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## News Release

# Soldiers Missing From Vietnam War Identified (Brown, Shue, Wald) 

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of three U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, were recentlyidentified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Army Sgt. 1st Class William T. Brown, 24, of La Habra, Calif., Sgt. 1st Class Donald M. Shue, 20,of Kannapolis, N.C., and Sgt. 1st Class Gunther H. Wald, 25, of Palisades Park, N.J., will beburied as a group on Aug. 30, in a single casket representing the three soldiers, in ArlingtonNational Cemetery near Washington, D.C. Brown and Shue were each individually buried onSept. 26, 2011, at Arlington and May 1 in Kannapolis, N.C.

On Nov. 3, 1969, the men and six Vietnamese soldiers were part of a Special Forcesreconnaissance patrol operating in Quang Tri Province, near the Vietnam-Laos border. The patrolwas ambushed by enemy forces and all three Americans were wounded. Brown was reported tohave suffered a gunshot wound to his side. Due to heavy enemy presence and poor weatherconditions the search-and-rescue team was not able to reach the site until eight days later. At thattime, they found military equipment belonging to Shue, but no other signs of the men.

Between 1993 and 2010, joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led bythe Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted multiple interviews on ninedifferent occasions in Quang Tri Province. Additionally, the S.R.V. unilaterally investigated thiscase, but was unable to develop new leads. Among those interviewed by the joint teams wereformer Vietnamese militiamen who claimed in 1969 they ambushed three Americans in the areanear the Laos-Vietnam border. In 2007, a Vietnamese citizen led investigators to human remainsthat he had discovered and buried near the site of the ambush. In 2008, a military identificationtag for Brown was turned over to the U.S. Government from a U.S. citizen with ties to Vietnam.Finally, in April 2010, joint teams excavated a hilltop area near Huong Lap Village, recoveringadditional human remains, and military equipment, another military identification tag for Brown,and a “Zippo” lighter bearing the name ”Donald M. Shue” and the date “1969.”

Scientists from the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory usedcircumstantial and material evidence, along with mitochondrial DNA—which matched that ofsome of the soldiers’ family members—in the identification of the remains.

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

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