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Written by Msg John C. Owens
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Friday, 02 May 2008 |
 MSG John Owens
Losing a close friend in combat is a traumatic experience that can haunt you forever. For myself, the loss of my friend,
Specialist 4 Donald M. Shue,
was an experience that became a double haunting.
Don and I were in Recon Company, Command and Control North, Studies and Observation Group (SOG) in Da Nang, South Vietnam.
Our unit’s mission was top secret, strategic ground reconnaissance
along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia. The soldiers for this
unit and similar units came from the 5th Special Forces Group. The
Recon team Don was in, Recon Team Maryland, had two other Special
Forces soldiers and six Vietnamese Montagnards.
On November 3, 1969, Recon Team Maryland was inserted by helicopter
into Laos for a mission. The team was dropped off and moved into the
jungle and made radio contact that all was well. That was the last time
anything was heard from Recon Team Maryland.
Some days later, three of the Montagnard Soldiers of the team walked
into the U.S. Base at Khe Sanh, South Vietnam. They were immediately
sent to Da Nang for interrogation.
A few weeks later, all the members of Recon Company were called into
the Headquarters Office and were told about the fate of Recon Team
Maryland.
We were told that after the recon team was inserted on the ground and
made radio contact, the team started conducting their recon mission.
For some unknown reason, the team’s Americans were together in the
middle of the patrol when the team was ambushed by the enemy. The
Americans were in the main firing zone of the ambush. After the initial
volley of fire, the American’s were lying motionless and didn’t respond
to the calls from the three survivors. The three Montagnards then
escaped and evaded capture.
Some days later, a recovery team went to the ambush site and only found
parts of field equipment. Don and the other two Special Forces Soldiers
were classified as Missing In Action.
When Don and I had last spoke, it was just days before his fatal last
mission. I took his loss really hard but realized I had to get it
behind me and survive the war. Months later I completed my tour and was
reassigned to Ft. Bragg, N.C. In six months I finished my enlistment
and started college in Charlotte, N.C.
One day during my first semester I was reading the morning copy of the
Charlotte Observer newspaper and saw an article about two local area
women and the grief they had concerning their loved ones in Vietnam.
The first story concerned the wife of a pilot who was a POW in Hanoi,
North Vietnam and how she was coping with the limited contact she had
with him.
The other story was about the mother of a soldier in Vietnam who was
missing in action and the trouble she had in getting information from
the Defense Department. Her son was my friend Donald M. Shue.
I was devastated after reading the article. I wanted to call Don’s
mother and tell her everything I knew about his tragic mission. I
wanted to comfort her and tell her about our last conversation before
we parted, never to see each other again, but I couldn’t do any of
this. It was 1971, the war was winding down, many of our military units
were returning home but the SOG teams were still operating over there.
In SOG they make sure you understood the consequences if you talked to
someone about those top secret missions. You could be risking the lives
of those men in the on-going operations. Contacting her could do more
harm than good. I swallowed my heart and decided to accept the burden
of silence along with the loss of my friend.
This is what I mean about this experience being a double haunting.
 The Wall
On June 15, 1995, exactly 25 years to the day that I left Vietnam, I
went to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. to look for
Don’s name on the Wall. When I found his name I noticed that it had a
cross after it, indicating that Don is still listed as Missing In
Action.
I pray that closure will come to Don and the other MIA’s on the Wall.
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