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WORLD
STATE
THE BATTALION
Thursday, October 23,!
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.
Brian Bay lie, a
exterminator by
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bar room tat
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converging on J
Cham
Dominoes.
“Jamaicans
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when he cannot
on the streets of.
an accepted part
The three-d;
beginning Thursi
resort wil
a dozen C
tries, the United
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more than $150,1
prizes.
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Ihe Chinese in 1
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reach Europe i
century, wl
According to
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2501 Texas Ave. S
SENIORS
\Ne want your portrait
for the Aggieland Yearbooi
Graduation portraits for the
2004 Aggieland Yearbook willbt
taken Monday, Oct. 13, thro#
Friday Oct. 24, 2003, in Room
027 of the MSC. Hours are 9
a.m. to 5 p.m. There is no sit#
fee required to be photographed
for the yearbook. 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
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Puerto Rican
Agueros’ “Dom
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writer Elvys Rui:
political plays
Dfs br<
B
THE
LONDON —
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Spencer, spea
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