GAUTHIER, DENNIS LEE

Name: Dennis Lee Gauthier
Rank/Branch: E3/US Army
Unit: Company C, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry
Division (Ivy Division)
Date of Birth: 08 August 1949 (Duluth MN)
Home City of Record: Rochester MI
Date of Loss: 31 October 1969
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 140656N 1074341E (YA944622)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Refno: 1507
Other Personnel In Incident: (none 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 in 1998.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: PFC Dennis L. Gauthier was with Army ground forces in Pleiku,
South Vietnam on October 31, 1969. He was serving as a rifleman when his
company was attempting to withdraw from an ambush, and PFC Gautier's platoon
was sent up a hill to provide covering fire for the company. The platoon
began receiving fire and engaged in a fire fight with the enemy. Gautier was
hit in the leg, and another men was hit, but they could not be immediately
evacuated. PFC Gautier hid behind a log while the others advanced.

On November 2, a reconnaissance platoon was able to search the area. This
platoon found and recovered the body of the other soldier, but found no
trace of Gautier or any of his personal effects. Dennis was barely 20 years
old.

There are nearly 2500 Americans missing in Southeast Asia. Mounting evidence
indicates that some of them are still alive, held captive by the communists
of the region.

The Paris Peace agreements of 1973 dictated that the Vietnamese would return
all prisoners of war and make the fullest possible accounting of the
missing. They did not do either. Men known to have been prisoner of war were
not released. Many men who died in captivity have not been returned for
burial. The U.S. Government policy statement is that we do not have
actionable evidence of Americans held captive, yet points to "several
million documents" relating to these men. Until serious effort is made to
find those men we left behind, their famlies will wonder whether their men
are alive or dead - and why they have been abandoned by the country they
proudly served.

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