Air Commando helps search for American MIAs in Laos

During the Vietnam War, the United States military conducted both overt and covert missions in neighboring Laos and Cambodia. The covert missions included the "strategic bombing" which dropped more ordnance in Laos and Cambodia than was dropped during the entirety of World War II. The covert war was waged by the secretive MACV-SOG, which sent recon patrols deep behind enemy lines.

With many American service members still missing in action in South East Asia, the U.S. governmental organization charged with recovering MIAs called the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency), has a tough job working in the region. The terrain is mountainous, covered in jungle, and experiences high levels of yearly rainfall.

However, that didn't deter Air Force Tech. Sgt. Robert Hile from volunteering to help DPAA on one of their recovery missions to Laos last year. Hile is a EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) team leader with the 27th Special Operations Civil Engineering Squadron. DPAA was seeking out volunteers in Hile's career field because of the amount of unexploded ordnance still in Laos from the above-mentioned strategic bombing campaign. He jumped at the opportunity.

While the primary objective is to repatriate MIA service members, this often requires an EOD professional to render safe any unexploded bombs in the area they are working in. "It’s immediate gratification," Hile said . "Anything that’s explosive, you destroy it. It’s gone. You just saved someone’s life."

On this trip, the DPAA was investigating the crash site of a B-57 Canberra, a World War II-era bomber that was used mostly for night operations during the Vietnam War. In 1966, Col. Everett Kerr and Col. Charles Burkhart were piloting a B-57 on the way to a bombing mission in North Vietnam, when they crashed into a mountainside in Laos.

"We were digging holes 12 hours a day, moving and sifting through tons of dirt daily just to try to get to the remains," Hile explained . “And other days I’d swing my metal detector 12 hours a day, and any time it would hit for metal, we’d investigate. Any UXOs we found we’d take off to the side and blow up when we had time."

After weeks of digging around the crash site, the team recovered boots, uniform fragments, pilot's helmets, and a set of rosary beads which both Kerr and Burkhart were known to take with them on missions.

"I was talking to Col. Burkhart’s son; he’s a 65-year-old man now," Hile said. "His dad went to war and never came home. He never got a casket and never got to have that closure. We owe that to them, whether it’s Laos, Vietnam, Germany. We owe that to them."