; and Army Sgt. 1st Class Tommy James Murphy of Georgia."