I.D. DISPUTED See 3 stories below.APODACA, VICTOR JOE JR.
Name: Victor Joe Apodaca, Jr. Rank/Branch: O3/USAF Unit: 389th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 366 TFW Danang, South Vietnam Date of Birth: 31 May 1937 Home City of Record: Englewood CO Date of Loss: 08 June 1967 Country of Loss: North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 173900N 1061600E (XE343517) Status (in 1973): Missing In Action Category: 2 Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4C
Other Personnel in Incident: Jon T. Busch (remains returned) Refno: 0727
REMARKS: POSS DEAD FIR 3170909973
Source: Compiled from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK in 2007 with information from the National Alliance of Families.
SYNOPSIS: On the evening of June 8, 1967, two F4C Phantom planes departed Da Nang Airbase on an armed reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam. Hambone 1 took the lead, followed about a mile behind by Hambone 2, commanded by Capt. Victor Apodaca, Jr. and flown by Capt. Jon T. Busch. The two aircraft were flying at an altitude of about 4500 feet over a river valley with rolling to mountainous terrain about 22 miles northeast of Dong Hoi, North Vietnam.
Hambone 1 radioed Hambone 2 that he was encountering heavy and accurate ground fire. Fifteen seconds later, Apodaca acknowledged the warning and reported that his aircraft had been hit. Hambone 1 advised Apodaca to exit the area and head for the coast (where a safer at-sea rescue could occur). Moments later, Hambone 2 reported that it was experiencing control and hydraulics problems. The last message from Hambone 2 gave the direction of the aircraft and its altitude, which was 16,000 feet.
Seconds later, emergency signals were received for about 25 seconds, but it was not possible to determine whether one or two radio signals were broadcasting, nor could the precise point of origination be determined. Hambone 1, critically low on fuel, was forced to return to base.
An electronic search was conducted, but suspended due to darkness, bad weather and heavy anti-aircraft fire. During the search, no electronic or visual contact was made and no evidence of the aircraft was found.
The Air Force told the families they could not determine whether or not the men survived. Neither man was among the prisoners released in 1973 from Vietnam, and the Hanoi government denies any knowledge of them for 20 years.
On November 12, 1973, a refugee reported the death of an American airman which occurred in Bo Trach District, Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam at about 1500 hours one day in June 1967. According to the report, a U.S. F4 jet flying with about five other jets bombing a bridge on Route 1A was hit by 37mm anti-aircraft fire, crashed into Doi Troc Hill in Chanh Hoa II village. The source further stated that an airman bailed out and landed in a forest near the same village. At about 1530 hours, the refugee went to where the airman landed and saw his body lying in the grass. He was told by villagers that approximately 10 minutes after the airman had landed, militiamen from the village found him hiding in a bamboo thicket and captured him. The villagers then watched as the militiamen beat the American to death with hoes and bamboo sticks.
The refugee said he observed the dead American for about 10 minutes from a distance of about 5 meters. He described the airman as a caucasian, about 45 years old, 5' 11" tall, weighing about 220 pounds with fair complexion, short blonde hair, a moustache about one centimeter long and a heavy beard. He was unable to identify the airman from photos of the missing. JCRC correlated the report to the Busch/Apodaca incident.
In the spring of 1988, remains identified as Jon Busch, a burned map, three pieces of bone (which were identified as non-human by a Vietnamese anthropologist) and a charred and battered nameplate bearing Apodaca's name were returned to Presidential Envoy General John Vessey.
Busch's remains were positively identified by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, based largely on the correlation of the refugee report, which evidently matched information given over by the Vietnamese with the remains. The status of "Box 19", which purportedly hold the effects of Victor Apodaca Jr, are still unknown to his family.
There are serious discrepancies in the refugee report as it relates to Busch and Apodaca. Jon Busch has red hair, not blonde. Vic Apodaca has black hair. Both men were clean shaven, and were forbidden by the Air Force to grow a beard. The Hambone flight departed at 5 p.m. in the evening, while the CIA report claimed the airman was killed at 3:30 p.m. just following his landing. The Hambone flight, while armed, was not involved in a bombing mission at all. Jon Busch was declared dead in 1967. Victor Apodaca was declared dead three days after the CIA received the refugee report.
The Apodaca family was never given the report by the U.S. Government. They discovered the report through a Freedom of Information Act request they filed in 1985. To many observers, there is a serious problem with the identification of these remains. Many will retain Jon Busch on the lists of missing because the discrepancies are too outrageous to make the correlation possible.
Jon Busch and Vic Apodaca are two of nearly 2500 Americans who were declared missing in Southeast Asia. Thousands of reports add to the evidence that perhaps hundreds of them are still held prisoner of war. Perhaps Jon and Vic died on the day of the crash of their aircraft. But, perhaps they did not. If the remains returned are not Jon Busch's, who will be looking for him? Not the U.S. Government. His case is officially closed. Vic Apodaca's family wants the truth. His sister Dolores says, "I won't just let them bury his memory based on some report with that many discrepancies. It's been 22 years, but none of us are so tired that we'll drop this without a fight."
Victor Joe Apodaca, Jr. was appointed to the Air Force Academy in 1957. He was the first Spanish/American/Navajo Indian to attend the Academy.
Victor's sister, Dolores Alfond, heads the national organzation out of Washington State, the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen.
{National Alliance of Families}
CIL-HI TURNS ANIMAL BONES TO HUMAN
Remains currently under consideration for designation as Air Force Capt. Victor J. Apodaca have a questionable history. In 1988, the Vietnamese unilaterally repatriated remains designated Victor Apodaca.
In April of 1989, the Vietnamese, once again, repatriated remains designated Victor Apodaca.
The Comprehensive Case Review, prepared by the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) in 1995, referenced both remains repatriations. Of the 1988 repatriation, DPMO states "SRV unilaterally repatriated remains of Busch (backseater), plus box alleged to contain Apodaca remains. Also turned over at the time was a mutilated dogtag of Apodaca and a map. SRV forewarned U.S. that Apodaca remains were believed to be non-human. Busch remains were identified; CIL-HI confirmed that Apodaca remains were non-human."
Of the 1989 repatriation, DPMO stated "unilateral repatriation included container alleged to contain Apodaca remains SRV said remains were acquired for HCM City (Ho Chi Minh City) smuggler by Public Security. Remains determined to be human race undetermined. Nothing else. Remains held at CIL pending future repatriations. No indication why SRV associated remains with Apodaca."
"Remains determine to be be human, race undetermined"; was not what the Commander of the Joint Casualty Resolution Center said. According to message traffic, dated September 22, 1989, the Commander of JCRC stated:
APODACA, VICTORY J. JR; 0727; QUANG BINH: RECOVERED FROM REMAINS DEALERS. REPATRIATED TO THE U.S. TWICE WITH DOG TAG. THE U.S. SIDE REPORTS THE REMAINS WERE ANIMAL BONES.
Animal bones in 1989... Human bones in 1995.... Tested for an mt-DNA match in 1997....
No explanation has been offered to the Apodaca family regarding the transformation of animal bones to human bones.
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Associated Press Newswires Thursday, June 7, 2001
DNA match ends questions for man who lost father in Vietnam By MATT EHLERS
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) - Victor Apodaca III removed a small piece of metal from a bag and held it between his thumb and forefinger. Stamped with the name of Apodaca's father, the dog tag is a tangible link to a man he barely remembers.
U.S. Air Force Capt. Victor Apodaca Jr. was shot down over Vietnam on June 8, 1967. Apodaca was 5 years old at the time.
The memories he carries of his father are everyday ones - his dad teaching him to tie his shoes, rolling together in the Colorado snow. But that's where the memories stop. The thoughts after that turn to questions.
He often wondered about his father's fate. Did he suffer in a POW camp? Did the crash kill him instantly?
"If you don't see a body," he said, "how do you know?"
Now he does. A few weeks ago, a representative from the Air Force Mortuary Affairs office came to Tuscaloosa to share the results of a DNA test with Apodaca and his wife Cindy.
The man brought with him a binder filled with information on his father's case. Several hundred pages long, the report chronicled the decades-long investigation into what happened that June evening.
Inside those pages was the answer the Apodaca family had longed for. Several bone fragments turned over by the Vietnamese government in the late 1980s were matched to the fighter pilot.
Almost 34 years after the plane went down, Victor Apodaca Jr. will be laid to rest in September.
For Apodaca, the findings helped remove a burden he has carried nearly his entire life. "It's a relief," he said.
The long journey to the DNA match was filled with instances of renewed hope, partnered with dashed expectations.
Apodaca's brother, Robert, said that as late the early 1980s, there were reports their father might be alive. "It tears at you. You have to have hope," said Robert, who lives near Orlando, Fla.
But each time the family thought there was progress being made, it was taken away from them.
In 1988 the Vietnamese government turned over a set of remains that the family thought could have been his. Bone fragments, together with some maps and the dog tag, led American officials to take a closer look.
The bones were later to found to be non-human. Three more golf ball-sized bone fragments were repatriated in 1989, but the technology wasn't available to test them.
It wasn't until 1999 that the U.S. government asked for a blood sample to help in a possible DNA match. Apodaca's uncle, his father's younger brother, provided the blood.
"It's been quite a roller coaster trip over the past several decades," Robert Apodaca said.
With the investigation finally concluded, "it's just so emotional. It's kind of like you're experiencing it for the first time."
Apodaca's father will be buried in his home state of Colorado.
A reunion in September will celebrate the 40th reunion of his graduating class from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Internment ceremonies will be held, and the brothers will bury their father, who was posthumously given the rank of major.
Apodaca said he expects the ceremony to bring with it another round of closure. Off and on when he was a child - and constantly as an adult - Apodaca has worn a silver POW/MIA bracelet that bears his father's name.
And when he is laid to rest, the bracelet will be too, said Apodaca, wiping away a tear.
"I'll probably bury it with him."
=============================== National Alliance of Families June 30, 2001 Bits N Pieces
From The Sisters of Major Victor Apodaca - Some of you may have seen a recent article, circulated by email, discussing the identification of remains as our brother, Major Victor Apodaca. On May 15th, our nephew, as primary next of kin, accepted remains, purported to be Victor's. His sisters, Dolores Apodaca Alfond, Eleanor Apodaca, Joyce Apodaca, and Janella Apodaca Rose, our children, and grandchildren have not accepted this identification. The so-called evidence used to support the government's identification, is no more than the word of a Vietnamese remains trader. There is no other evidence and the government admits this.
The following is a Letter to the Editor, of the Tuscaloosa newspaper, in response to their article: "We read your article titled "Finally at Rest: DNA match helps Tuscaloosa man redeem memories of father who died in Vietnam" by Matt Ehlers with great interest. Unfortunately, Mr. Ehlers article was sorely lacking in some major facts.
We strongly question the identification of three small bones as the remains of our brother, Victor J. Apodaca, Jr., based on the following facts:
The remains were seized from a remains trader, many miles from the loss location.
No evidence exists to associate these remains to the Apodaca crash site.
In spite of best efforts JTF-FA recovered no personal effects or human remains from the crash site.
There is no chain of custody for the remains.
FBI testing could not confirm the authenticity of the dog tag, which may, in fact, be fake.
No evidence exists to associate dog tag to crash site.
No evidence exists to associate the dog tag to the remains subjected to mt-DNA testing.
No evidence exists to suggest these remains are those Victor J. Apodaca Jr.
By Oct. 2000, the bone and the Apodaca blood sample matched 5 others in the mt-DNA database.
CILHI, AFDIL and Mortuary are using mt-DNA as the primary or sole means of identification, in this case, violating their stated policy.
We have no closure because we have no truth. All we have are more questions.
The Sisters of Major Victor J. Apodaca, Jr. Dolores Apodaca Alfond Eleanor Apodaca Joyce Apodaca Janella Apodaca Rose
========================== UPDATE LINE: June 29, 2001 Thank you for calling the National League of Families Update Line.
This message is being recorded Friday, June 29th. According to the Department of Defense, the number of Americans missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War is 1,973.
On June 20th, the League was informed that six Americans were recently accounted for. David W. Morrill and Maxim C. Parker, both USMC, were jointly recovered in South Vietnam June 9, 1993.
The remains of Victor J. Apodaca, Jr., USAF, were repatriated April 27, 1989.
The November 14, 1991 joint recovery of the remains of Harry A. Amesbury, Jr., USAF, brought an accepted identification.
And, the remains of Harley B. Pyles, USAF, and Winfield Wade Sisson, USMC, were jointly recovered in South Vietnam on April 8, 1993.
The accounting for these six US personnel brings the number now missing and unaccounted for in Vietnam to 1,481, with 417 in Laos, 67 in Cambodia and 8 in the territorial waters of the PRC. Over 90% of the 1,973 Americans still missing from the Vietnam War were lost in areas under Vietnam's wartime control.
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Attack Delays Return of Vet's Remains Updated: Sun, Sep 16 2:20 PM EDT
AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) - It took 34 years for the remains of an Air Force pilot shot down in Vietnam to be returned to the Air Force Academy, and the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington caused more of a delay. The remains of Maj. Victor Apodaca Jr., a 1961 academy graduate, were identified at the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, and his family decided to hold a memorial at the academy this weekend because it was the 40th reunion of Apodaca's class. One of his sons, Robert Apodaca of Orlando, Fla., brought the remains from Hawaii on a commercial flight, but shortly after the plane landed in Minneapolis early Tuesday all flights were grounded because of the terrorist attacks. Robert Apodaca noticed a Minneapolis Air National Guard Unit nearby so he called the academy for help. His phone rang at 3 a.m. Thursday. "They said `Be on the flight line at 7 a.m. Your dad is going home,"' Apodaca said. An honor guard was waiting later Thursday when he and his father's remains arrived at Peterson Air Force Base aboard a military plane. On Saturday, Victor Apodaca's remains were laid to rest in the academy cemetery in a ceremony attended by members of the cadet 10th Squadron, the one Apodaca was in when he graduated.
================
Veteran's kin get closure at last
Dad buried 34 years after Vietnam attack
By Erin Emery Denver Post Southern Colorado Bureau
Sunday, September 16, 2001 - AIR FORCE ACADEMY - As thousands waited for their missing loved ones in New York City to come home, the wait ended for two sons whose father disappeared in Vietnam.
It took 34 years, but Maj. Victor Apodaca Jr., a 1961 graduate of the Air Force Academy, was finally laid to rest Saturday in Air Force Academy Cemetery.
Apodaca was shot down June 8, 1967, while on a reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam.
On Saturday, friends and families and those who didn't even know Apodaca stood in a flag-speckled cemetery to pay tribute. An honor guard gave a 21-gun salute. A bugler played taps. The cadet 10th Squadron - the one Apodaca was in when he graduated - came in dress blues and white gloves.
Apodaca's remains had been kept at the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii since 1988, until they were identified in the spring through DNA.
The family planned for the memorial this weekend - the 40th reunion of the Class of 1961.
But getting the remains from Hawaii to Colorado took the brotherhood of the military.
On Monday, one of Maj. Apodaca's sons, Robert Apodaca, 36, of Orlando, Fla., boarded a commercial flight and began escorting his father's remains back to the Air Force Academy.
At 6 a.m. Tuesday, the plane landed in Minneapolis. A couple of hours later, all flights were grounded because of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
"We made it as far as Minneapolis, and all of the flights were shut down," said Robert Apodaca, who was stranded with thousands of other American travelers.
Robert noticed a Minneapolis Air National Guard Unit nearby so he called the academy for help.
He waited for more than a day without any word.
Then his phone rang at 3 a.m. Thursday.
"They said "Be on the flight line at 7 a.m. Your dad is going home,' " Apodaca said.
"And then, I'm flying up in the air in a C-130 and I'm listening to the pilots," he said. ". . . And as soon as everyone heard on the radio that they were bringing him home, the fighter jets all wanted to stop by and escort. They wanted to honor him."
The plane landed Thursday at Peterson Air Force Base with a welcome from an honor guard.
At Saturday's service, a man wearing a Navy uniform came to pay his respects. Dave Niegocki, a Colorado Springs firefighter, never met Apodaca, who was from Sheridan, but he had wore a POW-MIA bracelet engraved with Apodaca's name for 25 years.
"Until they got home, I never took it off," said Dave Niegocki of Colorado Springs. Niegocki then gave the bracelet to Victor Apodaca III, one of the major's sons.
"It's just kind of touching. I feel like I gave part of myself because I had it so long," Niegocki said.
Victor Apodaca placed the bracelet given to him on the wrist of his daughter, Julia Apodaca, 16.
After the service ended, the youngest Victor Apodaca, 11, stood next to the cherrywood casket and lined up seven POW-MIA bracelets in a row that had been given to him that day.
"We're going to bury the bracelets with dad," said Robert Apodaca.
"I always had one on, and it is in the casket with my father. I feel naked without it."
================ Denver Post
editorial
The sorrow lingers
Monday, August 06, 2001 - More than three decades after his reconnaissance jet was shot down over what was then North Vietnam, the remains of Maj. Victor J. Apodaca Jr. will be returned to Colorado for honored burial at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Apodaca's remains, which had been turned over to American authorities by the Hanoi government 13 years ago, finally were identified through DNA testing by the scientists at the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.
The F-4C Phantom Apodaca was flying was shot down June 8, 1967, over Quang Binh Province.
The Sheridan native's bones and those of his co-pilot Capt. Jon T. Busch were among 25 boxes of remains repatriated in July 1988. Still, more than 1,900 American MIAs remain unaccounted for.
Twenty-six years after communist forces overran Saigon, the POW/MIA issue _ like the divisive Vietnam War itself _ continues to haunt the nation and the families of the men who never came home.
For Maj. Apodaca's two sons, Victor III and Robert, and his brother, Les, the recovery and identification of the remains has brought a sense of closure and final acceptance of the aviator's death. But Apodaca's four sisters have strong doubts about the identification of the remains and believe the Pentagon is wrong.
As late as the mid-1980s, intelligence reports indicated that Apodaca might still be alive.
The remains are to buried with full military honors at the 40th reunion of Apodaca's Air Force Academy class in September.
That is fitting, for Apodaca's legacy to his family was a fierce patriotism instilled in his sons. Victor III served as a captain in the Army and Robert as a captain in the Air Force.
Apodaca grew up in a very poor family on a small farm in Sheridan. His father stressed the value of education to his children, and Victor Jr. was an outstanding scholar, as well as an athlete, in high school, winning an appointment to the academy.
Apodaca bequeathed an enduring example for all young Americans: While others shirked duty in an unpopular war and cravenly hid out in foreign sanctuaries, he answered the call to the colors and paid with his life.
Maj. Apodaca gave his family, his state and the Air Force just cause to be proud of him and to honor his memory. We add our voice to those saluting him.
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NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF FAMILIES FOR THE RETURN OF AMERICA'S MISSING SERVICEMEN WORLD WAR II - KOREA - COLD WAR - VIETNAM - GULF WAR
Dolores Alfond 425-881-1499 Lynn O'Shea 718-846-4350 Web Site http://www.nationalalliance.org Email lynnpowmia@prodigy.net
March 2, 2002 Bits N Pieces
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Animal Bones or Human No one has ever explained how bones determined to be animal where finally identified as Air Force Major Victor Apodaca.
Remains purported to be those of Victor Apodaca were returned, by the Vietnamese on July 13th 1998. According to a memo dated 9 March 2000 and signed by Thomas D. Holland, PhD, DABFA, Scientific Director at CI-HI states: "Documents supplied by the S.R.V. indicated that the remains accessioned as CILHI 131-88 were those of "Busch John T." [sic] while those accessioned as CILHI 0132-88 were those of "Apodaca Victor J., Jr....."
"... The latter accession included an identification tag for "Apodaca Victor J. Jr. Subsequent laboratory analysis demonstrated that the remains attributed to Maj. Apodaca, i.e., CILHI 0132-88, were in fact non-human."
The Vietnamese tried again to repatriate remains purported to be Victor Apodaca on April 27th 1989 -A 9 March 2001 report states; "Based on unilateral research, the S.R.V. associated the remains in Box 19 with "Apodaca Victor."
The determination of the remains, from the second repatriation, as human is confusing. Of this second remains repatriation, a September 8th 1989 message regarding "ID Status - Remains from SRV" states Box 19 contained "no teeth and consist of two portions of left hip bone and one portion of a talus (foot) bone. The age of the individual represented can only be assessed as adult. Nothing else can be determined. The box also contained nine non-human mammalian bone fragments and eight unidentifiable bone fragments which may be of human origin."
However, a Sept. 22nd 1989 message states: "Apodaca, Victor J. Jr; 0727 Quang Binh: recovered from remains dealers. Repatriated to the U.S. twice with dog tag. The U.S. side reports the remains were animal bones." (Note this is misleading in that the dog tag was not repatriated with the remains but were handed over with a group of dog tags and had no association with any remains.")
A document located in the file of another servicemen sheds more light on the question of animal or human bones relating to Major Apodaca. Originated by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the message is dated 04 Feb. 1991. Its subject is "Response to Vietnamese Request for Information on Repatriated Remains." The message directed to JCRC (Joint Casualty Resolution Center - predecessor of the Joint Task Force - Full Accounting - JTF-FA) Liaison Bangkok TH, reads as follows:
"1. During the course of the early January information/research meetings in Hanoi, the Vietnamese requested a detailed statistical summary of the status of repatriated remains focusing on identification."
"2. The IAG (Inter Agency Group) requests that JCRC/LNO provide the following information to the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam using the talking points specified below:"
"Begin Talking Points: During the early January information/research meeting in Hanoi the delegation led by Dang Nghien Bai requested and up-to-date statistical account of identification from the remains which Vietnam has repatriated to the custody of the United States from March 1974 to 20 November 1990."
"This document prepared by CILHI, responds to that request...."
Prepared by CILHI, that's important to remember.
The text of the document reads : "During the period from 6 March 1974 to 20 November 1990 remains were repatriated on 32 different occasions."
" A total of 432 boxes containing 451 remains were transferred by Vietnam to the custody of the United States."
" Out of that number, the remains of two hundred and fifty eight (258) U.S. and third country nationals have been identified and accounted for. Bartsch, case number 1433 was a German civilian."
" Seventy one (71) sets or remains were determined to be of Asian Mongoloid origin. Fifty eight (58) of these 71 remains have been returned to Vietnam Thirteen (13) remains will be ready for return to Vietnam during the next repatriation."
" Three remains were determined to be of non-human origin. The VNOSMP associated those three cases with case number 1955 (B-52 incident with four bodies not recovered (BNR), case number 0727 (Apodaca), and case number 0459 (Robertson.)"
So in February of 1990 the CILHI position was that remains repatriated as Apodaca were that they were non- human. Nowhere is there a document stating that anyone at CILHI made an error in their original determination that the bones were non-human. There is no explanation as to how the bones once determined to be non-human became human or how a trained anthropologist could have mistaken them as non-human.
There is more, but we will save it for another time. All we can say is.... it doesn't bode well......
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December 2, 2007
It saddens me to inform our members and friends of the passing of David Alfond, husband of National Alliance of Families Chairperson Dolores Alfond. David passed late last night of complications from open heart surgery.
During their more than 40 years of marriage, David was a constant support both emotionally and financially of Dolores’ POW/MIA efforts. Few know that years ago, he and Dolores traveled to Thailand so that Dolores could visit a refugee camp in search of POW/MIA information. During the early years of the Alliance, David supplied much of our financial backing. Once able to exist on our own, David continued to manage our books and offer guidance.
I only met David once but we got to know each other over many years of phone conversations. David had a wonderful New England accent. He was a gentleman with a great sense of humor, who never took himself seriously. We had great conversations, especially during baseball season. David was a rabid Red Sox fan, and I as many of you know am a rabid Yankee fan. We also shared a great appreciation for Lox and all types of smoked salmon.
Simply stated, he was a very good person.
Services will be held in Boston on Thursday. Cards of condolence may be sent to:
Dolores Alfond
c/o National Alliance of Families
P.O. Box 40327
Bellevue, WA. 98015
Lynn O'Shea