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.