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.
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?