Our Adopted "Friend"

This is the information
I recieved on our "Adopted Friend",
Robert Elwood Bennett III
Please take a few minutes to read
about him, and say a prayer that he made it
"Home".
Only God Knows for sure,
but I feel he is in Heaven,
with all the others who have
fought the good fight.

Name: Robert Elwood Bennett III
Rank/Branch: O2/US Air Force
Unit: 558th Tactical Fighter Squadron
Date of Birth: 08 December 1942
Home City of Record: Springfield NJ
Date of Loss: 13 December 1967
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 100200N 1061857E (XS431091)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 3
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4C

Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 March 1991 from
one or more of the following:
raw data from U.S. Government agency sources,
correspondence with POW/MIA families,
published sources, interviews.
Copyright 1991 Homecoming II Project.

REMARKS:
PARACHUTED IN RIVER AND SANK

SYNOPSIS:
The Phantom, used by Air Force,
Marine and Navy air wings, served a multitude
of functions including fighter-bomber and interceptor,
photo and electronic surveillance.
The two man aircraft was extremely fast (Mach 2),
and had a long range
(900 - 2300 miles, depending on stores and mission type).
The F4 was also extremely maneuverable and handled well
at low and high altitudes.
Most pilots considered it one of the "hottest" planes around.
1Lt. Robert E. Bennett III was the pilot of an F4C aircraft
which was assigned a close air support mission in
South Vietnam on December 13, 1967.
His aircraft, the number two plane in a flight of two,
had delivered its ordnance and the crewmembers
were instructed to drop the canisters in a river.
They acknowledged the transmission and immediately
thereafter they were seen to eject with good parachutes.
(There is no indication in public records why the crew ejected.)

Bennett and his Bombardier/Navigator landed in a river
(from coordinates, probably the Song Co Chien river,
a large body of water separating Vinh Binh and
Kien Hoa Provinces on the southern coast of Vietnam).
According to Air Force records, one crewman was
rescued uninjured, and he was the pilot of the aircraft.
Defense Department records indicate that Bennett
was the pilot of the aircraft.
Bennett's parachute sank before rescue
personnel could reach him.

Since the war ended in Vietnam, refugees have flooded
the world, bringing with them stories of American soldiers
still held prisoner in their homeland.
Many authorities now believe that hundreds were left
behind as living hostages.

Robert E. Bennett apparently did not survive the
events of December 13, 1967.
His family has accepted that he is dead.
They no longer expect him to come home someday.
But hundreds of families wait expectantly and in the
special agony only uncertainty can bring.
Hundreds of men wait in caves, cages and prisons.
How much longer will we allow the abandonment of
our best men? It's time we brought them home.
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to
keep pushing this issue inside the Beltway...
The need to get specific answers is more important now
than ever before. If still alive, some MIAs are now
in their 70s...They don't have much time left.
We have to demand the answers from the bureaucrats
and keep standing on their necks (figuratively speaking)
until they get the message that THEY
work for US and that we are serious about getting
these long overdue responses. Diplomatic considerations
aside... We can no longer allow questionable protocols
established by pseudo-aristocratic armchair strategists,
to determine or influence the fate of the men who were in the
trenches while the diplomats were sharing sherry and
canapes and talking about "Their Plans"
for the future of SE Asia.

If you'd like to see what some others are doing in
addition to writing their congressmen, senators and the
Whitehouse, check out some of these sites:
http://hawk.nji.com/~mred/mialist.htm
Another remarkable site is by an 11 year old angel
who never even set foot on American soil...
She not only put up a page...she started a major project
for an organization of Kids on the Net called
KeyPals International. Her MIA page is at
http://geocities.datacellar.net/~angelicdevil/mia.html
but don't miss her Bring Grandpa Home page at
http://www.worldkids.net/clubs/kci/projects/Bring.html.
If you come away from that site without a lump in your throat,
then you just weren't paying attention.
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