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## News Release

# Vietnam War Missing In Action Servicemen Identified (Burnett)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of two U.S. Army officers, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have beenidentified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

They are Colonel Sheldon J. Burnett of Pelham, N.H. and Warrant Officer Randolph J.Ard of West Pensacola, Fla. Burnett is to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery onWednesday. Ard was buried last month in Alabama.

On March 7, 1971, Ard flew his OH-58A Kiowa helicopter from South Vietnam totransport three passengers, including Burnett, to an area on the Vietnam- Laos border. As thehelicopter approached a landing zone, it was hit by enemy antiaircraft fire and crashed inSavannakhet Province, Laos. Two of the passengers survived the crash and evaded capture asenemy forces attacked. When they reached friendly lines, the two reported that Burnett and Ardwere still alive but badly injured.

After 11 days of heavy resistance, South Vietnamese ground forces reached the crash sitebut found no trace of the missing men or any graves.

Between 1989 and 1996, joint U.S.-Lao teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA AccountingCommand (JPAC) conducted five separate field investigations which met with negative results.Then in 2002, U.S. specialists interviewed four former North Vietnamese soldiers, three ofwhich had seen the bodies of the two unaccounted-for U.S. officers. The fourth soldier haddrawn a sketch of the area shortly after the incident and all volunteered to assist U.S.investigators in Laos.

In 2003, the four Vietnamese witnesses and local Lao villagers guided the team to thecrash site in Laos where they found some aircraft wreckage but no human remains. Then inAug.-Sept. 2004, JPAC and Lao specialists excavated the crash site and two nearby graves wherethey found human remains, U.S. military clothing and personal effects, including Ard’sidentification tag.

After extensive analysis of the remains and teeth recovered during the excavation, JPACscientists identified both Ard and Burnett.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,836 are from the VietnamWar, with 375 of those within the country of Laos. Another 747 Americans have been accountedfor since the end of the Vietnam War.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missingAmericans, visit the DPMO web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo, or call 703-699-1169.

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