Vietnam War Memorial, City Park, Pueblo, CO, USA - Vietnam War Memorials on Waymarking.com

COLORADO BLUE SPRUCE "FREEDOM TREE"

Dedicated to

CAPTAIN JOHN A. LA VOO, USMC
A Native of Pueblo

Who made the supreme sacrifice
September 19, 1968 in North Vietnam.

Buried at Arlington National Cemetery
July 19, 1999

"SEMPER FI"

Presented by
Colorado POW/MIA Coalition
and
Veterans of Pueblo. "Home of Heroes"

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Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update
June 4, 1999

TWO SERVICEMEN IDENTIFIED

The remains of two American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from the
war in Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their
families for burial in the United States.

They are identified as Capt. Robert A. Holt, USMC, Reading, Mass.; and Capt.
John A. Lavoo, USMC, Pueblo, Colo.

On Sept. 19, 1968, Holt and Lavoo were flying their F-4B Phantom on a combat
mission over Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam. After they launched their
rockets at the target, their aircraft appeared to pitch very slightly
without breaking its dive. It then pulled suddenly to the right 90 degrees,
then back 45 degrees. It crashed amid a large explosion. No parachutes were
observed and no beepers were heard by their wingman.

The wingman and another tactical control aircraft made low passes over the
wreckage, but saw no evidence that the crew survived. An additional
electronic search yielded no indication of survivors. The hostile ground
threat precluded any search and rescue efforts.

In July 1992, a joint U. S./Vietnamese team, led by the Joint Task
Force-Full Accounting, visited the suspected area of the crash and
interviewed several informants with firsthand knowledge of the site. One of
the informants turned over remains they said were taken from the site. The
team also examined some aircraft wreckage in the possession of the
villagers.

Another joint team reinterviewed one of the informants in August 1993, while
another team in January 1994 surveyed the site again and recommended it for
excavation. Then in May 1994, excavation team members recovered numerous
pilot-related items as well as human remains.

A fifth team continued the excavation in June and July 1994 and recovered
additional remains and pilot-related artifacts. A sixth team completed the
excavation in August and September 1994, recovering some artifacts, but no
remains.

Anthropological analysis of the remains and other evidence by the U. S. Army
Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii confirmed the identification of
both of these servicemen. With the accounting of these two, there are now
2,061 Americans unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War. Since the release of
American POWs in 1973, 522 MIAs from Southeast Asia have been accounted-for
and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
(Information courtesy of POWNETWORK.ORG)

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Requiescat In Pace brothers - For as long as your names are remembered so too are you. Thank you for serving for us and your country.

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