TAYLOR, DANNY GENE Name: Danny Gene Taylor Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Special Forces Unit: Headquarters & Headquarters Company Date of Birth: 11 June 1939 Home City of Record: St. Louis MO Date of Loss: 28 September 1966 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 165115N 1063908E (XD760640) Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered Category: 2 Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground Refno: 0476 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 1998. REMARKS: SYNOPSIS: SSGT Danny G. Taylor was the radio operator for Headquarters & Headquarters Company, 5th Special Forces. On September 28, 1966, he was part of a reconnaissance patrol operating in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam when the unit was fired upon by enemy forces. The patrol returned fire for about ten minutes, and Taylor was observed to be firing as well. He then put the radio on his back and made an attempt to jump off some rocks, and was hit in the back by enemy fire. Prior to leaving the area, members of the patrol checked Taylor and found no pulse or heartbeat. Because they were escaping under fire, they were forced to leave Taylor's body behind. Hostile forces prevented any subsequent searches for Taylor's body. Danny G. Taylor is listed among the missing because his remains were never found to send home to the country he served. He died a tragically ironic death in the midst of war. But, for his family, the case seems clear that he died on that day. The fact that they have no body to bury with honor is not of great significance. For other who are missing, however, the evidence leads not to death, but to survival. Since the war ended, nearly 10,000 reports received relating to Americans still held captive in Indochina have convinced experts that hundreds of men are still alive, waiting for their country to rescue them. The notion that Americans are dying without hope in the hands of a long-ago enemy belies the idea that we left Vietnam with honor. It also signals that tens of thousands of lost lives were a frivolous waste of our best men.