Illinois Remembers POW/MIA (I-64) - Mascoutah, IL - Vietnam POW/MIA Monuments on Waymarking.com

County of memorial: Madison County
Location of memorial: I-64, Gateway Rest Area, near Mascoutah
Marker erected by: AmVets

Marker Test:

Captain Roger Dale Partington has a grave marker in Sparta Cemetery and is listed on Find-A-Grave but his body is not there

Name: Roger Dale Partington
Rank/Branch: O3/US Marine Corps
Unit: HMH 361, MAG 16, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing
Date of Birth: 12 December 1940
Home City of Record: Sparta IL
Date of Loss: 01 November 1969
Country of Loss: South Vietnam/Over Water
Loss Coordinates: 160117N 1082011E (BT144755)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 5 Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: CH53A
Refno: 1508 Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

"Source: Compiled from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK in 1998.

REMARKS:
"SYNOPSIS: On November 1, 1969, Capt. Robert D. Partington was a crewmember aboard a CH53A helicopter which went down at sea just southeast of the military installation near Marble Mountain at Da Nang, South Vietnam. The helicopter was not hit by enemy fire, but suffered some other problem which caused it to explode and burn. Capt. Partington is the only man not recovered from the aircraft.

"Following searches for Capt. Partington, a review board determined that he was dead, and it was unlikely that his remains would ever be recovered. He is listed among the missing because no body was ever returned home for burial. Partington's family can be as certain as it is possible to be that he is dead.

"For most of the other missing, however, simple resolution is not possible. Many of the missing were known to be alive the last they were seen. Some were held in prison camps with others Americans, only to disappear from the camp system. Still others were heard on radio or photographed in captivity. Others simply disappeared without a trace.

"Since American involvement in the Vietnam war ended, the U.S. Government has reviewed "several million documents" and conducted "over 250,000 interviews" relating to Americans missing in Southeast Asia. Many authorities who have had access to this classified information are convinced that hundreds of Americans remain alive in the hands of our old enemies.

"Partington, evidently is not among those said to still be alive. However, one can imagine that he would gladly fly one more mission to help his comrades to safety.

Donald Eugene Parsons
Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army

Donald Eugene Parsons was born on April 17, 1929 and joined the Armed Forces while in Sparta, Illinois.
He served in the United States Army, 2 REG 1 INF (ARV) ADV TEAM4
MA, and attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
Donald Eugene Parsons was listed as Missing in Action.
"Years After Vietnam, Father Rests in Peace
Daughters Bury Remains of Long-Missing Soldier

After more than three decades of waiting, of wondering what and where and how, his daughters buried Lieutenant Colonel Donald E. Parsons on Friday with full military honors. They walked behind a horse-drawn caisson for the final journey to his gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. They stood for the sharp report of 21 gunshots and the moving simplicity of taps. They received from a commanding officer the American flag that had been draped over their father's casket, now folded into a sharp, taut triangle of mourning.

The casket contained little, though: A green Army uniform with all the appropriate bars of rank. And underneath the uniform, placed carefully within an Army blanket, two teeth.
Yet for those teeth, Stacy Parsons and Donna Willett were profoundly grateful. At last, they knew, their father was home.

Not until six years ago were the two meager and badly discolored relics recovered from the dense jungle where Parsons and six other soldiers had gone missing in action during the height of the Vietnam War. The discovery by a military search team was part random luck, part persistent investigation, part hard-sweat work. But confirming their identity took several more years, and so not until late 2000 did Willett pick up the phone one day in North Carolina to hear, "We have found your father's remains."
As the room began reeling, she held on enough to absorb the words and then call her sister in Maryland.

Hundreds of families have received similar calls in the decade since the United States began an intense recovery program in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia -- a $20 million-a-year effort that continues today, with more than 1,900 military yet unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.

For each family, that confirmation and the final homecoming can be an intense event. As these sisters explained, sitting in Parsons's dining room in Silver Spring, it dredges up past pains, deeply felt absences that never can be compensated.
At the same time, Willett said, "it does finish the circle."

The two women made sure of that. Before their father's casket was sealed, they put their mother's ashes in with his uniform, along with the miniature bride and groom that once topped their parents' wedding cake.
"She never got over him," Parsons said. "She never quit playing the 'what if' game."
None of them did." ~ Courtesy of the Washington Post: 13 June 2002

Name: Oral Ray Terry
Rank/Branch: E3/US Army
Unit:
Date of Birth: 25 January 1945 (Lenzburg IL)
Home City of Record: Mascoutah IL
Date of Loss: 03 May 1968
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 102535N 1062137E (XS489258)
Status (in 1973): Missing in Action
Category: 4
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: LCraft
Refno: 1157
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

"Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 September 1990 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.
Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 1998.

REMARKS:
"SYNOPSIS: PFC Oral R. Terry was a radio operator/seaman aboard a maintenance boat. On May 3, 1968, the craft was on a damage control mission on the Ham Luong River in South Vietnam. On the mission, Terry's job was radio guard.

"About 4:45 a.m. a splash was heard by two members on the boat. They did not investigate. PFC Terry was to have awakened his relief at 5:00 a.m., but his relief awakened himself at 0700 hours. He did not question why Terry had failed to awaken him.

"Normal activities were carried on the remainder of the day until mid-afternoon, when the crew noticed that Terry was not present. A search of the area was conducted without success. Terry was a non-swimmer, and was last seen wearing a flak jacket and a steel helmet. Because there was no proof that Terry died, he was classified Missing in Action.

"591 American Prisoners of War were released in 1973, but nearly 2500 remained missing, prisoner or unaccounted for. Thousands of reports have been received by the U.S. Government that indicate hundreds of Americans are still alive and held captive in Southeast Asia, yet the government seems unable or unwilling to successfully achieve their release. Policy statements indicate that "conclusive proof" is not available, but when it is, the government will act. Detractors state that proof is in hand, but the will to act does not exist.

"Whether Oral R. Terry survived to be captured is not known. Whether he is those believed to be still alive today is uncertain. What cannot be questioned, however, is that America has a moral and legal obligation to secure the freedom of those who may still be illegally held by the communist governments of Southeast Asia. It's time we brought our men home." ~ POW Network