On November 4, 2002, Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Lieutenant Commander Alexander John Palenscar III, missing from the Vietnam War.

Lieutenant Commander Palenscar entered the U.S. Navy from New York and was a member of Attack Squadron 112, Carrier Air Wing 11. On March 27, 1967, he piloted an A-4C Skyhawk (bureau number 148519, call sign "Montana 415") that launched from the USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) on a strike mission against an enemy bridge target in North Vietnam. During the mission, the aircraft crashed for unknown reasons, killing LCDR Palenscar. Search efforts failed to locate a crash site or wreckage, and his remains were not recovered at the time. In 1996, information obtained from the Vietnamese government led investigators to excavate a crash site in Nghe An Province where they recovered artifacts and human remains correlating to this loss; in 2002, they were able to identify LCDR Palenscar from these remains.

Lieutenant Commander Palenscar is memorialized in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

If you are a family member of this serviceman, you may contact your casualty office representative to learn more about your service member.