| Erwin man's DNA may solve
brother's wartime mystery
04/01/03
By Jerry Hilliard -- Associate Editor
A Federal Express truck pulled
away from the Erwin home of Dave and Maggie Rittichier in
mid-March with a small but valuable parcel. Inside were two tubes
of blood that may help bring closure to a heartbreaking saga that
began nearly 35 years ago.
The samples of Dave's blood
will be used by the military in DNA testing to positively
identify the remains of his brother, a war hero killed in the
jungles of South Vietnam.
On June 9, 1968, Lt. Jack
Rittichier was piloting a rescue helicopter that was hit by enemy
fire and erupted into a ball of flame 37 miles west of the
Vietnamese city of Hue. The exact location of the downed
helicopter eluded searchers through the decades that followed
— until last fall.
In the years between, Jack
Rittichier's name became legendary, as he was the first member of
the U.S. Coast Guard and its only flier to have died in the
Vietnam War. By some estimates, thousands of Americans have worn
POW/MIA bracelets bearing his name.
According to a 1968 Coast Guard
news release, Rittichier was one of the first group of helicopter
pilots from that branch of the service chosen for exchange duty
with the U.S. Air Force. Before that, he already had been awarded
an Air Medal for his role in rescuing eight stranded men from a
German vessel during a snowstorm on Lake Huron.
Within two weeks of arriving in
Vietnam, he earned a Distinguished Flying Cross as co-pilot in a
mission through heavy ground fire in which four crew members of a
U.S. Army helicopter were rescued. Shortly thereafter, he
received a second Distinguished Flying Cross for piloting his
rescue craft through mountainous terrain to save the lives of
nine survivors of another downed chopper.
The Web site of the nonprofit
P.O.W. Network gives the following account of the incident that
claimed Rittichier’s life:
"A downed Marine Corps fighter
pilot lay on the ground with a broken arm and leg. To his
misfortune he had parachuted into a North Vietnamese Army bivouac
area. The enemy used him for bait to lure rescue helicopters
within killing range.
"Air strikes pounded the site
around the survivor. The first helicopter made three attempts to
reach the Marine before breaking off to refuel. Lieutenant
Rittichier dived his aircraft in for the pickup. Heavy fire,
however, drove him away.
"He swung around to let the
gunships sweep the terrain and then followed them back into the
area.
As he hovered over the pilot,
bullets punched his aircraft and set it afire. He tried to pull
away, but his aircraft would not respond.
"The helicopter settled to the
ground and exploded, Within 30 seconds a ball of fire consumed
the aircraft."
For nearly 35 years,
Rittichier's name remained among the nearly 2,000 names of
Americans unaccounted for in the Vietnam War.
"We had been receiving
correspondence for a few years from the military saying that they
were doing searches," said Maggie Rittichier, who has handled
most of the correspondence and phone calls concerning the
brother-in-law she never had a chance to meet. "We didn't think a
whole lot would come from it."
All that changed late last
year, however, when the family received word that the crash site
apparently had been found.
"They seem 99.9 percent
positive that they recovered what was left of his helicopter,"
Mrs. Rittichier said. Besides portions of the craft, one of those
called "Jolly Green Giants," a painstaking search of the site
turned up bones fragments, pieces of boots and other
items.
The remains were flown in
February to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, where a ceremony has
held in honor of Rittichier and three members of the Air Force
who accompanied him on the rescue mission.
They then were taken to the
U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, where the
lengthy process of making positive identification is
underway.
The lab will use the blood
samples to determine if Dave Rittichier's DNA matches that of any
of the bones found at the crash site.
Similar testing is being
employed to identify the other crew members' remains.
"I hope this will help get some
closure," he said, "if not on Jack, on the others who went down
with him."
article © the erwin register and is used with permission
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