I grew up knowing that my dad had served in the Air Force during Vietnam, and I knew he had been a pararescueman. But that was about all I knew. He didn't talk about it. He would show us slide shows of pictures he took while he was in the Philippines, and we knew he used to jump out of helicopters. But we didn't hear him tell stories.
Till this year.....
Last Fall, he was contacted by the military and told they were attempting to retrieve the remains of soldiers that had been lost during the war. And we all soon learned the story of one particular mission, when my dad had been sent in to retrieve a downed pilot. He soon discovered that the pilot was dead and was tangled up in his parachute and bushes. Because it would take too long to free him, and the longer it took the more danger the rescue team was exposed to, my dad had to leave him there. The military, some 40 years later, was trying to find him, and my dad was the only person still alive who knew where his body might be.
They began preparing him to travel to Laos to help guide them to where this pilots remains might be. He began pouring over maps of the area and had to get a slew of vaccines. In February this year, he set out on his mission. He traveled to Hawaii, then on to Laos. On his last day there, while combing through the jungle on the side of a hill, during the last half hour, the search team found an identification tag for the pilot they were looking for, along with other remnants of his parachute and belongings. My dad's mission was a success.
One of my friends here in Eagle saw me post about it on Facebook, and was impressed with the story. She heads up the organization of the Field of Honor here in Eagle, that is done every Memorial Day. She contacted my dad and asked him if he would come be featured at this event.
So, my parents came to stay with me for a week, and we started off with my dad as the Grand Marshal of the Armed Forces parade. My kids were delighted when they were invited to ride in the half track truck!
The next Saturday, my dad was the keynote speaker for the opening ceremonies for the Field of Honor. He told his story of the rescue mission he went on, and he did an amazing job. My kids all sat as still as could be and listened, and I fought back tears the whole time. I was so proud of my dad.
These pictures and the following article were published in the local paper here in Eagle. I thought I'd repost it here, so I'll have it for the future (to tell my grandchildren some day).
Leland Sorensen
Sorensen, born in Pocatello, became a U.S. Air Force pararescueman (Parajumper, or PJ for short) in 1967. His missions involved rescuing pilots and other crewmembers shot down by enemy fire.
“We were bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail, supporting the friendlies there in Laos in their civil war,” he explained. “In March of 1969, I was involved in a rescue mission to find a pilot that had ejected from an F-105. He ejected fine, and was seen tearing up documents as he descended, but when he landed in the trees, his parachute folded in and he fell about 150 feet to the ground and died.”
Sorensen said he was lowered by cable to the ground and found the pilot had also rolled down through a grassy slope, stopping short of another tree line and was wrapped up in his parachute.
“I noticed drops of blood before I got up to him and apparently as he rolled down, he had been flinging his blood out ahead of him, like a rock out of a tire, and so this guy had come down there pretty fast and pretty hard, because I was seeing blood a fair distance from where he actually was.”
Bringing the downed pilot home, dead or alive, was part of his job, but certain circumstances prevented that from happening.
“It had been three hours since he ejected and he was so wrapped up in his parachute,” he explained. “It was after five O’clock and the sunset down there is at six every night, I thought it might be impossible to get out of there and so I left him.”
Sorensen did so, however, believing another helicopter would come in the next day to recover the downed pilots body, as customary in those situations, but didn’t find out until December 2013 that it never happened.
The Search 45 years later
“Last December I was contacted by the government. They were trying to locate the air crew for Jolly Green 09 (JG 09) and JG 16, the two HH-3E helicopters on that mission back in 17 March 1969,” Sorensen explained. “I wrote back and told them I was the PJ that went to the ground, so arrangements were made for me to go with a JPAC (Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, U.S. Department of Defense) team to try to locate the hill I was on.”
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command conducts global search, recovery and laboratory operations to identify unaccounted-for Americans from past conflicts in order to support the Department of Defense’s personnel accounting efforts, according to the JPAC website.
“They (JPAC) had a mission to look for remains and they had this guy’s name on their list, so I went with them in hopes I could identify the hillside I was on,” Sorensen said.
The team of investigators, however, only had three days to work, all the while under the under the direct scrutiny of Laos government officials.
The first two days produced nothing, and it looked as if the third would also be a bust. The team used various reports of the downed pilot’s last known position, but came up empty. In addition, the landscape had undergone a significant transformation in the 45 years since Sorensen had last seen the area.
“When I was lowered to the hillside (in 1969), it was a grassy slope,” he said. “But it’s all jungle now, with trees and vines and grass and bushes, totally unrecognizable.”
The team ultimately found the site thanks to a “witness” who remembered seeing parachute material on a hunting expedition some 30 years earlier. Sorensen and the crew took the helicopters in and hiked the rest of the way to the site.
“We had the choice of taking one of two routes to get in there and chose to walk on the ridgeline instead of following the creek,” he explained.
The team found nothing and decided it was time to get return, this time following the creek back down. Before long, the witness began crawling out of the creek and back up the hillside.
“He said that he had found the spot,” Sorensen recalled. “The guy knew from some old tree he recognized. We went up there and found a parachute pad, a locker key, a sock and some parachute material.”
What amazed them most was a weathered military I.D. lying on the ground.
“The picture was all faded, but you could kind of read the height and weight of the guy, and his signature was there. It said David T. Dinan, III,” Sorensen said with a smile. “I said ‘Holy Cow! This is him, this is the guy I’m looking for!’”
The team only had 30 minutes to collect as much evidence as they could and did not find a body. A return trip, however, is planned for either June of this year or March 2015.
“I always regretted having to leave him there,” Sorensen added. “But how, after 45 years did they find these things right on top of the ground? What stopped it from going into the creek? Why was the I.D. card on top of the ground, along with the locker key, the sock, the parachute material and harness? Some angel wanted somebody to find that card. Now the question is, was it for David Dinan, or was it for me? I don’t know.”
Sorensen noted that the return trip to recover the body would include a thorough excavation of the site.
“It would be great to get that guy home,” he said.
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