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Memorial Day is just a few short days away, and most of us here in America are looking forward to barbeques, hitting the neighborhood pool and, of course, a vacation day. We all know what Memorial Day is really about, but it's easy for many of us to feel somewhat removed from the reality of the brave service men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Take a moment and try to imagine how it would feel if someone you loved was killed while on active military duty - and it took almost 40 years for this person to be brought home and properly laid to rest. This is the story of AOLer Shannon Plaster, whose father Chief Warrant Officer Donald L. Wann was killed in Vietnam on June 1, 1971 and was finally buried with full military honors at Fort Gibson National Cemetery, Oklahoma on August 21, 2010.
Donald Lynn Wann was born on May 31, 1937 in Kosoma, Oklahoma. He started out as a photographer for the Navy but switched over to the Army so he could fly helicopters. Frequently described as fearless, he was awarded the Silver Star as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross for various heroic acts. On June 1, 1971, CW2 Wann and LT Paul Magers were shot down over a mountain while flying a Cobra helicopter in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. CW2 Wann had turned 34 years old the previous day. According to an official military account, “CW2 Wann started his rocket pass at about 1500 feet above the ground, and at about 40 feet, before commencing fire, the aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire. It was hit repeatedly in the underside and tail section of the aircraft...As the aircraft fell in a spiral pattern, 6 calls were made to CW2 Wann on both FM and UHF radio. None of the calls was answered. The aircraft crashed, burned, exploded (cooked off) and slid down a steep hill some 100 feet, before the ammunition on board started tearing apart what was left of the aircraft. All witnesses stated that the crash was non-survivable.” It was not possible for anyone to search for the downed aircraft at the time due to ongoing combat in the area, so Wann and Magers were officially listed as MIA.
AOLer Shannon Plaster, Wann's eldest daughter, was only 10 years old when soldiers arrived at her family's doorstep to inform her mother, Ruth, that her husband was missing. “I was sitting on the couch watching TV,” said Plaster. “Someone knocked on the door. When Mom answered the door and saw them in their dress blues, she just started bawling. They didn’t have to say anything. When military people come to your house in dress blues, you know something has happened.” As Plaster grew up, she felt that she had to find out the truth about her father and the events that had taken place on that mountain in Vietnam. As CW2 Wann would say, "I CAN'T is NOT in my vocabulary." It wasn't in Plaster's vocabulary either.
In 1990, Plaster sent a letter to the Pentagon asking whether her father was alive or dead. A Lieutenant Colonel called her from the Pentagon and indicated that CW2 Wann's case was still open and being investigated by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). In 1993, the JPAC located the helicopter crash site, but the search for CW2 Wann and LT Magers was called off several years later after a JPAC aircraft went down in the same area, killing everyone on board. Then, in 2005, Plaster learned that the search had resumed due to an unbelievable piece of information: a Vietnamese soldier named Pham Thiet Hung who came forward, indicating that he had buried an aviator's body in the forest the day after the 1971 crash. In 2008, Vietnamese and American forces located the crash site with Hung's help. Using dental records and DNA evidence, the JPAC positively identified the two bodies recovered from the scene as CW2 Don Wann and LT Paul Magers.
In August 2010, Plaster flew to Hawaii to bring her father's remains back home for burial at Fort Gibson National Cemetery in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. On August 21, 2010, the Oklahoma National Guard conducted a burial ceremony with full military honors, including a Black Hawk flyover and a rifle salute. Hundreds of veterans on motorcycles and flag-waving residents filled the streets, and attendees praised Plaster for her efforts in bringing her father back to America. You can view a slide show of the ceremony here (link to http://muskogeephoenix.com/archive/x865118082). Today, Plaster's outreach efforts haven't stopped just because her father has finally been recovered. She is a coordinator for the National League of POW/MIA Families, an organization that seeks to "obtain the release of all prisoners, the fullest possible accounting for the missing and repatriation of all recoverable remains of those who died serving our nation during the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia." Thank you, Shannon, for everything that you have done and continue to do on behalf of our missing veterans. You make AOL proud.
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY.
-----AOL Military Support Group
Note: Some information was pulled from the Muskogee Phoenix/byline Kirk Kramer
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