News-Info-Alerts

Re: MIA Bracelet Returned to Pilot's Daughter

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: March 21, 2002

"Deputy returns MIA bracelet to pilot's daughter
By Ted Roelofs
CHRONICLE NEWS SERVICE

For 20 years, David Scrivener kept the identification bracelet of Marvin Leonard close by -- wondering if some day he might be found.

He wore it in North Dakota when he served in the Air Force. Lately, the Kent County Sheriff's Department deputy kept it on his dresser, even though it had been 30 years since Leonard, helicopter pilot, disappeared in a crash over Laos during the Vietnam War.

"I just think it's important that people not forget," Scrivener said.

Three weeks ago, Scrivener saw his chance to see the bracelet home.

He read a March 1 article in The Grand Rapids Press previewing a memorial ceremony for the former Kentwood resident at Arlington National Cemetery and recognized the name.

"I said, 'Hey, wait a minute, here's my guy.' I couldn't believe what I was reading," Scrivener said.

Scrivener contacted one of Leonard's daughters, Big Rapids resident Gayleen Leonard.

Would she want the bracelet?

"I was in tears," Leonard said. "It meant so much to me."

Last week, Leonard drove down from Big Rapids to meet with Scrivener in a Grand Rapids restaurant and gave her the ID bracelet he kept all these years. He bought the bracelet in North Dakota in 1982 from a group dedicated to the POW-MIA cause and remembers sifting through the bracelets until he found one from Michigan.

They spent hours in the restaurant poring over a scrapbook of Leonard's military career and the search for his remains. Gayleen Leonard was touched that a complete stranger cared so much about her father's story.

"To me it means that somebody besides us every night has looked at the bracelet and thought of him and remembered who's been lost," Leonard said.

Though the Army has searched several times, the remains of Leonard have never been found.

As family members watched, Leonard was honored March 2 in a memorial service at Arlington in which the remains of four members of the helicopter crew were buried. Leonard and flight commander James H. Taylor, whose remains also have not been found, were honored with a granite marker bearing their names.

On Feb. 15, 1971, Leonard volunteered to pilot his Chinook helicopter into enemy territory to a fire base in Laos that needed fuel.

With the fuel suspended below in a sling, the Chinook apparently overran the fire base.

According to an Army report, the sling load exploded, causing the helicopter to split in two. The explosion was "believed to be the result of enemy ground fire."

Witnesses said no one could have survived.

For years after the war, Chief Warrant Officer Leonard, 35, was listed as missing in action. But his status and that of most other MIAs was later reclassified as "presumed killed" or "died while missing in action, body not recovered."

In 1988, a search and rescue team assigned to Southeast Asia inspected the crash site. They found nothing.

Years later, Gayleen Leonard and her sister, Tambria Leonard-Whitman, found discrepancies in the last reported position of the helicopter and forwarded a report to the Defense Department, along with their belief the crash site was 15 kilometers from where they searched.

The military sent another team to investigate and discovered the Chinook's wreckage. They found the remains of the four crew members, but no sign of Leonard or Taylor.

Those remains may never be found, but Scrivener believes we should never forget the sacrifice of men like him. As one who served 10 years in the Air Force and 10 years with the sheriff's department, Scrivener thinks it too easy to forget those who put their lives on the line.

"It's times like this thing on Sept. 11 that jogs people's memories," Scrivener said. "They tend to forget those folks who made those same sacrifices those many years ago.

"This man paid the ultimate price so other people could enjoy their freedom and you just don't forget about it."

© 2002 Muskegon Chronicle. Used with permission"