SYNOPSIS:

SSGT Danny G. Taylor was the radio operator for Headquarters & Headquarters Company, 5th Special Forces. On September 28, 1966, he was part of a reconnaissance patrol operating in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam when the unit was fired upon by enemy forces.

The patrol returned fire for about ten minutes, and Taylor was observed to be firing as well. He then put the radio on his back and made an attempt to jump off some rocks, and was hit in the back by enemy fire.

Prior to leaving the area, members of the patrol checked Taylor and found no pulse or heartbeat. Because they were escaping under fire, they were forced to leave Taylor's body behind. Hostile forces prevented any subsequent searches for Taylor's body.

Danny G. Taylor is listed among the missing because his remains were never found to send home to the country he served. He died a tragically ironic death in the midst of war. But, for his family, the case seems clear that he died on that day. The fact that they have no body to bury with honor is not of great significance.

For other who are missing, however, the evidence leads not to death, but to survival. Since the war ended, nearly 10,000 reports received relating to Americans still held captive in Indochina have convinced experts that hundreds of men are still alive, waiting for their country to rescue them. The notion that Americans are dying without hope in the hands of a long-ago enemy belies the idea that we left Vietnam with honor. It also signals that tens of thousands of lost lives were a frivolous waste of our best men.

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 South East Asia.

If you'd like to see what some others are doing in addition to writing their congressmen, senators and the Whitehouse, visit "Operation Just Cause Member Links" to view a list if other MIA/POW web sites.