Park Bunker again

[Stick]

Capt PARK G. BUNKER
USAF 30 DEC 70 LAOS
That's what the bracelet on my right wrist has engraved on it. I've worn this bracelet for many years and last year I was able to get in touch with his sister.
Park was shot down by the Pathet Lao over Laos, an area that we "never were in."
Park was assigned to the "Steve Canyon" program and was actually 'mustered out' of the Air Force and on loan to the US air attache' at Vientiane. Unofficially they were assigned to the CIA and the U.S. Ambassador to Laos.
They flew Cessna O1 Bird Dog airplanes and had to fly low and slow in order to complete missions. Low because they had to be able to observe the Ho Chi Minh trail that they were assigned to observe and slow because that's all that the Bird Dog was capable of. Many of the planes had fabric tape covering the bullet holes in their planes fuslage but those planes continued to fly. It was not unusual for a Steve Canyon pilot to reach 500 hours of direct combat support flight time twice in his year tour but "we were never there."
My question is this. Why has the American government NEVER tried to negotiate with modern day Laos for imformation on those lost over Laos?
Park has never been recovered or his bones have not been recovered. Doncha know? "We were never there."

[SEATJERKER]

...Col. Charles W Burkart Jr.
... USAF 13 Jun 66 Laos,...

...Lived up my way in a town called Selkirk, N.Y., look at it everyday, and wonder,...

...bothers my left wrist during the cold months, but it's the least that can be done for one who I'm sure has/had endured much more pain then I over the last 38 years he has been missing,...

...I too have spoken with the family to let them know that he is not forgotten,..." yea that was Uncle Charlie", his nephew didn't remember too much about him as he told me, he was young then,...

...scratched, and formed to my wrist, it gets caught, and pulls at times when I work in close qtrs, have had it pulled off many times, but the slight sting as it digs in while putting it back on it's rightful place is a reminder to me of the sacrifices of many who came before me,...

...someday I would like to return it to him in person, but the glimmering of hope seems so distant,...


...On this eve of a new year,... I'm sure all of those out there have asked their silent prayers be answered for the return of their loved ones, and Lord, It's time to bring them home,...

...Is God dead??? asked my 3 year old,............. and astounded we stood,... No why?, was the reply, and he looked up, and said, "Then why is he in heaven?,...

...I wonder too sometimes,...

...

[Stick]

http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/b/b445.htm

?The Vietnam War ended Tuesday for Barb Moore of Bloomington when she opened an envelope from the U.S. Air Force. The letter said an old man had surfaced in Hanoi a few months earlier to talk with U.S. military officials investigating the fate of American soldiers in Vietnam. The man said he was among Communist Vietnamese and Laotian soldiers who buried the bodies of two American pilots in Laos more than 30 years ago.
Now 83, the man turned over two Geneva Convention identification cards he'd kept since the war. One those cards read, "Capt. Parker G. Bunker, USAF."

Shock of a lifetime
Bracelet, news article link Streator man, fallen soldier
By Scott Richardson
Pantagraph staff
STREATOR -- Soldiers' paths may cross in eerie ways years after the battles have ended.
Take the experience Jim Hogan had while reading The Pantagraph early Thursday.
A front-page article gave an update of the search for the body of a pilot who was shot down in Laos during the Vietnam War. His name was Capt. Parker George Bunker, the brother of Barb Moore of Bloomington.
The story told how U.S. Air Force officials sent Moore word this week that an elderly former North Vietnamese soldier recently gave authorities Bunker's identification card. The old man described how he was among soldiers who buried the bodies of Bunker and another pilot in 1970. Until this account, Bunker's exact fate was unknown.
Something in the story seemed familiar to Hogan, 55, of Streator, a former staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force. He read the story again.
That's when he looked down at the POW/MIA bracelet he'd worn for the past 30 years. It read "Capt. Park G. Bunker."
"I couldn't believe it," said Hogan, who served in Okinawa, Japan, as leader of a crew that refueled B-52 bombers and fighters for missions over Vietnam.
"It was the shock of my life."
The article triggered memories as Hogan recalled the shot-up planes that returned from their flights.
He relived feelings he had in the middle of the night as he refueled planes loaded with caskets bound for sad homecomings.
"I didn't realize I remembered all this stuff," he said.
Hogan also recalled paying a couple of dollars for the bracelet bearing Bunker's name and one for Lt. Col. James Lewis during an air show in Nevada.
He wore them to pay homage to fallen comrades.
"The guys on the bracelets made the ultimate sacrifice," Hogan said. "But there was no compassion for the GI, there was more hatred and disdain. There wasn't the honor they deserved."
Another memory was of driving his daughter, Sarah, to Bloomington a couple of years ago during a visit of the Moving Wall.
The replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., bears the names of the dead from Vietnam, including Bunker's.
Hogan and his daughter went to the directory and first looked up the names of Hogan's friends from Streator: Donald Bute was a Navy medic killed by small arms fire; Ronald Munson was a U.S. Army infantryman who died of fragmentation wounds.
They then found Bunker's name and learned he grew up in the Chicago suburbs.
Until Thursday, that was all he knew about the man whose bracelet he wore for three decades.
How did he feel upon learning Bunker's fate?
"I felt peace," Hogan said. "If his sister wants it, she can have it," he said, referring to the bracelet.
Moore, who is familiar with Streator because she was married there when her parents briefly lived there, said she'll leave it to Hogan to decide what to do with the bracelet. She has an identical one bearing the faded name of her brother that her son wore for years.

?The Air Force letter asked Moore to supply a blood sample. Officials want her DNA to compare with bodies that may be found.
The old Vietnamese soldier who surrendered the ID cards also used a map to locate a former village where Bunker's body was buried.
"I would love to have his body," Moore said. "If they want the DNA, we'll give it to them. But we aren't holding our breath that we will ever bring him back."

The above are direct newspaper quotes but Parks body has not yet been recovered. I will wear the bracelet until he is home.
GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTEN!

[Stick]

Got this in yesterdays e-mail. It made my day and filled is a lot of blanks.
Dear John,

It was so nice to hear from you. It was a wonderful thing that you have been wearing Park's bracelet for so long. My middle son, Jonathan, has been faithfully wearing Park's name as well.

The latest developments on Park's case are those that you know already, if you've read the article. The Air Force now has a copy of a Geneva Convention card that once belonged to Park and that ended up in China. A Chinese military man said that he remembered burying a couple air force pilots in a little village cemetery near the Plain of Jars, Laos, where Park's plane went down. We know from a book called, The Ravens, that Park radioed that he was wounded and near death, at the site of his plane crash and that there was enemy all around. One of Park's high school friends (from Thornton H.S. Student Council--Park was President) said that he was on the rescue helicopter that went in after him and that "there was no way he could have escaped all the rifle fire and activity going on at the scene." He said that by the second day, Park's body had "disappeared" from under a nearby tree.

Park's widow, Janet and small son, Gary, took a lot of consolation from the fact that a home-town friend was the one who went in on the rescue helicopter to try to bring Park out. Janet has since married again and Gary has his own family in South Carolina.

There is a monument for my brother at the Air Force Academy and every year they give a scholarship in Electrical Engineering in Park's name. When we visited the Academy some years ago, we met a colonel who was in Laos as well. He had a collection of shot glasses to represent the missing and was turning each one over, as the men were accounted for. Our family put a headstone in Woodstock, Illinois, where we have a family plot. I live close enough to Illinois' capital that I visit the Vietnam Memorial there from time to time. Ironically, Park's name is on both the Missing in Action monument and the Killed in Action monument.

Again, thanks for your interest in Park's life and his contributions to the war effort. And thank you for keeping hope alive for so long.

[Stick]

America still will not fully admit to the "Ravens" assigned to "Steve Canyon" that crossed the Vietnamese border into Laos. The ?Ravens? were assigned to air recon on the ?Plain of Jars? in Laos. The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran directly through the Plain of Jars.
The T's have been crossed and most of the I's have been dotted. Last night before I went to sleep, I turned on the boob tube and found the story of Park's unit, the "Ravens.? One out of seven of the unit either never returned or if they were found, they were returned in a bag. All troops assigned to "Steve Canyon" were separated from their branch of American service and given UN ID's. It was a UN ID that was recovered recently. With the television expose' now, maybe, the American government might have to admit to what these patriots did for their country and their countries service men and women.