STAEHLI, BRUCE WAYNE

Name: Bruce Wayne Staehli
Rank/Branch: Lance Corporal/USMC
Unit: l/3/9 3 MAR DIV
Date of Birth: 24 September 1948
Home City of Record: Crow Point Lake IN  [Crown Point?]
Loss Date: 30 April 1968
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 164930N 1070200E
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category:  2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Others In Incident: none missing
Refno: 1152

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.

SYNOPSIS:  Bruce Staehli was a Marine in Vietnam when the fighting was
intense.  His Marine brothers at Khe Sanh had fought the Vietnamese in one
of the bloodiest battles of the war earlier in the year, while the Marines
at Hue were fighting the enemy in the streets.  By April, the Marines at Khe
Sanh had finished operation Pegasus and had embarked on a series of missions
called Scotland II to search and clear the area of enemy presence.

It was perhaps on such a mission that Bruce Staehli disappeared on April 30,
1968, near the city of Dong Ha, South Vietnam.  Dong Ha is only a few miles
from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and less than 30 miles northeast of Khe
Sanh.  Staehli is the only missing man from the action that day, and there
is good reason to believe the enemy knows his fate.  He may have been
captured.

When American prisoners were released 5 years later, the Staehli family was
shocked and disappointed that their son was not one of them.  Experts say
there were hundreds expected to be released who were not.

Since the end of American involvement in Vietnam, thousands of reports of
Americans still held captive in Southeast Asia have been received by the
U.S. Government.  Official policy states that there is not enough proof to
act, but that presumably, one or more American is held.  Critics of that
policy, including individuals in government, say the proof is there, but
that no one is willing to pay the price of freedom for these captive
Americans.

If one of them is Bruce Staehli, what must he be thinking of us?