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## News Release

# Air Force Officer MIA From Vietnam War Is Identified (Hartness)

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 are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Air Force Colonel Gregg Hartness of Dallas, Tex. He is to be buried in ArlingtonNational Cemetery near Washington, D.C., on Sept. 14.

On Nov. 26, 1968, Hartness and lst Lt. Allen S. Shepherd, III, took off from Da Nang airbase in South Vietnam, on a forward air control mission. While flying over Salavan Province inLaos, their O-2A Skymaster was apparently struck by enemy fire and began to spin out ofcontrol. Lt. Shepherd bailed out and was rescued by an Air Force search and rescue team aboutnine hours later. He did not see Hartness bail out.

About 30 minutes after that rescue, the airborne team located the crash site of Hartnessand Shepherd’s aircraft about 200 meters south of the rescue pickup point. The aircraft had beenburning, but no contact with Hartness could be established. Enemy forces in the area precludedfurther rescue attempts, and electronic searches of the loss location detected no signals from thelost aircraft or pilot.

Between 1993 and 2003, joint U.S.-Lao investigators interviewed more than 60 witnessesin 39 different settlements in Laos before selecting a site for excavation. In January andFebruary of 2005, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Comma nd, with assistance from the Laogovernment, excavated a site in Salavan Province. They recovered human remains, aircraftwreckage, life support equipment and personal effects.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing from all conflicts, 1,815 are from the Vietnam War,with 372 of those within the country of Laos. Another 756 Americans have been accounted for inSoutheast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of those, 197 are from losses in Laos.

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

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