| The Incident
In Vietnam, SP4 Michael P.
Burns and Capt. Dennis P. Neal were assigned through the 5th
Special Forces to MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam
Studies and Observation Group). MACV-SOG was a joint service high
command unconventional warfare task force engaged in highly
classified operations throughout Southeast Asia. The 5th Special
Forces channeled personnel into MACV-SOG (although it was not a
Special Forces group) through Special Operations Augmentation
(SOA), which provided their "cover" while under secret orders to
MACV-SOG. The teams performed deep penetration missions of
strategic reconnaissance and interdiction which were called,
depending on the time frame, "Shining Brass" or "Prairie Fire"
missions.
On 31 July 1969, Capt. Neal was
the team leader on a reconnaissance mission with a six-man patrol
just inside Laos due west of the South Vietnam city of Hue. The
team had completed its mission and were awaiting extraction along
with 4 indigenous team members. It was at this time that one of
the indigenous opened fire on 5 enemy personnel trying to crawl
up to their position. The enemy signalled and the result was
heavy enemy fire, including B40 rocket and machine gun fire. A
B40 rocket hit their position, killing Capt. Neal and SP4 Burns
and two of the four indigenous. The other two indigenous team
members were slightly wounded. Neal had been wounded in the
chest.
Burns was also severely wounded
in the head by the same B-40 rocket blast, and was last seen
lying on his back, possibly dead, by Pan and Comen, the surviving
commandos.
When Pan and Comen turned Neal
over to take off one of his emergency UHF radios prior to
retreating because of wounds and intense fire, forward air
control aircraft heard an emergency radio transmit, "Help, help,
help, for God's sake, help."
The two commandos were
ultimately extracted, and search teams were later dispatched to
the area, but no trace was found of Neal and Burns. When all
details were compared, both from the surviving commandos and the
FAC aircraft, it could not be determined that Burns and Neal had,
in fact, died. The two were classfied Missing In
Action.
For every insertion like Neal
and Burns' that were detected and stopped, dozens of other
commando teams safely slipped past NVA lines to strike a wide
range of targets and collect vital information. The number of
MACV-SOG missions conducted with Special Forces reconnaissance
teams into Laos and Cambodia was 452 in 1969. It was the most
sustained American campaign of raiding, sabotage and
intelligence-gathering waged on foreign soil in U.S. military
history. MACV-SOG's teams earned a global reputation as one of
the most combat effective deep-penetration forces ever
raised.
The missions Neal, Burns and
others were assigned were exceedingly dangerous and of strategic
importance. The men who were put into such situations knew the
chances of their recovery if captured was slim to none. They
quite naturally assumed that their freedom would come by the end
of the war. For 591 Americans, freedom did come at the end of the
war. For another 2500, however, freedom has never
come.
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