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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 2003)
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Worl Family gets closure 30 year after father’s disappearanci - i By Mark Collette THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 4075 S Highway 6 - take Rock Prairie Road exit David Poole recently trav eled to Hawaii to pick up his father’s remains, and the pieces of a Psalm found near the air man’s crash site in Vietnam. For Poole and his family, the trip marks a bittersweet home coming, one that seals an end to nearly three decades of hope that a husband, brother and father of five could still be alive. But with these remains among the first identified through a new method of DNA testing and with the personal artifacts found at the bottom of a small pond near Hanoi, comes a kind of closure most survivors of missing-in-action soldiers never enjoy. Just before a surface-to- air missile blasted a hole through Charlie Poole’s B-52 bomber, the gunner recorded a final transmission over the plane’s intercom: “That’s close enough.’’ Then another missile explod ed, setting the aircraft ablaze and sealing Poole’s fate, which the U.S. government would offi cially switch between “killed” and “missing” three times before a final ruling in 1998. One family member calls it “31 years of heartache.” The remains, and the accom panying artifacts — a cigarette lighter, some coins, a partial skeleton, and scraps of Charlie Poole’s Bible — would eventu ally amount to more than the sum of their parts. “I was able to look at that page,” David says, “and finally realize what happened in that final moment.” With more than 1,800 Americans listed as MIA from the Vietnam War, burials like Air Force Tech. Sgt. Charlie Poole’s are rare. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii has a daunting task the identification of more than 88,000 Americans still missing from five wars. Over the years, the system for identifying missing military personnel has gradually improved, and a method of DNA testing back,” says Dorothy McLemore, Charlie’s sister. “But it got to where she was down on herself then, because she wasn’t sure.” Before her death, Mrs. Poole visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, along with David. “She looked up at the wall and turned around and looked at David, and said, ‘I’ll know what happened to your daddy before you do.’” Mrs. ■it u that started in the 1990s may offer the best hope yet for families seek ing closure. David Poole doesn’t remem ber the faces of the two men who came to his door six days before Christmas in 1972. He only remembers their message that his father, a gunner on a B-52, was shot down on a bombing run in Vietnam. He stepped off in the hand of God and that's where the mission ended. m ore “She away weeks — David Poole son of Charlie Poole Me Lc recalls, passed two later." Adding to the puzzle, another B-52 crashed the same day in 1972. Two escaped from that bomber, and four had escaped from Poole's. His trip to Hawaii marks the fourth time he will face the death of his father. In 1979, Poole was declared killed in action, and a memorial service followed. Then, in 1994, evidence sur faced that Poole’s remains might lay at the bottom of a pond about 10 miles southwest of Hanoi, in Thahn Oai. It turned out the villagers there developed their tiny econ omy on the fish in the pond, cre ated when Poole’s B-52 sank 50 feet into a rice paddy. Charlie’s wife died in 1994, two years before the discovery of any remains. “She always said he’d come The Vietnamese had a list of the crew from Poole’s B-52, and assumed their six prisoners con stituted that plane’s entire crew. "I would dream about seeing him,” McLemore says, “bam boo leaves and limbs wrapped around trees where they'd made a place to hold him captive. That’s the hardest part of it.” McLemore recalls a brother “full of mischief,” but one who loved his country, who would serve in the Air Force from age 18 until his death at 40, who was active as a Boy Scout leader, who was a lay pastor, who always carried a Bible. In 1994, ,with relations between th^iUnited States and Vietnam /f st^rtjng to solidify, the military had reports of an elder ly person in Thahn Oai who recalled a plane crashing where Poole’s last coordinates weit The next year, David amil brother James flew to! hired a taxi, but were da access to the restricted arei A year later, JPAC, With the Vietnamese t0 '^ e ment, drained the pond atTk Oai. The impact of the I opened a spring that filled! indention with fresh n which for more than 20 yt would combat the effectsol! acidic Vietnamese soil, preai ing the first clue that i Poole’s remains: a piecei insulation with the aira serial number. By the time JPAC refilled] pond and stocked it with i the agency had spent morel $1 million working Thahn Oai site, accordinf David Poole. David examined portions the Bible page that survivedn surface-to-air missiles and fire that gutted the B-52.i plugging sentence fragntf from the page into his electrn concordance, he yielded Psai 138:7 “Though I walk in the midi r of trouble, you will revive8 | you will stretch out your hi i n j ta |y p ranC€ against the wrath of myeit mies, and your right hand»! ^puteto the f save me. colonies in the C David said he believeshelfi found the answer to a quesi that has eluded him morel 30 years. “ I can look back now and a that missile come up, between the tail and thewinslif and my dad asking, ‘God,ci on down,”’ he says. "Andd reached out his right hands I the verse says, and my (hfc final words were ‘That's dost enough,’ and he was talking God. “He stepped off in hand of God and that’s wh the mission ended. the BATTAL o ci By Steven.' THE ASS0CI, KINGSTON. 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To insure being photographed you should make an appointment by cal# Thornton Studio at 1-800-883- 9449 or seeing the photogra pher beginning Monday, Oct 13 Aggieland 2004 Texas A&M University Yearbook The game has it poems and sf Puerto Rican Agueros’ “Dom Stories” and L writer Elvys Rui: political plays Dfs br< B THE LONDON — d, she was a Spencer, and he v problems and w newspaper report! Spencer, spea d the letter, p ok, was being “adored Diana.” Worldwide tel September 1997 j ter, in which he sj honored her mem criticism of the rc He also sau believe her fata despite a letter, h Diana se tamper with her Both letters ai coming book by 1 Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women. Women deserve better than abortion. laj o m -e r\i □ -E S -E www.WomenDeserveBetter.com Specialties P 1st annu. contest. 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