MISSING IN ACTION
Donald Glenn Burd
SYNOPSIS:
On August 1, 1969, just four years after he graduated from the Air Force Academy, Capt. Tommy Callies found himself in the Vietnam war as the pilot of an F4E Phantom fighter/bomber jet. On this day, 1LT Douglas Burd was his back-seater, having charge of navigation and bombing. It was Callies' dream to become a career pilot, and he and Burd were flying one of the most exciting aircraft of the time.
The Phantom, used by Air Force, Marine and Navy air wings, served a multitude of functions including fighter-bomber and interceptor, photo and electronic surveillance. The two man aircraft was extremely fast (Mach 2), and had a long range (900 - 2300 miles, depending on stores and mission type). The F4 was also extremely maneuverable and handled well at low and high altitudes. The F4 was selected for a number of state-of-the-art electronics conversions, which improved radar intercept and computer bombing capabilities enormously. Most pilots considered it one of the "hottest" planes around. It was equipped with Skyspot radar, which helped ground radar track the plane.
When the Phantom flown by Callies was in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam, just about 25 miles southwest of the city of Quang Ngai, the Skyspot was put to test. The plane was shot down. Observers feel that Tommy Callies and Doug Burd died in the crash of their plane, and circumstances surrounding the area of crash indicate a very good chance the enemy knew what happened to them. The two are on the rolls of the missing because their bodies are in enemy hands.
For the nearly 2400 other Americans unaccounted for, simple explanations are not so easy. Experts now believe that hundreds of Americans are still alive, held captive by a long-ago enemy. While Callies and Burd are not, evidently, among this number, one can imagine their willingness to fly one more mission for their missing comrades. Why have 15 years gone by without our bringing these men home?
The Los Angeles TimesSaturday, December 27, 1997 Issue of MIAs in Vietnam Losing SteamBy DAVID LAMB, Times Staff Writer DA NANG, Vietnam--On the official records, it's Case No. 1474: two American pilots--a captain and a lieutenant--shot down on a bombing run over the jungles of Vietnam in 1969. For 28 years, the unnamed hill where they crashed, 130 miles southwest of Da Nang, lay as undisturbed as a ghost-town cemetery, even as the lost airmen became part of what for the U.S. is the great unresolved issue of the Vietnam War--the fate of 1,568 Americans still listed as missing. Now, just as excavation crews have descended upon the site, some U.S. officials and veterans groups are privately raising a question no politician would dare ask publicly: At what point should the United States say it has done everything possible to account for its missing and start winding down a campaign that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars?Congressional Mantra Although the MIAs are a mantra for every member of Congress visiting Vietnam--the issue, each is quick to point out in news conferences, is the first topic raised with local officials--the fact is that MIA groups no longer have the access they once did on Capitol Hill. And, U.S. diplomats say, the issue is gradually being relegated to a less prominent position on the agenda of foreign affairs.
"To a large extent, the whole MIA issue was manufactured," said Michael Leaveck, associate director of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation in Washington. "The Reagan administration used it for political purposes; the Bush administration perpetuated it; a cottage industry profited from it; some political forces used it as leverage for a broader agenda. "I would never deny the importance of putting a family's pain to rest, and I know there are still a lot of unresolved feelings, but at some point you have to say there is nothing left we can do that will produce--alive--returning Americans. You have to accept a certain number of unresolved missing cases whenever you go to war." Actually, it may be nature itself that determines the eventual end of the MIA campaign, because before long there won't be anything left to find. In Vietnam's acidic soil, bones disappear in 30 years or less. Of all the body parts that can be used for identification, only teeth have an indefinite life span--and, in the new-growth tangle of thick jungles, they can be impossible to find. Perhaps mindful of nature's deadline, a dozen U.S. military men and women arrived recently to set up a tented encampment on the long-ignored battlefield near the Ho Chi Minh Trail where the two pilots' F-4 Phantom crashed.
They were joined by a team of Vietnamese army men who a generation ago would have been the Americans' mortal enemies. And for eight hours a day, six days a week, they dug, sifted and marked the hillside with tape, searching for clues that may have lain hidden and that with luck and perseverance might bring closure to Case No. 1474.
The helicopter that circled over the sweating excavators one day was made in Russia, was piloted by a Vietnamese and carried an American ambassador. Normally, Douglas "Pete" Peterson is a gregarious man, but on the 50-minute flight from Da Nang the ambassador had sat silently, staring out the small, round window, his chin resting in the palm of one hand. The Vietnam veteran watched the jungle whisk by, and he knew that, had history taken a different twist, it could have been his remains that the joint task force was searching for. "How can you put a value on an effort like this that is unprecedented in history?" Peterson asked the GIs after his chopper landed in a blinding whirl of dust. "You know, sometimes people ask how many dollars it costs to look for our MIAs. Well, I think we should tell them proudly how much we're spending." The search for America's missing costs about \$100 million a year. But that is money well spent, the young soldiers on the mission said, and one of them, born a year or two after the last Americans fled Saigon, in 1975, asked Peterson, "Were you ever in Vietnam during the war, sir?" "Yes, for quite a while," replied the ambassador, a former Air Force pilot who was shot down in 1966 on his 67th mission over the country and spent more than six years as a prisoner of war.Linchpin of U.S. Policy
Compiled by Homecoming II Project June15,1990 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.|
Name:Douglas Glenn Burd |
These men are stil Missing In Action.
They are Fellow citizens of the Peninsula who have not come Home. Please take time to contact our Elected Officials and voice your concern. ...Where are these Men!
These Men are someone Son-Brother-Father and yes even GrandFather. We must find out what Happened to them.Give your Support with a letter/Call or even an e-mail to our Elected Officals in Washington D.C.