ZOOK, DAVID HARTZLER JR.

Remains ID announced 09/30/2008

Name: David Hartzler Zook, Jr.
Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 22 January 1930
Home City of Record: West Liberty OH
Date of Loss: 04 October 1967
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 111000N 1063000E (XT635350)
Status (in 1973): Missing in Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: U10B

Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 September 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. 2020

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: In 1962, when American involvement in Southeast Asia was little
known to many Americans, Capt. David H. Zook, Jr. was at the U.S. Air Force
Academy serving as assistant professor of history. Zook was in the military
despite his pacifist Amish background. He had "left the flock."

In 1967, Zook found himself in Vietnam, now advanced to the rank of Major.
On October 4 of that year, Zook was given a mission in Binh Duong Province,
South Vietnam, flying a U10B aircraft.

When Zook's aircraft was about 5 miles west of Ben Cat, it crashed, and Zook
was declared Missing in Action. It is felt that the Vietnamese could account
for him. He is among some 3,000 who remained prisoner, missing or
unaccounted for at the end of the war.

In the early 1980's a Vietnamese defector stated in Congressional testimony
that Vietnam stockpiles hundreds of sets of American remains. Congress
believed him. He also testified that he had personally seen live American
prisoners, held long after the war was over and all Americans had supposedly
been released. Congress ignores this testimony, although over 10,000 reports
relating to Americans prisoner, missing or unaccounted for in Southeast Asia
seem to substantiate what he was saying.

The U.S. and Vietnamese "progress" at a snail's pace, while seemingly
ignoring the tremendous weight of evidence that their priority should be
those Americans still alive as captives. Meanwhile, thousands of lives are
spent in the most tortured state imaginable - unable to grieve, unable to
rejoice. They wait.

David H. Zook, Jr. was promoted to the rank of Colonel during the time he
was maintained missing.


                                   [cd0104.98 02/08/98]
The Columbus Dispatch
Sunday, January 4, 1998

LOVED ONES STILL SEEK ANSWERS FAMILIES OF MIAS QUESTION
GOVERNMENT'S RESOLVE
ON ISSUE
Ann Fisher  Dispatch Staff Reporter

   A new year of hope and labor to learn the whereabouts of her father awaits
Mitch McGouldrick Guess.

  Nearly 30 years ago, Air Force Col. Francis McGouldrick Jr. was lost in a
midair collision over Laos during the Vietnam War. A few years later, Guess,
then 12, bought her first MIA bracelet and began in earnest a search that has
spanned the balance of her life......