Vietnam war Missing in Action servicemen identified

Vietnam war Missing in Action servicemen identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

They are Marine 2nd Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer Jr. of Pearl River, N.Y.; Marine Sgt. James N. Tycz of Milwaukee, Wis.; Marine Lance Cpl. Samuel A. Sharp Jr. of San Jose, Calif.; and Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Malcolm T. Miller of Tampa, Fla.  Ahlmeyer, Tycz, and Miller will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on May 10.  Sharp was buried Saturday in San Jose and will be honored at the Arlington ceremony…

The four men were part of a reconnaissance patrol operating near the U.S. Marine base in Khe Sanh, Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam.  They came under enemy attack shortly after midnight on May 10, 1967, while occupying a defensive position.  During the firefight Ahlmeyer, Tycz, Sharp and Miller were killed.  The patrol’s surviving members were rescued by helicopter later that morning but the bodies of the four men could not be recovered.

In the fall of 1991 several Vietnamese citizens visited the U.S. POW/MIA office in Hanoi claiming to have access to the remains of U.S. servicemen.  One of the men provided skeletal and teeth fragments. 

Between 1993 and 2004, eight joint U.S.-Vietnamese teams led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed witnesses and surveyed the skirmish area.  Two other joint teams conducted excavations during which material evidence and remains were recovered.  After extensive analysis, scientists from JPAC identified Ahlmeyer, Tycz, Sharp and Miller.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,835 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,398 of those within the country of Vietnam.  Another 748 Americans have been accounted for since the end of the Vietnam War.