Posted by JDseller on May 29, 2012 at 00:20:05 from (208.126.196.144):
In Reply to: Vietnam Missing posted by JerryS on May 28, 2012 at 22:39:50:
In a combat situations things can get confusing very fast. Some units where not really trained well or had higher percentages of new men. That first enemy contact is scary at first. Some men handle it better than others. So a single man could very easily get separated from his group. He then would have been listed as MIA ( Missing IN Action) This is one way that a man could be lost.
There are other ways that it could have happened too. I was lucky in that I was in a small unit that was usually very well trained. We had men killed but NEVER left one behind or had a man go missing. We rescued a lot of air men but we also could not find a few of them too. We might find the plane but not the men. They may have jumped out before and where far from where we found the plane. Sometimes we could not find the plane at all.
You have to remember that the electronic age was just starting then. We had no GPS stuff to tell where you where at. You had a map and a compass to try and keep track of where you were. The radios had a limited range and not good reliability either. I often wonder what satellite photos could have helped with back then.
I would say that a lot of the missing men would have been Air Force guys. Then the next higher chance would have been just the regular Army guys that got involved in the big operations. The more men the harder to keep track of them.
I also personally know of LRRPs that just disappeared. They where dropped off and never heard from again. This happened several times toward the end. I always thought that a spy was giving the drop zones away. I know it got much harder to be dropped into an area clean the last year or so. It seemed like we where always getting dropped into hot zones.
These are just a few observations from me. I am sure there are other guys that can tell you more of how that number was came to.
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