Airman missing from Vietnam War identified

  • Published
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  The Department of Defense POW/MIA Personnel Office announced June 29 that the remains of an Airman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial.

Lt. Col. Darel Leetun of Hettinger, N.D., will be buried with full military honors July 8 at Arlington National Cemetery.

On Sept. 17, 1966, Colonel Leetun led a bombing mission over Lang Son Province, North Vietnam, when his F-105D Thunderchief aircraft was hit by enemy fire. Other pilots in the flight observed the aircraft crash, but did not receive emergency signals nor observe a parachute.

Vietnamese and U.S. specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command conducted three investigations between 1991 and 1995 as they sought information on Colonel Leetun's crash site. During one of the investigations, Vietnamese villagers led investigators to a hillside location where human remains were found. Additional site investigations in 1999 and 2004 respectively yielded no new evidence.

JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains as those of Colonel Leetun.

Of those Americans unaccounted for from all conflicts, 1,833 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,397 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 750 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of the Americans identified, 524 are from within Vietnam.

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