BADOLATI, FRANK NEIL
Name: Frank Neil Badolati Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Special Forces Unit: HQ & HQ Company, 5th Special Forces Group ABN 1SF SFG Date of Birth: 19 March 1933 (New York, NY) Home City of Record: Goffstown NH Date of Loss: 29 January 1966 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 143704N 1085242E (BS719172) Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered Category: 3 Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground Refno: 0242
Other Personnel In Incident: Cecil J. Hodgson; Ronald T. Terry (both missing); Wiley W. Grey (survived) (other survivors)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 June 1990 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 2006.
REMARKS: BAD WOUND-PROB BLED TO DEATH-J
SYNOPSIS: Frank N. Badaloti and Ronald T. Terry were riflemen on a Special Forces reconnaissance team operating in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan in South Vietnam when his team was split during a firefight. The patrol came under enemy fire on the afternoon of 28 January 1966 during which time Badolati was hit. Cecil Hodgson, the patrol leader, from Detachment B52 Delta, was apparently treating Badolati's wounds as the patrol traveled in small groups from the location where Badolati was hit. Badolati was with two other individuals who survived, and as he was too badly wounded to continue, the three remained for about two hours in their position.
Badolati's condition worsened, and when the two survivors left the area, they reported that Badolati was dead. They had no choice but to leave his body behind.
Hodgson and Terry evaded for the rest of the day. On January 29, they moved at first light into a defensive position, whereupon they encountered enemy forces and another firefight ensued. Terry indicated that he had been hit, and others thought he had been killed. When they looked for Hodgson, he was gone. Survivors heard additional shots, which they believed were shots fired at Hodgson, and they believed he also had been killed.
The team could not search for Hodgson because of the heavy enemy activity, and were forced to move to a rallying point. They evaded capture for the remainder of the day, and were ultimately picked up by helicopter.
Searches for all three missing were conducted for the next 4 days with no results. Hodgson was classified Missing In Action. Badolati and Terry were classified Killed/Body Not Recovered.
Since the end of the war, over 10,000 reports relating to Americans prisoner, missing or unaccounted for in Southeast Asia have been received by the U.S Government. Many authorities who have reviewed this intelligence material, including a former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, believe that hundreds of Americans are still alive, held captive. Hodgson could be among them. If alive, what must he be thinking of us?
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02/14/2006 A Man is Not Dead Until He is Forgotten The Story of Frank N. Badolati by Ray Davidson
After a trip to the Vietnam Wall the daughter of Goffstown, New Hampshire native, SSGT Frank Badolati wrote, "It was terribly sad and lonely, but there I found a place to cry and many people to share my tears. I don't believe I will ever see my father in this lifetime. I was only three the last time I saw him." Daisy Badolati of the small Azalea, Oregon community goes on to say, ". It has been a very difficult issue for me to deal with over the years, so much so that I made the greatest effort to accept my loss and [when the pain was just too great I would try to] forget ever having had a father."
SSGT Badolati was a member of Detachment B-52, Project Delta, 5th Special Forces Group. Project Delta was formed in October 1964. Their missions included some of the most hazardous and critical actions in South Vietnam. Augmenting the 5th Special Forces (Green Berets) was a Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) Security Company, a group of South Vietnamese Special Forces, a South Vietnamese Ranger Battalion and a CIDG "Roadrunner" Company (Roadrunners were equipped with enemy uniforms, equipment and weapons). "Stay Out of the An Lao Valley"
Operation Masher (January 24 - March 6, 1966) was the largest search and destroy mission up to that point in the war. Project Delta was selected to reconnoiter the Northern end of the An Lao valley. This area of the An Lao Valley is covered with thick vegetation with a great deal of elephant grass, three to four feet tall, and interspersed with cultivated fields. Steep slopes bound the valley on both sides with anti-aircraft emplacements.
Intelligence indicated that there were two Regiments of North Vietnamese in the valley supported by Viet Cong insurgents. With such a heavy concentration of enemy forces, the former commander of Project Delta, Maj. Art Strange, warned incoming commander, Maj. Charles "Charging Charlie" Beckwith, in July of 1965 to, "Stay out of the An Lao Valley. They have sophisticated warning systems and tracking dogs."
Operation Masher and "Charging Charlie" ignored good advice. The operation required insertion of recon teams into the valley but problems plagued the mission. Beckwith decided to not augment the Recon teams with South Vietnamese counterparts (as was standard procedure), ground intelligence was unconfirmed, the weather was bad, helicopter and air ship support would be limited due to the ant-aircraft guns, and, as stated before, the enemy controlled the valley. The last time friendly forces were in the valley was 1958.
Beckwith choose to insert three teams comprised of American Special Forces troopers. Badolati was assigned to Team Three, Roadrunner, along with SFC Marcus Huston (Team Leader), SSGT Billy McKeithe, MSGT Wiley Gray, SSGT Ron Terry and SSGT Cecil Hodgson.
The mission quickly disintegrated. Team One, Eskimo, had to abort with one wounded. A woodcutter in the hills spotted Team Two, Capital, and they were ambushed losing four men and the other two were wounded.
Team Roadrunner made initial contact with enemy forces along a streambed at around 9:30 on 28 January. Evading uphill they were again hit at about 12:30. During the first volley of fire that afternoon Badolati was hit in the upper left arm, the bullet almost severing the arm. Badolati begged the team to leave him and save themselves.
Ignoring his pleas, SFC Hodgson applied a tourniquet and administrated morphine while the team was still under fire. The team then broke contact and moved about 600 yards, stopping to provide medical help to Badolati. They immediately came under fire. The team then split into two groups to evade the pursuing enemy.
Gray, Hodgson and Terry, evaded the ambush site in a different direction from Badolati, Huston and McKeithe. The group with Badolati tried to use the cover along the steep slopes and after dark used a streambed to hide their trail. Finally Badolati stated that he "could not go any further" and again begged them to leave him behind. Again ignoring his plea, Huston and McKeithe stopped in a concealed position two to three feet up the stream bank. Despite constant medical attention to Badolati's mangled arm, his condition continued to deteriorate. He died in the early morning hours of 29 January 1966.The remaining team members were forced to leave Badolati's body hidden in the boulders and scrubs with the hope to recover it with a Search and Rescue (SAR) team. The two survivors successfully evaded and were recovered later by helicopter.
According to Homecoming II records, Gray, Hodgson and Terry successfully evaded the rest of that day and then settled into a hiding place for the night. At first light on the 29th, the three men began moving again and did not make contact with the enemy until 4:30 that afternoon. All three were lying in elephant grass when they saw seven Viet Cong soldiers standing four feet to the right and rear of them. They opened fire killing three of the seven. Shortly thereafter, Gray heard Terry yell that he had been hit and saw him holding his right side. Suddenly Terry's body arched as another bullet struck him, it was obvious this second bullet killed Terry.
Gray could not locate Hodgson and decided to move roughly 20 feet to a more defendable position and waited in ambush for the enemy. A little later Gray heard both enemy and Hodgson's weapons being discharged, then silence. Gray continued to evade the enemy and was recovered the next day by helicopter.
Charging Charlie was wounded on the fire support mission and left Project Delta the next week. Of the seventeen that went into the An Lao Valley seven were killed and three wounded.
In 1999 a note from a childhood friend left at the virtual wall said, "I had a crush on Frank as a young girl. He sent me pictures from Vietnam and a lacquered box for Christmas 1965, which still sits on my dresser. I was a freshman in high school [when Frank died]. I have never forgotten him. . the firepower was so intense you told them to go without you, and they left you wounded propped against the tree where your blood fed the shadows. Did you notice the silence of the birds? As you waited for the helicopter, did you remember the way the sun used to strike the corner of your house [in Goffstown] at first light? Did you think of the picnic where your buddies ran around the meadow chasing a greased pig? We danced in the clover and you held me so close I swallowed your scent. When nobody came did you wonder what would happen to the car you and a friend painted to match your jungle fatigues? And when the light faded, could you hear me call your name"
Frank Neil Badolati's name can be found on panel 04E, Line 105 of the Vietnam Memorial Wall
Ray Davidson is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at rayd45@aol.com.
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http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061111/REPOSITORY/611110308/1043/48HOURS
Article published Nov 11, 2006
Vietnam
Families still feel war's sting Six from N.H. have never been found
By Joelle Farrell Monitor staff
------------------------------------------------------------ Nov 11, 2006
Courtesy photo Army Spc. Quinten Mulleavey went missing in Vietnam.
The soldiers had already begun slogging up a mountain in Bong Son, Vietnam, when they realized Spc. Quinten Mulleavey wasn't with them. Walking back, they found his pack, his rifle and helmet, an empty package of cigarettes and a packet of Kool-Aid near a stream. But Mulleavey, 19, of North Woodstock, was never found.
Mulleavey is one of six New Hampshire service members missing since the Vietnam War. They're presumed dead, but without remains to bury or knowledge of what happened, some family members find it hard to move on.
"My whole life, I thought he was coming home," said Daisy Badolati, whose father, Staff Sgt. Frank Badolati of Goffstown is believed to have died from wounds suffered during a firefight in South Vietnam in 1966.
The situation was especially difficult for Mulleavey's mother, Juliette Mulleavey. The Army classified Mulleavey as absent without leave, not allowing him an honorable discharge or a military funeral until they reclassified him 13 years after his disappearance in 1968.
"I said, 'Where would he go?' " she said. "My son is not a moron. Why would he want to leave his company and go in the jungle?"
Through interviews with former Vietcong soldiers, the agency has found gravesites and other information about missing troops. Last year, the remains of Col. Sheldon Burnett, a Pelham soldier missing since 1971, were found in Laos and buried in Arlington National Cemetery. In 2004, the remains of Airman 1st Class Phillip Joseph Stickney of Manchester were found in North Vietnam. He was buried in Arkansas.
On the first Wednesday of every month, members of a group called Rolling Thunder gather at Veterans Park in Manchester. They read the names of all 50 New Hampshire troops missing from the Korean and Vietnam Wars. They also read the names of about 30 missing American troops who fought in the Gulf War in 1991, and Matt Maupin, an Ohio soldier captured in Iraq in April 2004, said Pat McGhie, director of the New England branch of Rolling Thunder.
"Many people think the war's over and everybody's come home," McGhie said. Some never did, he added.
He enlisted at 18
Spc. Quinten Mulleavey was the fifth of seven children. His mother called him "a devil"; he was sent home from school several times for laughing in class. Coming from a big family, "fooling around just came natural," Juliette Mulleavey said.
As a teenager, Mulleavey worked at Clark's Trading Post, a tourist attraction in Lincoln. One summer, he went to New York to help dismantle a covered bridge and bring it back to Clark's. A plaque near the bridge honors him.
Mulleavey's father and an older brother, Raymond, served in the Navy. But Mulleavey wanted to be a paratrooper in the Army, and he asked his mother to sign his paperwork when he was 17. She refused. He enlisted at 18, joining the 173rd Airborne Division.
Before Mulleavey left for Vietnam in January 1968, Juliette Mulleavey asked him if he was afraid to go to war.
"No, . . . I don't know," he told her. "Mom, I wish I knew more what this war was about."
When he arrived in Vietnam, Mulleavey told his mother that he believed they were in Vietnam to help the people there. "You should see how these people live," he told her.
Mulleavey wrote home often. In a letter to his brother, he said that the enemy always seemed to leave before he and his fellow soldiers arrived, so they just burned villages. Once, they burned a hooch filled with marijuana, he told them in a letter.
"The odor really screwed us up," he wrote, adding, "Don't worry. I don't smoke pot."
The day before he went missing, Mulleavey wrote to his mother, telling her that his crew had watched a film about the sights in New Hampshire.
"Whoo! Mom, they showed everything," Mulleavey wrote. "Clarks, Mount. Wash., the Cog, Flume, Lost River, Polar - just everything. Boy, talk about getting homesick.
"The Old Man in the Mountain, the guys never believed me when I told them about the Old Man," he wrote. "When they saw it on film, they were real impressed. Boy I thought I'd go crazy before the flick ended."
On April 3, 1968, an Army corporal knocked on Juliette Mulleavey's door and told her that her son was missing.
"I felt it so deep, I knew he was gone," she said.
Mulleavey's younger brother John joined the Army, hoping he'd get sent to Vietnam and he could look for his brother. But the war ended before his training did.
Thirteen years after Mulleavey's disappearance, the Army reclassified Mulleavey as presumed dead while missing and granted him an honorable service discharge, Juliette Mulleavey said. His family held a memorial service.
Several years ago, a Vietcong soldier told U.S. military officials that he recognized Mulleavey in a picture, Juliette Mulleavey said. The man said Mulleavey had been captured and taken to a nearby camp. There, Mulleavey heard American tanks and ran toward the sound. The Vietnamese soldiers shot him in the back, the man told officials.
He led them to the spot where he believed Mulleavey had been buried. They found only a uniform button.
The war had been over for more than 30 years, and farmers have plowed the fields where Mulleavey may have been. His remains could be spread over a greater distance, military officials told Juliette Mulleavey. Her blood sample is on file in case his remains are found.
Mulleavey's grave is empty, but Juliette Mulleavey, 87, feels some finality to her son's death now that his name is on a headstone at Riverside Cemetery in Lincoln.
"People will know this boy existed," she said.
Learning about her father
Army Staff Sgt. Frank Badolati grew up in Goffstown but lived at Fort Bragg, N.C., before shipping out to Vietnam, said his daughter, Daisy. She was 2 « when he left.
Badolati, 33, was a rifleman in a Special Forces reconnaissance team. On Jan. 28, 1966, he and five other soldiers were sent to the An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province, according to information gathered by the POW/MIA Network, a nonprofit organization.
That morning, Vietcong soldiers attacked Badolati's team. Badolati was badly wounded by a bullet that hit his upper left arm, according to family members and information gathered by POW/MIA groups.
The team split into two groups and continued to move away from the site where they had been ambushed. The two soldiers with Badolati said he died the next morning. They left his body, hoping they could come back for it once they escaped from the valley and had outside support. When soldiers returned, they could not find his body.
Badolati's wife, Jonny, who is from Denmark, never remarried, Daisy Badolati said. The family never spoke about Frank Badolati, she said.
In 1999, Daisy Badolati, who teaches at a bilingual school in Oregon, decided to explore her father's life and death. She met one of the soldiers who served with him that day, Master Sgt. Wiley Gray. She met people who wore bracelets with her father's name and the date he went missing.
That year, she saw a picture of her father for the first time. She keeps it in her wallet.
"I brought him home as best I could," she said.
Two explanations
Sgt. 1st Class Robert Joseph Sullivan was a father of four and a Special Forces soldier. He left for his second tour in Vietnam in May 1967, said one of his daughters, Eileen Moody of North Carolina. Moody was 5 when Sullivan left.
Sullivan, whose hometown is listed as East Alstead, was reported missing on July 12, 1967, in southeast Laos. Moody said the military had reports detailing two possible explanations for what happened to her father.
A team of three Americans and eight Vietnamese soldiers were on a reconnaissance mission in southeastern Laos when they came under attack. Only one American was rescued, and he said the other Americans had been mortally wounded. The bodies of Sullivan and the other soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Samuel Almendariz, were never found.
Moody said she has also seen a report that said Vietcong soldiers ambushed the soldiers, wrestled Sullivan's gun from him and shot him.
Moody, 44, a retired cable technician, said her father's death was hardest on her older brother and sister, then 9 and 7, and her mother.
As she grew older, Moody sought out soldiers who served with her father to help her understand who he was. Moody said she isn't in denial about her father's death, but it helps to hear others talk about him.
The others
Family members of the remaining four soldiers missing from the Vietnam War could not be contacted for comment or did not return calls for comment. The following is the last known information about them, according to information from the POW/MIA Network:
- Air Force Staff Sgt. Clyde Douglas Alloway, 33, of Portsmouth is believed to have been killed in a plane crash offshore in South Vietnam on June 7, 1970.
- Air Force Maj. Gerald Robert Helmich, 38, of Manchester is believed to have been killed during an operation to rescue a downed Army helicopter just south Ban Senphan near the Laos/Vietnam border. Helmich's plane crashed after the planes came under enemy fire on Nov. 12, 1969.
- Air Force Capt. Albert L. Page Jr., 32, of Derry is believed to have been killed when his plane was hit by enemy fire and crashed during a strike mission in North Vietnam on Aug. 8, 1967. The plane crashed offshore, and witnesses did not see parachutes leave the aircraft. Page's body was not recovered.