Incident Report regarding my
POW/MIA:
Name:
George R. Brown
Rank/Branch:
E5/US Army Special Forces
Unit:
C & C Detachment, Drawer 22 (MACV-SOG), 5th Special Forces Group
Date
of Birth: 19 September 1935
Home
City of Record: Hollyhill FL
Date
of Loss: 28 March 1968
Country
of Loss: Laos
Loss
Coordinates: 164730N 1062000E (XD434574)
Status
(in 1973): Missing In Action
Category:
4
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground:
Ground
Refno:
1108
Other
Personnel In Incident: Charles Huston; Alan L. Boyer (missing)
Source:
Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 June 1990 from one or more of
the
following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence
with
POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.
NETWORK
1998.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS:
MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and
Observation
Group). MACV-SOG was a joint service high command unconventional
warfare
task force engaged in highly classified operations throughout
Southeast
Asia. The 5th Special Forces channeled personnel into MACV-SOG
(although
it was not a Special Forces group) through Special Operations
Augmentation
(SOA), which provided their "cover" while under secret orders
to
MACV-SOG. The teams performed deep penetration missions of strategic
reconnaissance
and interdiction which were called, depending on the time
frame,
"Shining Brass" or "Prairie Fire" missions.
On
March 28, 1968, Sgt. Alan L. Boyer, Sgt. Charles G. Huston, both
riflemen,
and SFC George R. Brown, intelligence sergeant, were conducting a
reconnaissance
patrol in Laos, along with 7 Vietnamese personnel. The men
were
attached to Command and Control Detachment, MACV-SOG. About 15 miles
inside
Laos, northeast of Tchepone, the patrol made contact with an unknown
enemy
force and requested exfiltration by helicopter.
Because
of the terrain in the area, the helicopter could not land, and a
rope
ladder was dropped in for the team to climb up to board the aircraft.
Six
of the Vietnamese had already climbed to the aircraft, when, as the 7th
climbed
aboard, the helicopter began receiving heavy automatic weapons fire.
This
forced the helicopter to leave the area.
Simultaneous
to these events, Sgt. Boyer began to climb the ladder when
seconds
later, the ladder broke. When last seen during the extraction, the
other
2 sergeants (Huston and Brown) still on the ground were alive and
appeared
unwounded. On April 1, a search team was inserted into the area and
searched
6 hours, but failed to locate any evidence of the three men.
Boyer,
Huston and Brown are among the nearly 600 Americans missing in Laos.
When
the war ended, agreements were signed releasing American Prisoners of
War
from Vietnam. Laos was not part of the peace agreement, and although the
Pathet
Lao stated publicly that they held "tens of tens" of prisoners, not a
single
American held in Laos has ever been released.
Any
of the three members of the reconnaissance team operating that day in
March
1968 could be among the hundreds of Americans experts believe to be
alive
today. The last they saw of America, it was flying away, abandoning
them
to the jungle and the enemy. What must they be thinking of us now?
God
Bless Brown, Boyer and Huston !
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