She has contacted his sister, Helen, and has done
an
outstanding job of helping to relieve
the sorrow and pain after
all these years. I personally want
to thank you, my Indiana
sweetheart, for the wonderful gesture.
MUSIC
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS
SP4 Charles Elbert Beals
   
This webpage is dedicated to all
MIA/POWs but especially
to my Indiana brother, SP4 Charles
Elbert Beals, U.S. Army.
 
God Bless you, my Indiana brother,
and all the MIA/POW brothers

Name: Charles Elbert Beals
Rank/Branch: SP4 - US Army
Unit: Company D, 2nd Battalion,
506th Infantry,
101st Airborne Division
Date of Birth: 27 September
1949 (Union City IN)
Home City of Record: French
Lick IN
Date of Loss: 07 July 1970
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 162643N
107114E (YD335193)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body
Not Recovered
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground:
Ground
Other Personnel in Incident:
Lewis Howard (missing) |
 |
SP4 Lewis Howard
   
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: On July 7, 1970,
SP4
Lewis Howard, point man, and SP4 Charles
E. Beals, assistant machine
gunner, were members of Company D, 2nd
Battalion,506th Infantry when their
platoon was engaged in a fire fight in South
Vietnam.Their position at that
time was in
Thua Thien Province, near the border
of Quang Tri Province near
the border of Quang TriProvince
to the north.As the platoon was advancing
uphill on a suspected
enemy location, an unknown enemy force fired
at least
rocket-propelled grenades (RPG)
at the point element. The
platoon leader saw that Howard
was hit by the first round.
Beals was wounded in the
leg when the enemy first opened |
 |
fire, however, before he could be moved
to cover, he was hit by at least 3
rounds of machine gun fire in the
back and the neck. Attempts to maneuver up
to the point position to retrieve
Beals
and
Howard met with heavy enemy
attack, and the rest of the platoon
were forced to withdraw, leaving the two
men behind. After 6 hours, the
enemy was still firing machine gun and rifle fire
over the area. The intense enemy
fire made any further attempts to recover
Beals
and
Howard impossible,
and the platoon withdrew from the area.
Beals was thought to be
dead because of the number of rounds that hit him.
He was classified Killed in
Action, Body Not Recovered. The extent of
Howard's wounds were unknown,
and he was classified
Missing In Action.
There is a strong probability that
the enemy knows the fate of both men. If they
survived, it is very likely that
they were captured. Nearly 2500 Americans remain
missing, prisoner or unaccounted
for from the Vietnam war. Since American
involvement in the war ended in
1975, almost 10,000 reports have been received
by the U.S. Government relating
to the missing. Most authorities believe there
are hundreds of them still alive.
Whether
Beals andHoward
survived to be
captured that day in July 1970
is not known. What seems certain, however, is
that we must bring home any Americans
beingheld against their will. 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" forthe 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 |