waving American flag   David Berdahl, American Hero  waving POW flag

 

Berdahl's medals in a frame

A man is not dead until he is forgotten graphic

 

If you are able,
save for them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.

Take what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.

And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

-- Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970, Dak To, Vietnam
MIA 24 March 1974

  Name: David Donald Berdahl
 Rank/Branch: E3/US Army
 Unit: 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry, 101st Airborne Div.
 Date of Birth: 16 Jan., 1953
 Home City of Record: Minot, ND
 Date of Loss: 20 Jan. 1972
 Country of Loss: South Vietnam
 Loss Coordinates: 16387N 1064557E (XD883408)
 Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
 Category: 3
 Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1H
 Refno: 1795
 Other Personnel In Incident:
 Harry J. Edwards (missing)
 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.
 

REMARKS: (none)

SYNOPSIS: On January 20, 1972, SP4 Harry J. Edwards, one of four riflemen; PFC David D. Berdahl, the door gunner, and a four man crew were aboard a UH1H helicopter (tail #69-16717) on a recovery mission for downed F4 fighter jet pilots.

At about 1815 hours, the aircraft was returning from the mission northwest of Khe Sanh in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, when an anti-aircraft weapon fired on and hit the aircraft, causing it to catch fire.

At first, the fire appeared at  the forward end of the tail boom, but immediately spread over the boom and then engulfed the entire aircraft. The helicopter autorotated to the bank of the Raoquan River, landed hard and rolled over onto its left side.

 The aircraft commander of another UH1H followed the burning aircraft down, made a pass overhead, and came to a hover adjacent to the downed helicopter.

 Landing was impossible because of jagged rocks. While in a hover, the aircraft commander saw one man dressed in a flight suit, helmet and armored vest pinned down in the burning aircraft. This individual was apparently Berdahl.

 The hovering helicopter was forced to leave because the downed aircraft started to explode. He did not observe anyone leaving the aircraft alive, but picked up 5 survivors from the crash site and flew about 50 feet downstream to pick up another survivor.

 Berdahl and Edwards were declared Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered. It has not been possible since that day to locate them if alive, or to recover their bodies, if dead.

 When the war ended, and 591 Americans were released in Operation Homecoming in 1973, military experts expressed their dismay that
 "some hundreds" of POWs did not come home with them. Since that time, thousands of reports have been received, indicating that many Americans are still being held against their will in Southeast Asia.

Whether Berdahl is among them is not at all likely. What is certain, however, is that if only one American remains alive in enemy hands, we owe him our best effort to bring him home.

 

 

3/5 crossed sabers

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