PORTER EARL CALLOWAY 

   SGT Porter E. Calloway was on his next to last month in Vietnam.
   Corporal Isiah R. "Ike" McMillan had just returned from R & R. SGT Thomas J.
   "Tom" Davis was one of the new guys in Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st
   Infantry.

   In March 1968, members of 196th Bravo were sent deep into the bush around
   Happy Valley in South Vietnam. Setting up on Hill 407, Que Son Valley, Quang
   Tri Province, two platoons went on Search and Destroy; another line platoon
   and the six-man weapons platoon stayed on the hill with the company
   commander. Before lunch, a platoon radioed that it had walked into a
   thirty-man ambush, and that the platoon leader had been shot in the stomach.
   (A binocular search of the platoon location revealed that it was much more
   than 30 men.)

   Leaving the weapons platoon (with McMillan and Davis and Calloway) on the
   hill, the company commander mobilized the line platoon to go to the
   assistance of the ambushed platoon, and ordered the two S & D platoons to
   merge. The weapons platoon was left without a radio. When a mortar attack
   commenced on the hill, the weapons platoon abandoned its position on the
   hill to seek cover on lower ground. Three men left by the east side and
   three went down the west side of the hill. As they had no radio, they were
   in peril both from the enemy, the troops below, and overhead spotter planes
   and support strike aircraft.

   Davis, McMillan and Calloway, having gone down the east side of the hill,
   ran into a machine gun ambush. Davis, McMillan and Calloway were together,
   and began to retreat. Calloway was a short-timer and in a panic. He jumped
   up and started to run and was hit in the thigh. The others bandaged his leg
   and continued to move toward a small house at the edge of the rice paddy
   they were in. By the time they reached the hooch, Calloway was in shock from
   loss of blood. They evaded for several hours here until the Vietnamese
   smoked them out with gas grenades. The three were captured and taken away as
   prisoners of the Viet Cong.

   By late night, Calloway was still bleeding. By morning, he was panicked
   because he couldn't breathe. Davis tried to help him, but his captors
   stopped him. When the guard understood Calloway was in crisis, he got help
   and took Calloway to a table where he died. McMillan reported during his
   debrief that they were about 1 1/2 kilometers northeast of the Fire Support
   base hill, and that the Vietnamese buried Calloway 50-75 meters east of this
   position near three buildings.

   The U.S. maintained Porter E. Calloway in Missing in Action status. His
   classification was never changed to that of Prisoner of War. During the
   period he was maintained missing, he was advanced in rank to Staff Sergeant.

   McMillan and Davis were held captives in Happy Valley and other camps in the
   South until they were moved north in 1971. For Americans captured in South
   Vietnam, life was brutally difficult. Primarily, these men suffered from
   disease induced by an unfamiliar and inadequate diet - dysentery, edema,
   skin fungus and eczema. The inadequate diet coupled with inadequate medical
   care led to the deaths of many.

   In addition to the primitive lifestyle imposed on these men, their Viet Cong
   guards could be particularly brutal in their treatment. For any minor
   infraction, including conversation with other POWs, the Americans were
   psychologically and physically tortured. American POWs brought back stories
   of having been buried to the neck; held for days in a cage with no
   protection from insects and the environment; having had water and food
   withheld; being shackled and beaten. The effects of starvation and torture
   frequently resulted in hallucinations and extreme disorientation.

   This was the life Davis and McMillan endured for the next three years.
   Ultimately, they were moved to Hanoi and released in 1973 in Operation
   Homecoming. Calloway's body has never been returned to his family for
   burial. The Vietnamese deny any knowledge of him.

   The U.S. continues to raise the question of the fate of Porter E. Calloway
   with the communist government of Vietnam. The Vietnamese continue to deny
   any knowledge of him.





All Biographical and loss information on POWs provided
by Operation Just Cause have been supplied by Chuck and Mary Schantag of
POWNET. Please check with POWNET
regularly for updates.



 




NEVER  FORGET  THEM





This has been the story of a man I've never met, but we must all never
forget that Sgt. Calloway and more than 2,000 others are waiting to 
come home...to rest in their own land.



Hourglass by Karl







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