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Home and Away: Remembering the fallen
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Vietnam War KIA Airman Comes Home
Oct. 23, 2012
AIRMAN KIA FROM VIETNAM WAR IDENTIFIED
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, killed in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Air Force Airman 1st Class Jerry M. Wall, 24, of Jacksonville, Texas, will be buried Oct. 26, in San Antonio. On May 18, 1966, Wall and four other crew members were aboard a C-123B Provider aircraft that crashed while carrying out a nighttime flare-drop mission over Binh Dinh, South Vietnam. Nearby U.S. ground troops reported seeing Wall’s aircraft hit by enemy ground fire and crash. Heavy enemy presence in the area prevented immediate search and rescue efforts. Later that day the remains of three of the five crew members were recovered.
From 2007 to 2012, joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams conducted interviews and excavations of the crash site in Binh Dinh Province. Department of Defense casualty and life support experts identified the location as Wall’s possible loss site. The teams excavated the site and found human remains, military equipment, a military identification tag bearing Wall’s information, and aircraft wreckage of a C-123.
In the identification of the remains, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) used circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools, such as radiograph, dental records and mitochondrial DNA–which matched Wall’s mother.
AIRMAN KIA FROM VIETNAM WAR IDENTIFIED
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, killed in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Air Force Airman 1st Class Jerry M. Wall, 24, of Jacksonville, Texas, will be buried Oct. 26, in San Antonio. On May 18, 1966, Wall and four other crew members were aboard a C-123B Provider aircraft that crashed while carrying out a nighttime flare-drop mission over Binh Dinh, South Vietnam. Nearby U.S. ground troops reported seeing Wall’s aircraft hit by enemy ground fire and crash. Heavy enemy presence in the area prevented immediate search and rescue efforts. Later that day the remains of three of the five crew members were recovered.
From 2007 to 2012, joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams conducted interviews and excavations of the crash site in Binh Dinh Province. Department of Defense casualty and life support experts identified the location as Wall’s possible loss site. The teams excavated the site and found human remains, military equipment, a military identification tag bearing Wall’s information, and aircraft wreckage of a C-123.
In the identification of the remains, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) used circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools, such as radiograph, dental records and mitochondrial DNA–which matched Wall’s mother.
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