By John Andrew Prime
Some people still await closure three decades after the fall of Saigon and more than 30 years after the end of U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia.
Bossier City's Alan Jackson is one.
His journey for answers is a full decade older than today's 30-year mark for North Vietnamese tanks and troops swamping South Vietnam, creating another benchmark in that region's bloody history.
And for Jackson, the lingering image is not that of embassy personnel and U.S. dependents streaming into a rooftop military helicopter, fleeing debacle.
For him, the picture that will not go away is of a smiling, handsome young man with a moustache, wearing a pilot's fur-collared coat and headpiece over a campaign hat. It's a lingering photo of Capt. Carl Edwin Jackson, the father he last saw more than 40 years ago, an officer swallowed alive by this nation's Vietnam nightmare. A mystery to this day.
Carl Jackson of Natchitoches was 35 years old when he disappeared while piloting a C-123 Provider transport on June 27, 1965. The Air Force reservist was with the 13th Air Force's 1131st Special Activities Squadron, words that signal to the wary that secret activity may be at hand. In fact, it was. Jackson was a pilot for intelligence operatives at a time when this nation's involvement in Vietnam was rising to a fever pitch.
The official version is that about a half-hour before midnight that summer day, tracers in the skies over South Vietnam reached out and destroyed Jackson's airplane. Killed with Jackson were loadmaster Sgt. Billie Leroy Roth and a dozen Asian passengers they were ferrying to Tan Son Nhut Air Base from their camp at Nha Trang. The airplane and all aboard fireballed into the river Song Dong Nai.
"But over the years, (officials) have given us four different stories," said Alan Jackson, who was only 6 when his dad disappeared. "They're not even sure where he crashed or if he did. I have three sets of coordinates where the airplane was supposed to have gone down. Everybody's given me different stories. And I have three different sources now, people who don't know each other, who have told me he was a POW."
While he hasn't had much progress over the years and, in fact, has been told that what information the CIA does have it won't be able to release for another 10 years or more, Jackson has gleaned some information thanks to the Internet and e-mails.
"I did get two photographs of him about a year and a half ago, and I'm communicating with a lot of people online," he said. "Last February, I received an e-mail from a gentleman who said he had some information about my dad being held as a POW in a place called Soc Trang in South Vietnam."
Jackson said he heard of an attempt to free his father and other POWs the following year, an operation called "Crimson Tide, which was a failure."
Two U.S. military personnel and about 40 East Asian nationals who went on the raid instead ran into a regiment-size body of Viet Cong and were wiped out.
"They were ambushed and everybody was killed, including the two Americans," Jackson said. "They think it was a setup."
He said he has also located several different serial numbers for the airplane that crashed, and reports that neither his father nor loadmaster Roth were on board when it crashed.
"It tells me somebody's not telling the truth, either the Taipei government or the U.S. government," Jackson said. "I don't know who to believe."
Letters he has from his father to his mother warn her not to say where he was or what he was doing. They indicate he was flying for China Air Lines. That, the tone of the letters and warnings from his father to his mother that the FBI and other government folks could come to talk to her are what have led him to believe his father flew for the CIA.
"But everything that I approach the government with is 'debunked.' They won't fess up to anything."
The last time an active search was made for his father's remains was in 1997, Jackson said. "They say they inquire each year but that they're not getting information."
At this time, there are 1,399 Americans still listed as missing in action in Vietnam. The U.S. military has an official presence in Vietnam, called Detachment Two of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, according to recent reports. The unit assists in searches that must take place after the end of the annual monsoons. According to published reports, more searches will be held this summer.
Jackson, who has two older sisters, no longer expects his dad to be found alive. But he wants answers, closure and, if possible, some mortal trace of the man he loved and loves to lie beside his mother, who died, still hoping, in 1989.
"Personally, I couldn't imagine him being alive today," Jackson said. "I would be more content and could go on with my life if I could get remains and bury him next to my mom. That's my goal.
"But to think that he could be held against his will for 40 years? That's inconceivable."
Alan Jackson's tribute to his father: http://miacarljackson.com.
IN HIS WORDS
Following are excerpts from Carl JacksonÕs letters home.
May 15, 1965
"Darling:
"From here on in this letter, read and burn. Do not tell anyone else I'm in Vietnam. Try to infer that I am in the Pacific but you don't know where for sure. Hon, my letters may often be infrequent, but bear with me, sweetheart. I'll write often as I can. I may send all my uniforms back to you if I can't find a place to store them. Hon, you may have a civilian visitor asking some questions about me. He will identify himself by FBI identifying card ..."
May 24, 1965
"... there are 2 aircraft fueled and ready for immediate takeoff for the few of us in 'the company.' Should one shot be fired at Nha Trang - we go - and out of Vietnam. I am only four hours from Manila and seven from Taiwan. We don't even file a clearance or tell anyone where we are headed. So don't worry. BURN THIS LETTER and don't mention any of this in letters to me ..."
©The Shreveport Times, LA