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| Puggi
Joseph David
E6/US Army Date Of Loss: 02 February 1968 |
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| Name:
Puggi, Joseph David
Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Unit: B Troop, 1st Squad, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division Date of Birth: 26 November 1946 Home City of Record: Pleasantville, NJ Date of Loss: 02 February 1968 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 161209N 1081006E (AT960937) Status (in 1973): Missing In Action Category: 4 Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1H Other Personnel in Incident: Kenneth J Patton; Joe H Pringle; Charles Adkins; Donald Burnham (all missing) Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 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. |
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| REMARKS:
CRASHSITE/PRINGLE ID FOUND
SYNOPSIS:
During a ground radar-controlled approach to Da Nang Airbase, the controller lost radio contact with the helicopter and subsequently lost radar contact. The last positive position of the aircraft was 12 miles north of Da Nang. After attempts to contact Captain Burnham by radio failed, ramp checks were conducted by another pilot from his unit. Search of the area north of Da Nang failed to locate the missing aircraft. On May 28, 1968, a crashed and burned UH1H helicopter (tail #6442) was located in the approximate vicinity and a search party recovered an ID tag belonging to SFC Pringle, several weapons, and some human bones. The ID tag and weapons were given to an unidentified major; subsequent attempts to trace the weapons have been unsuccessful. All human remains were given to the U.S. Army Mortuary at Da Nang, and were subsequently determined unidentifiable. Search attempts terminated on November 16, 1972. Because of the density of the underbrush, no attempts to recover further remains was made. The crash site was photographed in July 1974 at which time it became known that parts of the aircraft had been recovered by a Vietnamese woodcutter. No evidence of human remains were found in the area. Donald Burnham's photograph was identified by a Vietnamese rallier as having been a prisoner of war. CIA analysis failed to determine why Burnham's photo was selected, neither he nor the other crew were seen by returned POW's. If it were not for over 10,000 reports of Americans still held captive in Southeast Asia, the families of the men aboard UH1H #6442 might be able to give up hope of seeing their sons and brothers again. But as long as there is evidence that even one is alive, the possibility exists that any of the crew of the UH1H lost on February, 1968 could be alive. All Biographical and loss information on POW/MIA's provided by Operation Just Cause have been supplied by Chuck and Mary Schantag of POWNET. Please check with POWNET regularly for updates. |
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| The U.S.
points to enormous "progress" being made in the area of the missing, having acquired
through years of negotiating, almost half the American remains that Vietnam is known to
have stockpiled.
Meanwhile. over 1,000 eye-witness reports of living Americans who are captive in Southeast Asia "cannot be proven". One of the hundreds suspected to be alive by many authorities could be SSGT Puggi. How must it feel to be forgotten and abandoned? I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to keep pushing this issue inside the Beltway... The need to get specific answers is more important now than ever before. If still alive, some MIAs are now in their 70s...They don't have much time left. We have to demand the answers from the bureaucrats and keep standing on their necks (figuratively speaking) until they get the message that THEY work for US and that we are serious about getting these long overdue responses. Diplomatic considerations aside... We can no longer allow questionable protocols established by pseudo-aristocratic armchair strategists, to determine or influence the fate of the men who were in the trenches while the diplomats were sharing sherry and canapes and talking about "Their Plans" for the future of SE Asia. If you'd like to see what some others are doing in addition to writing their congressmen, senators and the Whitehouse, check out some of these sites: http://hawk.nji.com/~mred/mialist.htm Another
remarkable site is by an 11 year old angel who never even set foot on American
soil...She not only put up a page...she started a major project for an
organization of Kids on the Net called KeyPals International.
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What we have done and will continue to do is to make as many as possible aware of what we have learned about live sightings and about the probability that many men long believed dead, may still be captive in Southeast Asia.
We will work to convince our elected representatives that a full and accurate accounting of the fate of our missing servicemen, is the solemn desire of the majority of the people.
In conclusion, we care about the future of this Country. We cared enough in the past to fight for it. We care enough to fight for if again if necessary and we will always support those who wear the uniform today!
April 3, 1973: Pathet Lao (Laotian Communist) forces declare they are holding more than 100 American POWs and are prepared to give a full accounting of them The U.S. government responds 9 days later declaring they are all dead -- without ever talking to the Laotians about the POWs they admit holding!
1970-1976: After the French pay an unspecified sum of money to the Vietnamese, the communists release POWs captured in 1954! The North Vietnamese had claimed all of then had died.
June 25, 1981: Defense Intelligence Agency Director Eugene Tighe testifies before the House Subcommittee on Asian/Pacific Affairs that live American POWs remain in Southeast Asia.
December 7, 1984: The Washington Times reports that Bobby Garwood, released by Vietnam 1979, saw up to 70 live captive Americans long after the war ended.
June 28, 1985: The Washington Times reports DIA Director Lieutenant General Eugene Tighe testified Hanoi is still holding at least 50-60 live American POWs.
October 15, 1985: The Wall Street Journal reports that at National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane says live American POWs remain in Southeast Asia.
August 19, 1986: The Wall Street Journal reports the White House knew in 1981 Vietnam wanted to sell an unspecified number of live POWs for $4 billion. The White House decided the offer was genuine -- and ignored it!
September 30, 1986: The New York Times reports a Pentagon panel estimates up to 100 live American POWs are held in Vietnam alone.
October 7, 1986: CIA Director William Casey says: "Look, the nation knows they (the POWs) are there, everybody knows they are there, but there's no grounds well of support for getting them out. Certainly, you are not suggesting we pay for them, surely not saying we could do anything like that with no public support."
January 1988: A cable from the Joint Casualty Resolution Center states that during General Vessey's visit to Hanoi, "The Vietnamese people were prepared to turn over 7 or 8 live American POWs if Vessey told then what they wanted to hear. All the prospective returnees were allegedly held in a location on the Lao side of the border."
June 10 1989: The Washington Post reports a Japanese monk released after 13 years in a Vietnamese prison had American POW cellmates who nursed him to health.
September 1990: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Interim Report on POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia concluded that despite public assurances in 1973 that no POWs remained in the region, the Defense Department " . . . in April 1974 concluded beyond a doubt that several hundred American POWs remained in captivity in Southeast Asia."
October 1990: Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach admits Vietnam still holds American POWs but is willing to release "as many as 10 live American POWs." His offer, like others before it, is ignored by Secretary of State James Baker III.
February 1991: Colonel Millard Peck, Chief of the Pentagon's Special Office for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action, resigns in protest of being ordered by policy makers in the POW/MIA Inter-Agency Group not to investigate live-sighting reports of American POWs!
April 25, 1991: Senator Bob Smith addresses the Senate and reveals that, of more than 1,400 eyewitness sightings of live POWs, NONE has ever received an on-site investigation!
May 23, 1991: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Examination of U.S. Policy Toward POW/MIAs concludes that the U.S. has ignored thousands of American POWs, and left them to rot in Soviet slave labor camps and North Korean and Vietnamese prisons. "Any evidence that suggested an MIA might be alive was uniformly and arbitrarily rejected."
Summer 1991: A flood of new evidence of live POWs pours from Southeast Asia: pictures, handwriting samples, hair samples, blood samples, fingerprints, foot-prints, maps and other physical proof. The Bush administration disregards the evidence and attempts to discredit it by rumor and innuendo. Some of the photos are scientifically validated -- and have never been scientifically disproven!
To Date: We are still waiting for these abandoned men and women to come home................
This information was compiled by Task Force Omega of Kentucky, Inc.
All these facts are a matter of public record and clearly indicate that we have some serious problems in the POW/MIA arena that our elected officials refuse to acknowledge.
Our elected officials should truly be ashamed of themselves. Mothers cry, Fathers sob, Brothers and Sisters can't understand, and Friends are lost with only memories.
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