ALLMOND, BARRY KENNETH
(Remains possibly returned)

Name: Barry Kenneth Allmond
Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 02 February 1946
Home City of Record: Ft. Worth TX
Date of Loss: 11 May 1972
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates:
Status (in 1973): Prisoner of War
Category:
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Unknown
Refno:
Other Personnel in Incident: unknown

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project  15 March 1991 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.

REMARKS:

CACCF - Remains recovered - died while missing. Listed on WALL, but not as
POW/MIA - no record of remains returned, not on DIA remains returned list.


SYNOPSIS: In a war with millions of U.S. participants, clerical and other
errors in records are inevitable. Perhaps clerical error can explain the
case of Captain Barry K. Allmond.

Allmond, an Air Force Captain, was reported missing in South Vietnam on May
11, 1972. The Department of Defense maintained him in Prisoner of War status
from at least July 1972 until October 1973, but declined to discuss his case
at that time with interested POW/MIA accountability groups.

By 1978, Allmond's name had disappeared off all U.S. Government lists
without public explanation. In 1991, Allmond's name appears on the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial without POW/MIA designation.

Whether Allmond's remains were located or whether he was mistakenly
classified Prisoner of War is not known. Groups concerned that even one man
may be forgotten steadfastly remember him until information becomes
available.

When the war ended, and 591 Americans were released from POW camps in
Vietnam, military officials were dismayed that hundreds of Americans known
or suspected to be prisoners were not released. Since that time, the
Vietnamese have been less than forthcoming with information relating to
these men. In contrast, the U.S. seems reluctant to strongly enforce the
important clause in the peace agreements ending American involvement in
Vietnam that relates to the release of Americans and fullest possible
accounting of the missing.

Henry Kissinger once said that the problem of unrecoverable Prisoners is an
"unfortunate" byproduct of limited political engagements. This does not seem
to be consistent with the high value we, as a nation, place on individual
human lives. The men who went to Vietnam because their country asked it of
them are too precious to the future of this nation to write them off as
expendable.