BURNETT, SHELDON JOHN
REMAINS IDENTIFIED 02/2005
Name: Sheldon John Burnett
Rank/Branch: O5/US Army
Unit: Headquarters & Headquarters Troop, 1st Squad, 1st Cavalry, 23rd
Infantry Division
Date of Birth: 09 June 1931 (Milwaukee WI)
Home City of Record: Pelham NH
Date of Loss: 07 March 1971
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 163700N 1063250E (XD653388)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: OH58A
Other Personnel In Incident: Phil Bodenhorn; Jerry Castillo (rescued);
Randolph J. Ard (missing); Mike Castro (believed to have survived)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 October 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 2005.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: LAM SON 719 was a large offensive operation against NVA
communications lines in Laos in the region adjacent to the two northern
provinces of South Vietnam. The operation was a raid in which ARVN troops
would drive west from Khe Sanh on Route 9, cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail, seize
Tchpone, some 25 miles away, and then return to Vietnam. The ARVN would
provide and command the ground forces, while U.S. Army and Air Force would
furnish aviation airlift and supporting firepower. The 101st Airborne
Division (Airmobile) commanded all U.S. Army aviation units in direct
support of the operation.
Most of the first part of the operation, begun January 30, 1971 was called
Operation DEWEY CANYON II, and was conducted by U.S. ground forces in
Vietnam. The ARVN met their halfway point on February 11 and moved into
position for the attack across the Laotian border.
On 8 February, ARVN began pushing along Route 9 into Laos. The NVA reacted
fiercely, committing some 36,000 troops to the area. The ARVN held its
positions supported by U.S. airstrikes and resupply runs by Army
helicopters.
President Nguyen Van Thieu ordered a helicopter assault on Tchepone, and the
abandoned village was seized March 6. Two weeks of hard combat were
necessary for the ARVN task force to fight its way back to Vietnam.
Randy Ard had been in Vietnam only a few weeks when an emergency call came
in for him to fly the squadron commander to a platoon command post to work
his way down to his Third Platoon, which was in ambush in the northwest
segment of South Vietnam. He flew his Kiowa Scout chopper from the 5th Mech
and picked up a passenger, LtCol. Sheldon Burnett, the squadron commander;
Capt. Phil Bodenhorn, Alpha Company commander; and SP4 Mike Castro, Third
Platoon RTO.
Ard mistakenly flew past the command post and west into Laos. Seeing yellow
marking smoke, he took the chopper down lower. It was too late to pull up
when they heard the sound of an RPD machine gun and AK-47's. They had been
tricked into a North Vietnamese ambush.
The helicopter went down fast, and smashed into the brush, coming down on
its side (or upside down, depending on the version of the account). Ard and
Burnett were trapped in the wreckage, but alive. Ard got on the radio and
began mayday calls. Bodenhorn and Castillo, who had been in the rear seat,
got out of the aircraft. Bodenhorn managed to free Art, but he had two
broken legs and possibly a broken hip. Burnett was completely pinned within
the wreckage and injured, but alive. Bodenhorn and Castillo positioned
themselves on opposite sides of the aircraft for security and expended all
the colored smoke grenades they had, marking their position for rescue.
[Note: Mike Castro's name appears in one account of this incident, but his
fate is not given. He does not appear in a second account from the U.S. Army
Casualty Board. It is believed that he survived the incident, as he is not
listed as a Vietnam War casualty]
Bodenhorn and Castillo soon heard North Vietnamese approaching, and killed
these Vietnamese. The two listened for nearly an hour as others advanced
towards their position from two directions, and 155 artillery rounds
impacted very near them. They couldn't understand why they were not being
rescued, unless it was because the enemy was so close to them. A helicopter
flew over, but took heavy fire and left. They decided to leave Ard and
Burnett and escape themselves. They told Ard, who nodded wordlessly. Burnett
was drifting in and out of consciousness. Both men were alive.
Bodenhorn and Castillo worked their way to 80 yards away when a UH1C came in
on a single run, firing flechette rockets which seemed to explode right on
the downed chopper. Later, they watched an F4 roll in for a one-bomb strike
over the crash site. Ard and Burnett were surely dead.
Bodenhorn and Castillo were rescued by ARVN troops an hour later. Ard and
Burnett were classified Missing In Action. The story was released to
reporters at Khe Sanh three days later. The army spokesman accurately
described the ambush, but told the press that Burnett had been in radio
contact with the ambushed platoon, and that he and Ard had appeared dead to
the two escaping officers. The names of the survivors were not released.
General Sutherland stated, ".. the decision was not made to employ the Air
Cavalry and the Hoc Bao to attempt to retrieve either LtCol. Burnett alive
or his body. ..Burnett had no mission nor units in Laos. He had no reason or
authority to take his helicopter over the Laotian border."
After 11 days of heavy resistance, the 11th ARVN Airborne Battalion fought
their way into the area where the helicopter had crashed. The searched the
wreckage and the surrounding area for several days, but found no sign of the
two missing men or any of their belongings or anything to indicate that
either man was buried in the area.
In 1989, a large part of this loss incident was still classified.
There can be no question that Randy Ard and Sheldon Burnett were abandoned
by the country they served.
Losses in LAM SON 719 were heavy. The ARVN suffered some 9,000 casualties,
almost 50% of their force. U.S. forces incurred some 1,462 casualties.
Aviation units lost 168 helicopters; another 618 were damaged. Fifty-five
aircrewmen were killed in action , 178 were wounded and 34 were missing in
action. There were 19,360 known enemy casualties for the operation lasting
until April 6, 1971.
Nearly 600 Americans were lost in Laos during the war in Vietnam. Although
the Pathet Lao stated on several occasions they held "tens of tens" of
American prisoners, Laos was not included in the agreements ending American
involvement in the war, and the U.S. has not negotiated for the freedom of
these men since that day. Consequently, not one American held in Laos has
ever been released.
These Americans, too, were abandoned.
Sheldon J. Burnett graduated from Westpoint in 1954. He was promoted to the
rank of Colonel during the period he was maintained missing.
=============================
http://www.sun-herald.com/NewsArchive2/020105/tp7np19.htm?date=020105&story=tp7np19.htm
Charlotte Sun-Herald - Charlotte,FL,USA
02/01/05
Search for missing soldier's kin lost in 44-year mystery
He was in the Army. He was 39 years old. He lived in New Hampshire. He
disappeared in Laos in 1971.
And he's never been found.
For more than 40 years, that's all Russi Arden knew about Lt. Col. Sheldon
John Burnett, the man whose name is engraved in silver on the red MIA
bracelet she bought for $10 four decades ago.
"I had no idea who he was," Arden said. "I didn't know anything about him,
although I wondered all the time."
A "sudden inspiration" spurred Arden, 63, of Lake Suzy, to find Burnett's
family and return the bracelet to them.
"It would certainly be a treasured object," she said.
Burnett's MIA bracelet was one of more than five million produced to support
troops reported as Missing In Action during the Vietnam Era.
Arden's search to find Burnett's relatives has uncovered parallels between
the missing soldier's family and her own, and revived unanswered questions
about America's Vietnam-Era involvement in Laos -- and the fate of those who
remain missing there.
Lost and Found
On Aug. 6, 1967, Arden's first husband, Air Force Capt. Allen Cherry, was
reported missing after his A-1E Skyraider crashed in North Vietnam.
Arden, living in Detroit with her parents and two children, recalls how a
chaplain and two officers came to her door to break the news.
"They said he was killed in action," she said. "His commanding officer saw
his jet go down and crash in a ball of fire."
Yet, because his remains were not recovered, Cherry was listed as MIA.
All uncertainty was erased in 1999 when remains found in 1997 were
identified by DNA tests as those of Cherry.
The confirmation came as a blow to his daughter, Lisa, who was 5 years old
when her father left for Vietnam.
"For years, she wouldn't believe her father was dead," Arden said. "It was
like losing him again."
The confirmation's stark reality was compounded by the loss of Cherry's
medals, missing after his son left them at a friend's house.
"His friend's family moved and we thought they were lost," Arden said.
"Years later, a woman came across them in box. Allen's name was on the back
of the medals."
The woman contacted the Detroit Free Press, which wrote a story about the
medals.
"That's how I got the medals back," Arden said, "so I know how a newspaper
story can get results."
She's hoping the same exposure will allow her to find Burnett's relatives so
she can give the bracelet to them.
"Certainly," Arden said, "my experiences have given me empathy for what
(MIA) families go through."
However, Dolores Apodaca-Alfond, national chairperson for The Return of
America's Missing Servicemen, said finding MIA servicemen's relatives is
often not easy.
"We can try to find the families but sometimes, they fall to the wayside,"
she said. "You have to look at it this way, and it hurts to say this, but
we're talking about ancient remains."
RAMS Research Director Lynn O'Shea said some MIA families don't want the
bracelets.
"Some families see the early return of a bracelet as a sign the owner has
given up hope of recovery for the missing serviceman," she said.
Besides, O'Shea noted, "Col. Burnett is still listed among those unaccounted
for in Southeast Asia."
Unknown fate
While Arden knows little of Burnett, the circumstances that led to his MIA
status are well-documented in a 1990 report compiled by the Homecoming II
Project and POW Network.
Until 1989, many details regarding Burnett's fate were classified.
Burnett, a 1954 West Point graduate, was born in Milwaukee in 1931. He
listed Pelham, N.H., as his hometown when he deployed to Vietnam on Oct. 18,
1970.
He was the commander of the 1st Squadron of the 23rd Infantry Division's 1st
Calvary Battalion.
According to U.S. Army reports, on March 7, 1971, the Kiowa Scout helicopter
Burnett and three others were aboard mistakenly strayed into Laos and was
ambushed at a fake landing site by a North Vietnamese Army unit.
Two soldiers -- Capt. Phil Bodenhorn and SP4 Mike Castillo -- eluded capture
and linked up with a South Vietnamese Army unit returning from a raid inside
Laos.
Bodenhorn and Castillo told investigators they fled at the urging of the
Kiowa's pilot, Warrant Officer 1 Randolph Ard, who was immobilized by two
broken legs.
They said Burnett was pinned within the wreckage. He was injured, incoherent
and also incapable of escaping.
Bodenhorn and Castillo have always maintained Burnett and Ard were alive
when they last saw them.
It took 18 years for the Army to acknowledge this -- an awkward admission
after declaring Burnett and Ard "officially dead" in 1979.
Graveyard clues
The story about the downed Kiowa was released to reporters at Khe Sanh on
March 10, 1971.
Army spokesmen maintained Burnett and Ard appeared dead to the two who
escaped. Bodenhorn's and Castillo's names were not released.
In 1989's declassified version, however, Bodenhorn and Castillo stated
Burnett and Ard were alive when they last saw them and had demanded a rescue
mission.
But no attempt was launched.
Why?
"Burnett had no mission nor units in Laos," Gen. Jock Sutherland told
reporters at Khe Sanh. "He had no reason or authority to take his helicopter
over the Laotian border."
A search of the wreckage 11 days later found no sign of Burnett, Ard or
their belongings -- nor anything to indicate they were buried in the area.
The Homecoming II Project and the POW Network concluded their 1990 report by
stating: "There can be no question that Randy Ard and Sheldon Burnett were
abandoned by the country they served."
Burnett and Ard remain among nearly 400 U.S. soldiers and airmen still
listed as MIA in Laos.
The only clues to Burnett's past, the only links to his family, are notes on
an index card and three names chiseled on a tombstone in West Point
Cemetery.
Two of the names are his son, Steven J., buried there in August 1973, and
his wife, Margaret, interred in October 1998.
"He's entitled to a plot by virtue of being a graduate," West Point Cemetery
Administrator Dan Landot said.
The third name is Col. Sheldon John Burnett. But he's not buried there
"He was never officially interred; he's buried by name only," Landot said.
"There are no remains. He's missing."
There's a fourth name on a 1998 index card in Landot's office -- Burnett's
daughter, Ms. Patricia Burnett of Windham, N.H.
Burnett is now more than a name to Arden -- he's a husband and a father who,
like her first husband, lives on in the memories of a daughter.
"The ultimate goal is to get this bracelet to where it belongs," she said.
"I think about my daughter, how much it would mean to her."
You can e-mail John Haughey at jhaughey@sun-herald.com.
By JOHN HAUGHEY
Staff Writer
========================
Article Last Updated: Monday, February 21, 2005 - 6:11:43 AM EST
Bittersweet homecoming
By DENNIS SHAUGHNESSEY, Sun Staff
DERRY, N.H. -- Trish Burnett was 6 years old and living in Pelham when her
family received news that her father, Lt. Col. Sheldon Burnett, was missing
in action in Vietnam after his helicopter was shot down over Laos in 1971.
"I don't remember much of it. I was very young," said Burnett, who is now 40
and lives in Derry. "It was more of a blow for all of us getting the news
that his remains have been positively identified. It was like finding out
for the first time."
On Friday, Burnett, along with her brother, Michael, and her sister, Leigh,
met with officials from the Department of Defense Joint POW/MIA Accounting
Command and went over the evidence that they say corresponds to the recorded
crash location of the OH-58A Kiowa Scout helicopter piloted by Warrant
Officer Randolph J. Ard on March 7, 1971.
Clothing and equipment, as well as biological evidence such as teeth and
bones, gave proof that the remains were those of her father.
Lt. Col. Burnett was 39 when he was called to his second tour of duty in the
Vietnam War. Details surrounding his disappearance, declassified by the Army
in 1989, reveal that Burnett was flying with three other soldiers when they
strayed into Laos and were ambushed at a fake landing site by a North
Vietnamese Army unit.
Two of the men escaped and told investigators they were ordered to leave the
site by the pilot, Ard, who had two broken legs. They reported that when
they left, Burnett was pinned beneath the wreckage.
The Army declared Burnett and Ard "officially dead," in 1979, although the
two soldiers who escaped, Capt. Philip Bodenhorn and SP4 Saturnio Castillo,
said Burnett and Ard were alive the last time they saw them.
The declassified report said they asked that a rescue mission be attempted.
None ever was.
According to Gen. Jock Sutherland, who spoke to reporters in Khe Sahn just
after the helicopter went down, Ard had no reason or authority to take his
helicopter over the Laotian border. The wreckage was found 11 days later,
but there was nothing at the site to indicate that the men were still in the
area.
In a 1990 report, The Homecoming II Project and the POW Network concluded
that Ard and Burnett "were abandoned by the country they served."
"There are witnesses, who are 70 years old now, who say that they were
killed by hand grenades while they waited for someone to come," he added.
"According to the Vietnamese, the place started to smell bad and they (the
North Vietnamese) ordered the bodies buried."
The Burnetts will have their father's remains interred in Arlington National
Cemetery, hopefully on March 7, the anniversary of his death. He was
posthumously promoted to colonel, and his designation on the Vietnam
Memorial in Washington, D.C., will be changed to "killed in action."
Burnett was a 1945 graduate of West Point and is entitled to be buried
there. In fact, a plot at West Point Cemetery bears Burnett's name, along
with the name of his wife, Margaret, who died in 1998, and his son, Steven
J., who died in a fire in 1973 at the age of 11. But the cemetery has a
two-vault limit.
Leigh Burnett, who was 14 at the time of the crash and now lives in
Charleston, S.C., said, "You always had a sense (that he was dead), but you
never had any proof so you always had hope.
"In essence, the day he died for me was the day I found out that his remains
had been identified."
The siblings gathered around Trish's kitchen table after the military
officials left and reminisced about their dad.
"He loved camping," Leigh said. "But for us kids, it was always like going
on maneuvers. I never enjoyed it."
Michael said it was his dad's memory that prompted him to join the Marine
Corps, where he served for eight years.
"It was a military family," he said. "Very strict and very disciplined. My
mom acted as kind of a buffer, fighting for me to let my hair grow and
things like that. But he was our dad, and we loved him and we miss him."
Trish remembers the least about their father, but she can recall not knowing
what to say to people who asked about her father.
"I always said he was missing in action," she said. "There were times when I
would hope he was still alive, but then I'd wonder if he was a prisoner. You
really didn't know what was better."
Dennis Shaughnessey's e-mail address is dshaughnessey@lowellsun.com .
=======================
March 1, 2005
National League of Families
POW/MIAs - VIETNAM WAR: There are now 1,836 Americans listed by the Defense
Department as missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War - 1,399 in
Vietnam, 375 in Laos, 55 in Cambodia and 7 in PRC territorial waters. The
League was informed today that the remains of four US personnel, previously
listed as KIA/BNR in South Vietnam have been recovered and identified. The
four Americans were all lost on May 10, 1967, and their remains were
recovered May 27, 2003, though identified late last year and accepted by
their families recently. Those now accounted for include 2LT Heinz
Ahlmeyer, USMC, of NY; HM3 Malcolm T. Miller, USN, of FL; LCpl Samuel A.
Sharp, USMC, of CA; and SGT James N. Tycz, USMC, of WI. In addition, the
League recently confirmed that COL Sheldon J. Burnett, USA, from NH, and CWO
(3) Randolph J. Ard, USA, both listed as MIA in Laos March 7, 1971 are now
accounted for. Their remains were jointly recovered October 4, 2004, and
recently identified. Still others have been ID'd, not yet announced by
DPMO, perhaps due to delays in scheduling ID consultations with the
primary-next-of-kin (PNOK). The reality is that PNOK no longer retain
decision-making capability before official ID, but the pretense has been
retained.
===========================
For one family, the search is over
Father, soldier was missing in action since 1971
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 04. 2005 8:00AM
By JOELLE FARRELL
Monitor staff
DANNY GAWLOWSKI Monitor staff Michael "Irish" Burnett holds a
portrait of his father, Col. Sheldon Burnett, who was declared MIA
after his helicopter crashed in Laos in 1971. Col. Burnett's
remains were recently found and will be buried at Arlington
Cemetery. "He served his time, but I wish he could have seen the
recent times," Michael Burnett said.
or 33 years, Michael "Irish" Burnett has had the same dream about his
father. The phone rings and it's an Army officer, telling him that Col.
Sheldon Burnett has finally been found in Southeast Asia and he's coming
home.
Burnett gathers the family, puts on his Marine Corps uniform and hurries to
the airport to meet his father's plane. Burnett watches as Col. Burnett
steps down, weathered and in uniform, the whole scene cast in black and
white, like the news reports of returning war prisoners Burnett had watched
when he was young.
Since his father went missing on March 7, 1971, Burnett has known he was
probably dead. The helicopter he was riding in had been shot down in Laos,
and the last Army officers to see him said he was badly wounded.
But Burnett, like his two sisters, did not let go of that last thread of
hope until February, when a military report detailing the excavation of Col.
Burnett's remains arrived. Col. Burnett and the 19-year-old helicopter pilot
had been shot to death by Vietcong soldiers within minutes of the crash.
They had been buried in shallow graves near the crash site.
For Michael Burnett and his sisters, Trish and Leigh, the report brought an
end to their uncertainty and an opportunity to grieve. But the evidence of
his death also silenced a small hope that has survived for decades: that
they might speak with their father again.
Col. Burnett's remains will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on
April 13, but the effect of the decades he was missing can still be seen in
his children, whose lives changed so dramatically while he was gone. Col.
Sheldon Burnett was born in Milwaukee in 1931 and graduated from the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point in 1954. He was ambitious and orderly, and he
expected the same of his children, his son said. Burnett remembers his
father castigating him for B grades on his report card. Col. Burnett would
tell him that it took only a nickel more worth of effort to be the best.
The family was living in Maryland in the fall of 1970 when Col. Burnett was
called to his second tour of duty in Vietnam. Although Col. Burnett was
replacing a man who had been killed, Burnett said his father was not afraid
to go back. Col. Burnett believed the situation in Vietnam was calming down,
and he figured a second tour in Vietnam would help him get promoted to
general sooner.
Col. Burnett's wife, Margaret, wanted the family to move to New England so
she could live nearer to relatives in Massachusetts. They bought a house in
Pelham, and Burnett and his father began working on the house that
September, a month before the rest of the family moved in. They slept in
sleeping bags on the floor, moving from room to room as they finished
painting the walls and fixing the wood trim.
The colonel's military work often kept him away from his family, and Burnett
said the month he spent alone with his father was the closest he'd ever felt
to him.
"It's almost like he was assigned to me for 30 days," said Burnett, who was
15 at the time. Before Col. Burnett left in October, Burnett said he began
to understand that his father was hard on him because he wanted him to be
ready to take responsibility for the family if he didn't return from
Vietnam.
'He's not coming home'
When two Army officers came to the door in March 1971, Burnett feared the
worst. He immediately took his sisters and younger brother, Steven, into the
lower level of the house. As his mother spoke with the officers, he tried to
keep the others entertained by playing pingpong with them.
When his mother finally called them up, Burnett was sure his father was
dead. But after she explained that their father was missing and not far from
the rest of his unit, they all felt sure he'd be found soon.
"We pretty much thought my dad was invincible," Burnett said.
Eleven days later, military officials said they had located the crash site
just over the Vietnamese border in Laos but had not found Col. Burnett. They
believed the men accidentally flew into Laos after misreading a smoke
signal, and the helicopter was shot down. Two officers, Capt. Philip
Bodenhorn and 2nd Lt. Saturnio Castillo Jr., escaped the crash and reported
that Col. Burnett was wounded and pinned in the wreckage. They pulled the
pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Randolph Ald, from the helicopter, but both his
legs were broken. Bodenhorn and Castillo said Ald and Col. Burnett told them
to leave them behind. Both Ald and Col. Burnett achieved their final rank
promotion after their deaths.
For the next four years, the Burnett family received no new information.
When the war wound down in 1975, Trish Burnett, who was only 6 when her
father disappeared, would watch the news and search for his face in the
groups of soldiers coming home.
"I thought he'd come home with the rest of the POWs," she said. "My mother
kept telling me, 'He's not coming off that plane. He's not coming home.'"
Another tragedy
When Col. Burnett was declared missing in action, the Army assigned a
casualty officer to the family.
Maj. Moses Jones was expected to help them with paperwork and other
practical matters. But a tragic accident drew Jones closer to the family.
In August 1973, 11-year-old Steven Burnett was killed when he and two
friends were playing with gasoline and matches. They had been pouring gas on
plastic army men and lighting them on fire. Fumes building up inside the gas
can exploded when a match was brought too close. Steven died late that night
at Shriners Burn Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
"My mom picked up the phone and called Moses Jones," Burnett said.
Jones, now 73 and living in Miami, choked up when he talked about Steven
last week. "It hurt a lot, it really did," he said. "He was a likeable boy,
mannerly and all of that."He added, "Mrs. Burnett took it very hard, and a
lot of my job then was to comfort her as much as possible."
He arranged to have Steven buried at the West Point Cemetery, typically
reserved for military only, a task that went beyond his duty to the family
as their casualty officer, Trish and Mike Burnett said.
"I felt responsible for them,"Jones said. "As children may need a father,
counseling or whatever, I jumped in."
Jones later told Burnett that he was a little nervous about assuming a more
paternal role with the family because he is black. But the family embraced
him.
Jones attended their graduations and weddings, and the children often called
him for advice.
Conflicting reports
As more of their father's files were declassified, the family found
conflicting reports. Soon after the war ended, Margaret Burnett hired an
attorney and pushed the government for more information. The military
released a report that said Col. Burnett had been seen walking down a
street, but the location was classified. Another said Col. Burnett's records
were found at a hospital near the crash site where American soldiers were
buried in mass graves.
None of the pieces fit together, and most of the report was blacked out. "I
didn't find anything I wanted to," Burnett said. "Why they were looking for
him, who saw him, why Laos."
Without proof of his death, the family could not begin a new life without
him.
"To everyone else, the war was over," said Leigh Burnett, who was 14 when
her father disappeared. "For us, it went on and on and on."
Their mother never remarried. "She wouldn't because to her, he wasn't dead,"
Trish Burnett said. After Steven died, she often drank by herself at night,
Mike Burnett said. Margaret Burnett died of complications from cirrhosis in
1998. She was 68 years old.
After her mother died, Trish Burnett took over going to yearly meetings held
by the National League of POW/MIA Families. Each year, she attended the June
meeting in Washington, D.C., and dug into her father's files, trying to
understand a man she hardly remembers.
Mike Burnett joined the Marine Corps rather than the Army after graduating
from Pelham High School in 1973 because he didn't trust the Army to bring
his body home if he died in combat. When he was stationed in Beirut in 1983
with the Second Marine Tank Battalion, he took risks in battle, figuring
he'd rather come home dead than be taken prisoner.
"There was no way I'd become MIA," he said. "I'm not going to let it happen
to me."
Closure
At the 2001 POW/MIA families meeting, Trish Burnett spoke with an Army
officer and managed to have her father's case reclassified as a higher
priority. That, along with improving relations between the United States,
Laos and Vietnam, helped speed up the investigation.
In 2002, Mike Burnett received a package from the U.S. Army that included
interviews with the Vietcong soldiers who had shot down his father's
helicopter.
Since then, the family has received more information about every six months,
Trish Burnett said.
The soldiers who shot down the helicopter showed American officials where
they had buried Ard and Col. Burnett, and the Army told the Burnett family
that the site would be excavated in September. In October, the Army asked
for DNA samples. In November, an Army officer called Trish: They had found
and positively identified Sheldon Burnett's teeth.
"Mike called right away," Jones said. "We both cried. I felt hurt because
I'm the type of person, I was still holding out hope that he'd still be
alive."
When the full report arrived in February, Mike Burnett could finally put to
rest the many theories he'd developed about his dad's fate.
"All these years, he's been dead," he said. "He died that day."
For Trish Burnett, the report brought her relief, but it also ended hope she
had held onto for so long.
"If they wouldn't have found him, I never would have to believe that he was
dead," she said.
"For his sake, he's were he should be," she said. "He's not lying in a
shallow grave anymore. I'll have a place to go."
Sheldon Burnett will be buried with full honors at Arlington National
Cemetery on April 13. His date of death with be etched into a head stone
made for him years ago at the West Point Cemetery, where his son and wife
are buried.
With Col. Burnett's case closed, only five troops from New Hampshire remain
unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. Nationwide, that number is 1,840.
Trish Burnett said she will continue to attend league meetings to support
families that are still searching.
"Just because my dad's back doesn't mean I should walk away from everyone
else," she said.