Keeping the Promise: The Story of MIA Jerry Elliott, a Family Shattered by His Disappearance, and a Sister's 40-Year Search for the Truth

by Elliott Donna E.

  The staff and patients fell in love with Cindy. Two staff members, Donna and Glenda, often took her home to spend the night with their families. Although it wasn’t a fancy place, Cindy liked living at Oakview. She finally found herself in a position to help those less fortunate than herself. If a nurse bullied a patient, they had Cindy to deal with. If a patient wanted a soda, but didn’t have any money, Cindy shared.

  I picked her up for weekend visits twice a month. We both absolutely lived for visits with Sam. “Aunt Cinny” would transform into Sam’s horse “Coyote” and ride him around until she couldn’t manage to crawl on her hands and knees anymore. Like Jerry so many years ago, she refused to change a stinky diaper no matter how much we teased her. It was wonderful to see Cindy and Randy laughing. When all of us were together, it felt like a real family again. Cindy and I loved Sam, not only because he was a part of Randy, but also because he loved us unconditionally. Nothing compares to holding a small child, feeling their trusting little arms go around your neck. No matter how much you fear loving and losing, babies bring out the best in people. I allowed myself to wonder what Jerry would think if only he knew he was now a great uncle. I longed for Mama and Daddy to be alive, to meet their first great-grandchild, and tell Randy what a fine young man and father he had grown to be.

  It was during this time that I met Mike Teutschman, former 268th Pathfinder. Mike had visited the Vietnam Veterans Wall in 1994. When he looked for Jerry’s name on the Wall, he was surprised see him listed as missing, not killed as someone had told the Pathfinders back in Tuy Hoa. At that time, an organization called “Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial” existed. A family member could sign up with them to have people who knew your loved one on the Wall get in touch with you. Mike saw the book listing my name at a vendor’s stand by the Wall. He wrote, and we began to correspond, by mail at first, then by telephone.

  It was great to find someone who knew Jerry so well. Jerry and Mike had trained as Pathfinders together, shipped out to together, and come of age together in Vietnam. I knew the boy. Mike knew the man. Mike came to Arkansas to meet our family. He brought slides of Phu Hiep and Tuy Hoa, along with a wealth of information about Jerry’s first seven months in Vietnam. Cindy didn’t ask Mike many questions. In fact, she was unusually quiet, but her warm brown eyes were as big as saucers. She was in awe of Mike, someone who had actually known our brother as a friend as well as a fellow solder. As Mike shared photos from Vietnam with us, Randy dropped by unannounced to meet him. I’d forgotten how much my son favored his Uncle Jerry. At this time, Randy was about the same age Jerry had been when a Pathfinder in Vietnam. Both were lean and tall, with platinumblonde hair. When he walked through the door, Mike turned white as the blood drained out of his face. He confided to me later that seeing Randy was like seeing a ghost.

  In addition to serving as a Pathfinder in Vietnam, Mike had also pulled temporary assignments as a door gunner. After the Army, he attended civilian flight school to obtain his license for private and commercial helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. I shared the latest news from JTF with him. An Archival Research Team working at Vietnam’s Military Region Four Museum in Vinh had found the data plate from a UH-1D helicopter. The museum tag listed the item as being from a helicopter shot down in Huong Hoa District, Quang Tri Province, on January 21, 1968. Initial JTF analysis cautiously linked the ID plate to Case 1000; stating it wasn’t possible to correlate the data plate to a specific helicopter airframe. Records of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilot Association (VHPA) indicated there was only one UH-1D loss in Vietnam on January 21, 1968. Mike and I were both puzzled as to why JTF seemed reluctant to press the Vietnamese for more information for the source of the data plate.

  Shortly after Mike’s visit, Cindy managed to get herself booted out of Oakview by charming a night nurse out of the key to the medicine closet long enough to grab a handful of narcotics. Cited and fined, the owner, “Pop,” told Cindy as much as he liked her, she could no longer reside at the facility. We tried to live together in my cabin; we tried a camper for Cindy in my yard, both attempts failed. Cindy became a resident of the Independence Inn, an assisted-living facility in Batesville, only thirty minutes from me. She respected and loved the director. “Miz June” kept the clients busy in a controlled environment. Randy and I were glad she was nearby, content, and safe.

  Data plate identified by JTF researchers in 1994 at the Military Region Four Museum in the city of Vinh. It was accompanied by a receipt stating this was a data plate from UH-1D, shot down in Huong Hoa District on January 21, 1968. No UH-1 losses other than Black Cat #027 are listed for this date in U.S. records.

  When my second grandson was born in January 1997, life just got better. Cindy and I nicknamed him “Max Morningstar” because a large planet burned brilliantly in the sky all night after his mother went into labor, and was still visible when Max was born the next morning. We babysat Sam and Max at every opportunity, and lovingly gave them our undivided attention. Those were marvelously happy times.

  Sometimes Cindy would spend the night with the boys. Settled in to watch TV on the couch with them, she would often wake up with Sam catnapping on her belly, and Max snoozing atop his favorite quilt on the floor beside her. If “Aunt Cinny” had a few dollars in her pocket, it usually went for a small present for the next visit with “her boys.” They liked to picnic in the backyard on the big rock under the old oak tree. I could see them through the kitchen window, playing and laughing. We didn’t have much money, but we had each other.

  My old housemate from Jackson, Mississippi, came to visit. Paula liked Arkansas so much she set up residence in Batesville. After many years of working in Washington, D.C. with the Emergency Psychological Response Department (EPRD), she was undaunted by Cindy’s problems, and offered to share her home. I was doubtful things would work out, but they got along fine.

  My little sister hated being idle. Never one to sit around and do nothing, she needed to be active. Boredom triggered restless energy. The day treatment center she attended seemed to be the answer. The staff provided activity and support, and the other client’s companionship. Things were going pretty well for all of us.

  The summer of 1998, my boyfriend, Storm, and I took a long backroad journey through the southwest. While in Colorado, Storm called to check in with his kids and got word he was the father of a newly enlisted U.S. Marine about to leave for boot camp. Torn between the need to return to Arkansas, or driving a few more days to see his son off, he asked me what I would do. Three days later, when the white mini-bus filled with eager young men pulled out of the San Bernardino, California, recruiting station, we stood in the parking lot and waved goodbye to Sterling. Storm watched his youngest son depart with pride, but when he turned his teary eyes towards me, his brow furrowed, and he looked away. I understood. He knew about Jerry. He hoped what had happened to my family never happened to his. I hoped it never did either. I cared about all three of Storm’s children, and wanted Aman, Sterling, and Stormy to lead happy, productive lives. I couldn’t bear to think of anything happening to Sterling, especially since not knowing Jerry’s outcome as an MIA soldier in 1968 Vietnam had destroyed our family.

  Max (left), “Aunt Cinny,” and Sam, 1997.

  In September 1998, DPMO held a “Family Update” meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, about one hundred fifty miles from where I lived. I hadn’t attended an official government meeting, usually held annually in Washington, D.C. every July, in many years. I decided to make this update since it was so close to home. I had some questions I wanted to ask face-to-face.

  Storm generously offered to chauffer since driving long distances was still painful for me. Storm wasn’t a veteran, and being raised in a strong anti-war environment in California, he’d never had much contact with vets. We were the first MIA family he had ever met. It was difficult for him to understand the camaraderie among vets, much less why people were still searching for relatives lost in a war so long ago. His father, Bob, had served in the m
ilitary as a conscientious objector. Bob’s life-long religious and moral ethics prohibited him from being a combatant in military service. I respected him because he didn’t run away to Canada, but instead performed service as an orderly in military hospitals. On the long ride to Memphis, I told Storm all the details I knew about Jerry’s case, and explained how deeply his missing status had affected our family. We fell silent, both lost in our own thoughts.

  I didn’t know what Storm was thinking, but I wanted to know; no, I needed to know what had happened to Jerry after the choppers pulled away from the ambush. Mentally and emotionally prepared to let Jerry die, I wanted to move forward with my own life, except questions kept poking through the shroud. Did the NVA drag him at gunpoint down into one of the camouflaged spider holes? Maybe they shot him on the trail and left his body to rot in the broiling sun of Vietnam. I was tired of wondering and worrying; I wanted it all to be over, finished. There had to be some way to prove to myself that Jerry was dead.

  The first half of the meeting consisted of staff presentations about how the accounting command operated. During a break, I met Mary Milliner, mother of Cobra pilot WO William Milliner, MIA March 1971 in Laos. Mary told me that a few years back a journalist had contacted them. While in a bar in Southeast Asia, the writer met a Vietnamese man who was a former American POW guard.

  The Vietnamese was puzzled; he asked the journalist why America didn’t want the POWs back. The former guard had tried to arrange with U.S. authorities a trade of $800 USD for the safe return of Milliner, but U.S. officials refused. The journalist returned to the U.S., located the Milliner family, and related to them the story he had heard. He also told them verification by fingerprint was possible if they had something to compare.

  Mary said at first DPMO told her and Joseph, her husband, there were no fingerprint records for her son. She never stopped trying; the family needed the fingerprints for verification. Eventually a new clerk, obviously unaware of the previous denials that fingerprints even existed in Milliner’s file, mailed a copy to them. The family hired a fingerprint expert who made a positive match; William Milliner was alive in Laos. Based on unconfirmed reports, William had lost an arm in the chopper crash, but he was very much alive. Permitted to move freely within the village, he had married, and fathered two children. Mary and Joseph Milliner had information their son wanted to come home, but couldn’t escape because of violent retaliatory threats against his Laotian family and friends.

  In September 2007, Joe and Mary received an unsigned letter from a physician working in Cambodia and Laos, who claimed earlier that month he had been driven through the jungle for a long time to treat a man suffering from a poor amputation of his arm. Although under guard, the patient managed to tell the doctor he was an American, and was being held against his will. Because the doctor also described particular scars that matched other sighting reports of William, the Milliner’s considered his letter a compelling piece of evidence. DoD continues to carry WO William Milliner as an MIA.

  Jerry’s pilot, Lennis Lee, had sent a one-page letter to DPMO in 1998 and described the Case 1000 loss incident in detail. Analysts never referenced Lee’s letter in any of the Case 1000 summary reports. I made numerous requests over the years for the release of all unclassified material in Jerry’s case file, yet it took eight years for DPMO to send me a copy of Lee’s correspondence. In 2006, I was able to ask him during a phone call exactly where he had seen the body when he returned to the Old French Fort. Lennis told me without hesitation, “On the eastern slope.” This was important information. Intelligence analysts believed the body Lee had seen a few days after the ambush was Jerry. Military reports indicated Gerald McKinsey perished on the eastern slope, where he was recovered in April 1968. Was it Jerry’s body Lee and Brown saw on their return trip to the Old French Fort, or was it McKinsey?

  In June 1998, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) completed an imagery study which placed the crash site at 48QXD 85454 38600. JTF planned to send a team back to Khe Sanh in May 1999 to look for both Case 1000 MIAs, Billy Hill and Jerry. I knew instantly and without doubt, I wanted to be there. This was a turning point for me; finally, I could go where Jerry was last seen alive to search for confirmation that would satisfy me, without a doubt, that my brother was dead.

  There would be no more wondering exactly where the Old French Fort was, or what it looked like. I would be able to look around with my own eyes to see if there were viable escape routes. Maybe someone who lived in Khe Sanh during the war would hear an American MIAs sister was searching for her brother, and out of compassion come forward with information on his fate. After the war was over, with resettlement initiated, perhaps someone from the village had found my brother and buried him. Excited, I thought anything was possible. If we could conclude Jerry’s story, my family could finally put the past where it belonged, behind us.

  No matter what else happened while I was in Vietnam, one thing was certain: I was going to walk the same ground where my brother and other men had taken a stand for their fellow soldiers, sacrificed their own lives. That in itself was worth the trip. I felt honored to have the opportunity.

  Mike Teutschman had thought about going back to Vietnam for years. When I asked him to accompany me, he was ready and willing. Mike hoped to get answers about Jerry, to put Vietnam to rest in his own mind. He wanted to feel like he did when he was there in 1967, and stop feeling guilty about coming home physically unhurt.

  Cindy wanted to come with us to Vietnam so badly that I finally agreed to cover her expenses. I told her she would have to bring me her birth certificate in order to get a passport and a visa. I reminded her often, then I stopped mentioning it, thinking maybe it was for the best since I had no idea what to expect in this foreign country. A couple of weeks prior to our departure date, Cindy came home for the weekend. She asked me when we were leaving for Vietnam. “Cindy, I’m sorry but you can’t go,” I told her. “You never brought me your birth certificate so we could get you a passport or visa.”

  She was upset, but I couldn’t talk right then. I was leaving with a friend to attend her grandmother’s funeral. Cindy offered to mop my hardwood floors while I was gone. She often did odd jobs around the house for extra spending money. I figured this would keep her busy until I returned, and we could sit down and talk about things.

  When I got back Cindy had finished cleaning the floors, but I knew instantly she was high on something. She was slurring her words, and her balance was off. Prescribed mild pain medications, I routinely kept them in a locked closet. When I discovered medicine missing, I realized she must have taken the door off the hinges. I thought about confronting her, but I knew she would deny the theft, and the only result would be a big, useless argument. Angry and disgusted, I took her home, told Paula what had happened, and asked her to keep an eye on Cindy.

  Dutifully, I called my little sister the following morning, a Sunday, to check on her. Cindy was still loopy, but seemed okay. We chatted for a moment, and she told me about friends who had come over the night before to play cards. She also said she was planning to go to Evergreen, the day treatment center she voluntary attended, as usual the next day. I thought she was would be okay, the staff at Evergreen would counsel her when they realized how depressed she was over not going to Vietnam. Since Mama and Daddy had died, Cindy, Randy, and I had made it a practice to never leave one another, or say goodbye on the telephone, without saying, “I love you.” We knew from experience another chance might never come. Cindy told me, “I love you, Donna.” I replied, “I love you too, Cindy.” I felt reluctant to hang up, but had no reason to keep my little sister on the phone except a vague, nagging feeling.

  I wished for the hundredth time the court had approved Cindy’s petition to give me legal guardianship. She felt if I could quickly intercede by hospitalizing her when she first exhibited signs of being out of control, she would have a better chance of staying out of trouble. However, the Probate Judge had denied our plea, “Guardia
nship is a serious issue. You might as well take your appendix out with a butter knife as come before me without an attorney. Case dismissed.”

  Early the next morning, Paula called me with heaviness in her voice, “I’m afraid I have some very sad news, Donna. Cindy passed away last night. The EMTs are here now, but they haven’t been able to revive her.”

  “I have to call Randy, and then I’m on my way,” I told Paula, and hung up the phone astounded. This couldn’t be happening to our family again. I had company, and tried to casually escape to my bedroom, but broke down before I made it halfway across the living room. Realizing I had to call my son to tell him one of the people he loved most in the world was dead, I pulled myself back together.

  The EMTs were preparing to transport Cindy to the morgue when I arrived. I asked for a few moments alone with my little sister. She looked asleep as I sat on the bed and pulled the covers up around her. Tugging at the pillow the EMTs had shoved aside; I wrapped my arms around Cindy’s chest, and lifted her up to slip the pillow under her head. A noise rose out of her throat. I thought there had been a mistake, Cindy Ann was alive; my little sister had come back to me! As I quickly laid her down to clear the airway, I whispered, “Cindy, Cindy, what did you do? I love you Cindy. I love you!” One look at her stone-cold face on the pastel pillowcase made me realize what I’d heard was a death gurgle, a haunting sound I will never forget, and hope to never hear again.

  Randy arrived, his handsome face pale and drawn. He had been very close to his Aunt Cindy all of his life. I didn’t attempt to comfort him with words, Randy and I needed to hug one another, to connect. We decided not to tell Sam and Max right away, but to make a special time the next day to talk to them. Max was only two years old; he didn’t really understand what death meant. Sam, almost six, asked many questions we couldn’t answer.