News-Info-Alerts

Re: Coming Home - 32 Years Later

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: March 27, 2002

"Thirty-two years after he vanished in the jungles of Vietnam, Refugio Thomas Teran is coming home.
David Coates / The Detroit News

   WESTLAND -- Thirty-two years after he vanished in the jungles of Vietnam, Refugio Thomas Teran is coming home.
  
 Home to the parents who never stopped waiting and hoping, home to the friends who never forgot the handsome boy with the generous heart. Home to a hero's burial, with full military honors, in Arlington National Cemetery.
Staff Sgt. Refugio Thomas Teran    "I was praying for this, and I just thank my God for giving me this gift," said his mother, Anna Bertha Teran, 76, as she sat in her Westland home, surrounded by pictures of her lost son. "I only wish I could share what I'm feeling with all the other families who are still waiting."
  
 The recovery and identification of Tom Teran -- last seen in the middle of a fierce firefight in the predawn hours of May 6, 1970 as Viet Cong forces overran the munitions dump he was guarding on Henderson Hill, Quang Tri Province -- brings the number of U.S. servicemen still missing in Southeast Asia to 1,932.
 
  Teran is the first Michigan MIA to come home since construction began on the new Vietnam memorial in Lansing. His return leaves 60 names among the missing.
  
 "Every one of those names is a story. Every one of them is just so important to us," said Marty Eddy, president of the Prisoners of War Committee of Michigan.
 
  The U.S. government spends $55 million a year in an effort to retrieve the lost casualties of the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and assorted Cold War skirmishes -- 88,000 missing servicemen in all. Since the United States and Vietnam restored diplomatic ties in 1992, the Defense Department has deployed 69 search teams to Southeast Asia, excavating crash sites and battlefields, interviewing aging civilians and soldiers, tracking rumors of unreturned prisoners of war.
 
  "Our boy is found. But we're going to keep looking for the boys who are left," said his father, Refugio Teran, 83. For three decades, the Terans have lobbied the Vietnamese and U.S. governments to search for their son. They collected petitions, traveled the state speaking to groups, searched military records and tracked down anyone who might have been near their son that day. And as the years passed, they watched other parents grow old and die, their questions unanswered.
  
 "We're the only parents who show up for the (POW/MIA family) meetings now," his father said. "Every year there were less and less of us."
  
 The Terans have their answers now, and the short story of their son's life finally has an ending, even if it's not a happy one. No longer missing, but still sorely missed, Tom Teran was born on Mother's Day 1949 and lost on Mother's Day 1970, two days shy of his 21st birthday.

   After a brutal firefight, the Americans held the hill. The next day, a search and recovery detail retrieved five injured servicemen and 33 bodies, but found no trace of Pfc. Tom Teran and another rifleman, Larry Kier of Tennessee.
 
  In those days, families of the missing were expected to suffer in silence. Not Anna and Refugio Teran, who, when their children were growing up, always insisted that the sleep-overs be at their house, so they could keep an eye on everyone. Who tailed the bus carrying their newly inducted son past the city limits, hoping for one last glimpse of him. Who sent him enormous care packages every week and insisted he write and call whenever he could -- so they would know where he was.
 
  The military sent condolences, and a box of medals Teran had never told his parents he'd earned. They promoted him twice during the eight years he was officially listed as Missing in Action.

   "I don't want any medals, I told them. You stay behind and you find my son," Anna Teran told the officers. They sent the medals anyway, which sit in their velvet case in the living room. "That's all I have left now of my Tommy. My jewels are my children, and right now I have lost one of the biggest jewels I had."

   And so, when the Department of Defense closed the books on the Teran investigation in 1978, the Terans took over.
  
 "For your kid, you do anything," said Refugio Teran. By the time the United States renewed its commitment to retrieving all the war missing in 1992, the Terans knew almost everything about their son's last days. They tracked down his buddies, they tracked down the Vietnamese family Tom used to feed from his weekly care packages, they tracked down survivors of the battle. One of his uncles, a career military man, spent a year in Vietnam searching the region where he was lost.
 
  That May 5, Tom Teran and his buddies were relaxing at the Eagle Beach Rest and Recovery Area, rejoicing over a larger-than-usual birthday care package from home, crammed with cake and all the fixings for a party. Teran, always happy to share the wealth, strolled over to another serviceman standing nearby and looking lonely, and invited him to join the party.
 
  "Hi! I'm Tom Teran from Westland, Michigan, and it's my birthday," he introduced himself, and together the group set off to get ready for the party and do a little Mother's Day shopping. He mailed off a package of presents for home and scrawled a quick note, describing his day, reassuring his mother he'd taken communion that morning, and mentioning the name of his new friend -- a kid named Silva from Holland, Mich.

   Later, his parents tracked down that soldier, in the V.A. hospital where he lay with his arm gone and half his face blown away in the battle for Henderson Hill. It was he, not the Army, who told them about the alarm that sounded and the helicopters that scooped up all the soldiers on the base to defend the bunker. He gave them the horrific details of the battle, where he had fought, back-to-back with Teran until they lost track of each other in the fighting. The last thing anyone saw of Teran was a glimpse of him running toward a barricade.

   Now they also have a thick folder from the military's decade-long search for their son. They know now that a villager, scavaging scrap in the area, found their son's body later in 1970 and buried it under a simple marker. Searchers from the military's Joint Task Force-Full Accounting excavated Henderson Hill in 1992, but maddeningly, missed the grave and marker by just 200 yards. His remains were finally located in 1996, but the final identification wasn't complete until last December.

   "I kept saying, 'All I want for Christmas is to know something about my son,' " said Anna Teran.

   Tom Teran's return will be marked with a series of memorials around Metro Detroit: in his hometown of Westland; at the VFW post that adopted his cause and supported his family all those years; and at the POW/MIA memorial in Novi, which will add one more return date to the bronze plaque on National POW/MIA Recognition Day in September. Dozens of supporters also plan to join the family at the memorial ceremony in Arlington on April 19.
 
  "To me, it's surprising, after all these years, that so many people still remember," said Refugio Teran. "It does something for you. It gives you a little bit of comfort that all these people are there for you."

Michigan's missing
   Sixty Michigan servicemen remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam War:
   Richard Allard of Chesaning, missing 8/24/67 in South Vietnam.
   Warren Anderson of Camden, 4/26/66, North Vietnam.
   Ellis Austin of Vermontville, 4/2 1/66, North Vietnam.
   Harry Beckwith III of Flint, 3/24/71, South Vietnam.
   Bruce Boltze of Flint, 10/6/72, South Vietnam.
   Louis Buckley Jr. of Detroit, 5/2 1/66, South Vietnam.
   John Burgess of Kingsley, 6/30/70, South Vietnam.
   Patrick Carroll of Allen Park, 1 1/2/69, Laos.
   Rodney Chapman of Alpena, 2/18/69, North Vietnam.
   Curtis Cline of Burlington, 9/18/69, South Vietnam.
   Gregory Crossman of Sturgis, 4/25/68, North Vietnam.
   Charles Cudlike of Detroit, 5/18/69, South Vietnam.
   Douglas Dailey of Waterford, 12/13/68, Laos.
   James Dennany of Mattawan, 11/12/69, Laos.
   Craig Dix of Livonia, 3/17/71, Cambodia.
   Melvin Dye of Carleton, 2/19/68, Laos.
   Francis Feneley of Curtis, 5/11/66, North Vietnam.
   Dennis Gauthier of Rochester, 10/3 1/69, South Vietnam.
   Larry Green of Mt. Morris, 3/26/68, South Vietnam.
   David Greiling of Hillsdale, 7/24/68, North Vietnam
   Wade Groth of Greenville, 2/12/68, South Vietnam.
   Dennis Hammond of Detroit, taken prisoner of war, 2/8/68, South Vietnam.
   Robert Hill of Detroit, 10/18/66, North Vietnam.
   Gerald Holman of Northville, 12/14/66, North Vietnam.
   Jeremy Jarvis of Warren, 7/25/67, North Vietnam.
   Stanley Jerome of Detroit, 2/18/69, North Vietnam.
   Bruce Johnson of Harbor Beach, 6/10/65, South Vietnam.
   Donald King of Muskegon, 5/14/66, North Vietnam.
   Marshall Kipina of Calumet, 7/14/66, Laos.
   James Klimo of Muskegon, 11/4/69, South Vietnam.
   Joseph Klugg of Okemos, 11/14/70, North Vietnam.
   James Kooi of Fruitport, 6/11/67, South Vietnam.
   Robert Lapham of Marshall, 2/8/68, South Vietnam.
   Marvin Leonard of Grand Rapids, 2/15/71, Laos.
   Robert Marvin of Dexter, 2/14/67, North Vietnam.
   Martin Massucci of Royal Oak, 10/1/65, North Vietnam.
   Michael May of Vassar, 3/2/69, Cambodia.
   James Nelson of Ludington, 6/11/67, South Vietnam.
   James Paul of Riverview, 2/5/71, South Vietnam.
   Otha Perry of Detroit, 12/14/71, South Vietnam.
   Roland Pineau of Berkley, 10/8/67, South Vietnam.
   Thomas Riggs of Farmington, 6/11/67, South Vietnam.
   Richard Roberts of Lansing, 3/25/69, South Vietnam.
   Mark Robertson of Detroit, 2/10/71, South Vietnam.
   Earl Seablom of Ishpeming, 7/18/68, South Vietnam.
   Phillip Stevens of Twin Lake, 1/11/68, Laos.
   William Stroven of Fremont, 10/28/68, North Vietnam.
   Gene Stuifbergen of Augusta, 1 1/27/68, Cambodia.
   Donald Thoresen of Detroit, 1/11/68, Laos.
   William Tromp of Fennville, 4/17/66, North Vietnam.
   Robert Tucci of Detroit, 11/12/69, Laos.
   George Tyler of Royal Oak, 10/24/68, North Vietnam.
   Kenneth Walker of Lansing, 10/2/64, South Vietnam.
   Michael Wallace of Ann Arbor, 4/19/68, South Vietnam.
   Robert Welch of Detroit, 1/16/67, North Vietnam.
   Kenneth Widon of Detroit, 1/11/68, Laos.
   Donald Woloszyk of Alpena, 3/1/66, North Vietnam
   John Worcester of Big Rapids, 10/19/65, North Vietnam.
   Frederick Wozniak of Alpena, 1/17/67, North Vietnam.
   Arthur Wright of Lansing, 2/2 1/67, South Vietnam. "

You can reach Jennifer Brooks at (248) 647-8825, or jbrooks@detnews.com.