News-Info-Alerts

Re: The Flight That Never Came

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: November 20, 2002

"Family honors veteran at wall

By Valerie Rowell
Columbia County Bureau

Thomas Tyler McGlohorn met Thomas Moore, his great-grandfather and namesake, the same way his mother did - by gently rubbing the engraved letters of his name on the American Veterans Traveling Tribute Wall honoring the lost but not forgotten soldiers of the Vietnam War.

"We always touch it," said Diane Moore, as she lifted her 2 1/2 -year-old grandson up to the replica wall in Columbia County. "It is always very warm, never cold. They speak to you. Without that name, I wouldn't be here."

Mrs. Moore, who now lives in Augusta, visits the traveling tribute and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., at least once a year to be close to her father, who died in Vietnam in late 1965.

Thomas Moore became an MIA/POW on Halloween 1965, just a day after he, Staff Sgt. Samuel Adams, Staff Sgt. Charles G. Dusing and Master Sgt. Jasper N. Page were flown to the beaches of Vung Tau for a day of relaxation.

They were told they'd be picked up the next day - a flight that never came and left them looking for another way back to Saigon.

  Diane Moore walks with grandson Tyler McGlohorn, 2, to show him his great-grandfather's name on the American Veterans Traveling Tribute Wall.
ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER/STAFFThey found their ride on a yellow 1961 Econoline Ford panel truck with a Shell Oil Co. logo on the side; the driver was employed by a woman they'd met on the beach. An hour into their journey - along Highway 15 just outside of Vung Tau - the truck was stopped by Vietcong troops, and the four men were captured.

The men were tied in pairs and ordered back into the truck - commandeered by their captors. They traveled down a dirt road until the truck got stuck and the journey continued on foot.

Their trek continued for two days, through a couple of Vietcong camps and drenching rains. For Master Sgt. Page, captivity ended at about 3:30 p.m. on that Tuesday in November.

He and Staff Sgt. Adams - bound together about 500 yards ahead of Staff Sgt. Dusing and Master Sgt. Moore - concocted a plan to escape as they waited for the others to catch up. Master Sgt. Page would attack the two soldiers guarding them while Staff Sgt. Adams grabbed one of the guard's weapons that had been leaned against a tree.

Master Sgt. Page took one captor down, but Staff Sgt. Adams never made it to the weapon. As Master Sgt. Page hit the surrounding jungle, he heard Staff Sgt. Adams shout and saw his fellow airman fall into a nearby bush. Running away, Master Sgt. Page heard more shots - some aimed at him, others aimed in another direction. By the afternoon of Nov. 4, Master Sgt. Page had reached a U.S. Army camp.

Mrs. Moore remembers the day she found out her father was MIA. Her family had been shopping that day and returned home to find a yellow cab in the driveway.

In the midst of war, death and missing-in-action notices were delivered by cab, because there were not enough military personnel and vehicles stateside to do the job.

Her mother fainted, and Mrs. Moore - then just 11 years old - picked up and read the MIA notice that began, "We regret to inform you..."

Now, 37 years later, it does not get any easier, she said.

Despite the 58,229 names on the wall, she can go straight to her father's - 6E, line 9 - every time. She visits both the traveling wall and the permanent monument often because, she says, the visits make him feel closer.

"The first time you see it, it is like you take a photo of it in your mind," Mrs. Moore said. "Your eyes automatically track it."

Mrs. Moore was at the Columbia County fairgrounds Thursday morning to help assemble her father's panel.

Thomas Moore is the only Air Force MIA still unaccounted for from Augusta, she said. Mrs. Moore has done a lifetime of research attempting to find her father's fate, which is better than not knowing, she said. She has even created a Web site in his memory.

Through her involvement in the National League of Families of POW/MIAs, Mrs. Moore met her husband, Chris Rich, who is also the child of a Vietnam MIA, Capt. Richard Rich.

On Oct. 10, 2000, remains were identified as Capt. Rich and returned to his family for burial with full military honors in Arlington Cemetery on Nov. 7.

"I had honest happy feelings for him, but was jealous at the same time," Mrs. Moore said.

Mrs. Moore has binders filled with more than 4,000 pages of casualty files and research and has discovered the possible burial place in South Vietnam of her father and his two missing comrades. The site has yet to be fully excavated.

Mrs. Moore has since grown very close to Master Sgt. Page, whom she affectionally refers to as "Papa Page." He even gave Mrs. Moore away at her wedding. Master Sgt. Page now lives in Colorado, and she still keeps in touch with him.

"He is a very special man," Mrs. Moore said. "He told me more about my dad. He filled me in on the man, the soldier, the friend and the comrade."

Mrs. Moore is determined to keep her father's legacy alive by passing his story to future generations.

Thomas Tyler knows about his great-grandfather - that he was a hero in the war. He placed a flag in front of the panel during the opening ceremonies.

"Tyler thinks the silhouette on the POW/MIA flag is his great-grandfather," Mrs. Moore said.

© 1996 - 2002 The Augusta Chronicle"