LOVEGREN, DAVID EUGENE

Name: David Eugene Lovegren
Rank/Branch: E4/US Army
Unit: Company D, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Division
Date of Birth: 21 March 1949
Home City of Record: Portland OR
Date of Loss: 01 March 1969
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 145646N 1084823E (BS641534)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 3
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1H
Refno: 1394
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: Cpl. David E. Lovegren was a passenger aboard a UH1H helicopter
that crashed on March 1, 1969 in Quang Ngai Province about 5 miles southwest
of Mo Duc. No enemy activity was associated with the crash of the aircraft.
Lovegren was killed.

During the recovery operation, Lovegren's body was being hoisted onboard the
extraction helicopter when the lifting device dropped his remains about
1,000 meters from the extraction point. An effort was made to relocate and
recover Lovegren's body, but hostile forces were in the loss area, and
Lovegren could not be recovered. David E. Lovegren is listed with honor
among the missing because no body has ever been returned to his homeland for
burial.

Search and recovery efforts in Vietnam were the best and most successful
ever seen in wartime. They were so successful, in fact, that the numbers of
those remaining missing in action were dramatically reduced over previous
wars.

The unique thing about Vietnam as compared to other wars, however, is that
not a great many cases are like that of Maj. Morgan. Most of the missing
could be readily accounted for by either the governments of Southeast Asia,
who kept incredibly detailed records of each prisoner and downed aircraft
lost, or by on-site inspection and/or excavation of loss sites.

Approximately 1/2 of the nearly 2500 now listed as missing could be
accounted for with access to information held by our former enemies or
access to loss sites. Included in this number are hundreds of individuals
who were known to have been captives, or were alive when last seen.

The other approximate half of those missing were originally classified as
killed, body not recovered. In light of discrepancies, however, at least
several score of these cases need further examination. For example, one
"KIA/BNR" individual was known to have safely parachuted from his aircraft.
Another group of individuals were horribly mutilated by the enemy, and their
bodies (and equipment) disappeared before they could be extracted.

The most troubling aspect of the missing in Vietnam remains the "several
million" documents and "over 250,000" reports received by the U.S.
Government relating to Americans missing in Southeast Asia. Many U.S.
authorities are convinced that hundreds of Americans remain alive today,
held against their will. While it is not possible that David Lovegren is
among them, one must wonder what he would think of his country abandoning
its best men to enemy hands.