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After 33 Years, Slain
Marine's Dog Tags Returned to His Mom
From Fox News
AP
Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam.
Wednesday, July 04, 2001
ORLANDO, Fla. — The mother of a Marine killed in Vietnam
received his dog tags in an Independence Day ceremony after
two Florida businessmen found them for sale in a back-alley
market in Ho Chi Minh City.
Rob Stiff and Jim Gain were so sickened at the discovery of
Lance Cpl. Allan George Decker's tags that they returned to
Vietnam in May to buy them and hundreds of others. Upon
returning to America, they began trying to reunite soldiers
and their families with the lost tags.
On Wednesday, the men gave Decker's mother the tags at the
Orlando cemetery where he was buried after his death in 1968.
The moment had added meaning for her because July 4th is her
birthday.
"I just hope that other families can find the kind of peace
that I have felt today," Ruth Decker said. "The Lord had his
hand in this from the beginning."
Since the end of the war, Vietnamese field workers have found
all sorts of military debris: boots, helmets, badges, buttons,
medals and dog tags.
Servicemen usually wore the tags -- silver rectangles that
listed a soldier's name, military identification number and
blood type -- around their necks, but in the field many put
them in their boots so they wouldn't jingle.
Stiff and Gain weren't looking for war mementos when they
traveled to Vietnam in January. They wanted to check the
commercial climate for possible business ventures. But in a
market not frequented by tourists, they found the dog tags
dangling from a string.
"It was really eerie and we were disgusted," said Stiff, 27.
Despite their revulsion, they left the tags there. But back
home in America, they couldn't escape the memory.
"People asked, 'What if they're fake?"' Stiff said. "Well, our
question was, 'What if they're real?"'
In May, they returned to Vietnam to buy all the American dog
tags they could find. It took days to scour Ho Chi Minh City
and sort through thousands of tags -- some printed in
Vietnamese, others destroyed or illegible -- and returned home
with about 640.
The total cost of the tags was $180. They sometimes paid less
than 14 cents each.
Stiff and Gain transcribed what was printed on each the best
they could, then complied a database of names and ID numbers
to list on their Web site: www.founddogtags.com.
A dozen tags matched names listed on the black granite Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
"One day, Jim comes into my office and says, 'You won't
believe this. We've got matches for the Wall,"' Stiff said.
One of the first names they uncovered was Decker's. With the
help of Rep. Ric Keller, an Orlando Republican, and the
Defense Department they tracked Ruth Decker to her home in
Punta Gorda and called her June 21.
"She was so full of joy," Stiff said.
Decker began his Vietnam tour as a machine-gunner with the 2nd
Battalion, 27th Regiment of the 3rd Marine Division on Feb.
16, 1968.
On Aug. 25, 1968, the 19-year-old Marine was killed in Quang
Nam province, one of more than 58,000 Americans to die in
Vietnam. He had lost his dog tags during his six months in
Vietnam.
"Allan was killed on a Sunday, and we didn't receive the word
until the following Thursday," said Ruth Decker. "My husband
and I were just crushed."
"But the next day, we received a letter from his buddy," she
said. "He said that Allan believed in God very strongly, and
He will take care of him. And that was my consolation right
from the beginning."
Air Force Officers MIA From Vietnam War are Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today
the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been
identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full
military honors.
They are Col. James W. Lewis of Marshall, Texas, and Maj. Arthur D. Baker of San
Antonio, Texas, both Air Force. Lewis is to be buried in Marshall on August 13,
and Baker is to be buried in Longview, Texas on July 29.
On April 7, 1965, Lewis and Baker led a flight of four B-57B Canberra aircraft
on an interdiction mission over Xiangkhoang Province, Laos. After their B-57
initiated an attack run into heavy clouds, Lewis radioed his plane was outbound
away from the target. There was no further radio or visual contact with the
crew, and search and rescue missions failed to yield any evidence of the two men
or their aircraft. Although the cause of the crash is unknown, enemy fire and
bad weather are believed to be contributing factors.
In July 1997, a joint U. S. -Lao People's Democratic Republic team interviewed
several witnesses, two of whom led the team to the crash site. Four excavations
led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) from 2003 to 2004 yielded
human remains and crew-related artifacts.
JPAC and Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab scientists used mitochondrial DNA
to identify the remains as those of Lewis and Baker.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing from all conflicts, 1,827 are from the Vietnam
War, with 372 of those within the country of Laos. Another 756 Americans have
been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of the
Americans identified, 197 are from losses in Laos.
For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for
missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www. dtic. mil/dpmo or call
(703) 699-1169.
Last of WWII Comanche Code
Talkers Dies
Associated Press-July 22, 2005
OKLAHOMA CITY - Charles Chibitty, the last survivor of the Comanche code talkers
who used their native language to transmit messages for the Allies in Europe
during World War II, has died. He was 83. Chibitty, who had been residing at a
Tulsa nursing home, died Wednesday, said Cathy Flynn, administrative assistant
in the Comanche Nation tribal chairman's office.
The group of Comanche Indians from the Lawton area were selected for special
duty in the U.S. Army to provide the Allies with a language that the Germans
could not decipher. Like the larger group of Navajo Indians who performed a
similar service in the Pacific theater, the Comanches were dubbed "code
talkers." "It's strange, but growing up as a child I was forbidden to speak my
native language at school," Chibitty said in 2002. "Later my country asked me
to. My language helped win the war and that makes me very proud. Very proud. "
In a 1998 story for The Oklahoman, Chibitty recalled being at Normandy on D-Day,
and said someone once asked him what he was afraid of most and if he feared
dying. "No. That was something we had already accepted," he said. "But we landed
in deeper water than anticipated. A lot of boys drowned. That's what I was
afraid of." "I wonder what the hell Hitler thought when he heard those strange
voices," he once told a gathering.
Chibitty was born Nov. 20, 1921, near Medicine Park and attended high school at
Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kan. He enlisted in 1941.
In 1999, Chibitty received the Knowlton Award, which recognizes individuals for
outstanding intelligence work, during a ceremony at the Pentagon's Hall of
Heroes. "We could never do it again," Chibitty told Oklahoma Today. "It's all
electronic and video in war now."
Possible Link: Agent Orange and Diabetes
The Department of Defense released recently the latest report of the Air Force
Health Study on the health effects of exposure to herbicides in Vietnam, which
includes the strongest evidence to date that Agent Orange is associated with
adult-onset diabetes. This supports the findings from earlier reports in 1992
and 1997. The Air Force Health Study summarizes the results of the 2002 physical
examination of 1,951 veterans, which is the final examination of the 20-year
epidemiological study. Since the first examination in 1982, the Air Force has
tried to determine whether long-term health effects exist in the Ranch Hand
pilots and ground crews, and if these effects can be attributed to the
herbicides used in Vietnam, mainly Agent Orange and its contaminant, dioxin.
Results from the 2002 physical examination support adult-onset diabetes as the
most important health problem seen in the Air Force Health Study. They suggest
that as dioxin levels increase, not only are the presence and severity of
adult-onset diabetes increased, but the time until the onset of the disease is
decreased. The report, along with many other studies on herbicide and dioxin
exposure, will be reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences. Based upon this
review, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs can ask Congress for legislation on
disability compensation and health care. The report is available on the Air
Force Health Study Website at
http://www.brooks.af.mil/AFRL/HED/hedb/default.html
Sunday, 02. December 2007 06:51:02 AM -0800