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Airman Missing In
Action From The Vietnam War Is Identified
The Department of
Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO)
announced today that the remains of a U.S.
serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War,
have been identified and will be returned to his
family for burial with full military honors.
He is Capt. Stephen A. Rusch, U.S.
Air Force, of Lambertville, N.J. He will be buried
on Nov. 30 at Arlington National Cemetery near
Washington, D.C.
On March 7, 1972, Rusch was the
weapons systems officer in an F-4E Phantom II
aircraft attacking enemy targets in Salavan
Province, Laos. The plane was the number two
aircraft in a flight of two. When Rusch's aircraft
was cleared to begin its second run over enemy
targets, the flight leader of the number one
aircraft lost sight of Rusch's plane and observed
enemy ground fire followed by a large explosion. An
immediate search was begun, but all attempts to
establish radio contact and later search efforts
were unsuccessful.
In 1995, a joint U.S./Lao People's
Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team, led by the
Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC),
investigated the incident and interviewed several
Laotian citizens. The team surveyed the crash site
identified by one of the citizens and found aircraft
wreckage.
In 2001, a U.S. citizen, acting as an
intermediary for a Laotian citizen, turned over to
U.S. officials a bone fragment and a photocopy of
Rusch's military identification tag. The bone
fragment proved not to be from Capt. Rusch.
In 2002-2003, joint teams conducted
two excavations of the crash site. The teams
recovered human remains and non-biological evidence
including U.S. coins and life support equipment.
Among other
forensic identification tools and circumstantial
evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces
DNA Identification Laboratory also used
mitochondrial DNA and dental comparisons in the
identification of the remains.
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