GIAMMERINO, VINCENT FRANK

Name: Vincent Frank Giammerino
Rank/Branch: E3/US Army
Unit: C Co., 1st Btn, 22nd Infantry, 4th Infantry Division
Date of Birth: 13 April 1947
Home City of Record: New York NY
Date of Loss: 27 June 1968
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 135131N 1081926E
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Refno: 1217
Other Personnel In Incident: none missing

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 1998.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS:  PFC Vincent Giammerino was a rifleman on a Bomb Damage Assessment
(BDA) patrol in the Pleiku area of South Vietnam.  Giammerino had departed
on patrol and the unit was going to an area where they had previously
encountered enemy contact.

Shortly after the patrol began, it was discovered that Giammerino was not
with his unit, nor could he be located.  No enemy contact had been made
during the patrol, but the possibility he was killed by a concealed enemy
was considered, as was the possibility of his capture, and also that he
simply was lost.

Thorough searches were made of the area for the next 2 days without results.
On the second day, an aircraft was employed using a loud speaker system, but
Giammerino (nor any body) was ever found.

Giammerino was classified Missing In Action.  It is believed that there is a
very good chance that the enemy knows his fate.  He is among nearly 2500
Americans remain missing or otherwise unaccounted for in Vietnam.  Since the
war ended, over 6000 reports concerning Americans still alive in Southeast
Asia have been received by the U.S. Government.  Many experts are completely
convinced that hundreds of Americans are now held captive.

One set of critics say that the U.S. has done little to address the issue of
live POWs, preferring the politically safer issue of remains return.  Others
place the blame on the Vietnamese, for using the issue of POW/MIA to their
political advantage.  Regardless of blame, no living American has returned
through the efforts of negotiations between the countries, and the reports
continue to pour in.  Are we doing enough to bring these men home?