After more than 40 years, family unearths clues to missing Texas soldier's fate in Cambodia

[Coventina]

Source: The Dallas Morning News

McKinley Nolan's letters from South Vietnam to his wife in Texas hinted at his anguish. He wrote of playing dead to survive on the battlefield and the suffering of Vietnamese civilians.

(snip)

On Nov. 9, 1967, weeks from completing a two-year hitch in the Army, McKinley Nolan disappeared from his First Infantry Division unit. Communist Viet Cong propaganda broadcasts and leaflets later featured Nolan urging fellow black soldiers to lay down their weapons. The Army branded the missing Texan as one of the war's two confirmed defectors, but offered no explanation as to why Nolan deserted or what happened to him.

Now, McKinley's younger brother, Michael, has joined forces with a New Jersey journalist, a Vietnam War veteran, a New York City filmmaker, a Hollywood star and a Houston congresswoman in hopes of finally unraveling the mystery.

Their combined efforts last month pushed the Pentagon's MIA search unit, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, to act on an eyewitness account and dig for McKinley Nolan's remains in a Cambodian village.



Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-nolan_15pro.ART0.State.Edition1.4ac4d24.html

[lostnotforgotten]

1. Those That Can Never See The Government As Evil Are Without Eyes, Ears, And Mind

eom

[shadowknows69]

2. But but we weren't in Cambodia

[Brother Buzz]

3. Nolan was on the lamb in Vietnam for six years before he fled to Cambodia...

in 1973, the same year Congress ordered an end to the bombing in Cambodia.

[bertman]

5. Shadow, did you leave your sarcasmthingy at home today?

[bertman]

4. There were rumors of GI's who had "gone over" to the other side or who just decided

to desert and live with the Vietnamese. To my knowledge none of them were ever substantiated in the area where I was.

At times it was easy to imagine how some exceedingly compassionate individual would become so distraught with what he was seeing happen to the Vietnamese that he would decide to abandon his unit and join the locals. The senselessness and savagery became commonplace to most of us but some were affected so deeply that I and my buddies wondered if they were going to go over the edge. One slick pilot in our unit, who was a great guy and outstanding pilot, was constantly railing against the war and all the horror he was seeing. If he hadn't been able to get totally stoned on reefer all the time I'm not sure what he would have done. Meanwhile, the rest of us who felt the same way were sympathetic but couldn't rise to the level of outrage to desert our unit and our fellow soldiers.

This is a sad story that is totally believable to me. I hope they are able to find his remains. I sounds like McKinley Nolan was a decent human being who got trapped in his own personal hell and did what he felt he had to do to make things right.

In some of the stories we heard about the deserter would join up with the VC and fight against the Americans. That doesn't seem to be the case here.