Home to Marshall
Robert Lapham, who grew up not so far from my home town of Lansing, Michigan and died when I was a 10-year-old fascinated by Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley and the images of the Vietnam war, came home to Marshall.
Maj. Robert G. Lapham, U.S. Air Force, of Marshall, Michigan, will be buried today in Arlington National Cemetery nearly 40 years after he died in Vietnam defending a U.S. Army Special Forces camp at Lang Vei.
On Feb. 8, 1968, Maj. Lapham was flying the lead A-1G Skyraider in a flight of two in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. The aircraft were alerted to destroy enemy tanks that had overrun the Special Forces Camp. After completing one pass on the tanks, Lapham was nearing his target on the second pass when he crashed. No parachute was seen and he was assumed lost.
The search for the major began in 1993 and continued until 1998 as joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led by the Department of Defense’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), traveled to Quang Tri Province two times to investigate the incident and interview witnesses. One team also surveyed the crash site and found aircraft wreckage. It started again in 2003 when another joint team investigated the incident and resurveyed the crash site, finding more wreckage and pilot-related evidence, including Maj. Lapham’s identification tag.
Between 2004 and 2006, JPAC teams traveled to Quang Tri Province four times to excavate the crash site. The teams recovered human remains, aircraft wreckage and pilot-related items.
For those of us under 45, this may not mean much. For those of us who grew up on the war, or in it, it’s just nice to know that someone in government cares enough to search for your remains and spend 10 years traveling into jungle once hostile and still not guaranteed friendly, to bring back your bones.
Posted by Bryan McKenzie at 01:24 PM. Filed under: Tids and Bits •
