JUDGE, MARK WARREN
Name: Mark Warren Judge
Branch/Rank: United States Marine Corps/PFC, E2
Unit:
Date of Birth: 28 Jun 47
Home City of Record: Torrance, CA
Date of Loss: 21 Sept 67
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: Quang Tri Province
Status (in 1973): Hostile Killed, Body Recovered [see below]
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident: see below
Refno:
Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File. Information from the National Alliance of
Families.
REMARKS: NOT ON ANY OFFICIAL LIST AS A PRISONER OF WAR
"...... IN 1994, THE MARINES CONTACTED MRS. MARY JELLISON, MOTHER OF MARK
JUDGE. MRS. JELLISON WAS INFORMED THAT HER SON MARK DIED AS AN
UNACKNOWLEDGED PRISONER OF WAR. THE GRAVE SHE TENDED FOR THESE 28 YEAR
CONTAINED, ACCORDING TO THE GOVERNMENT THE REMAINS OF ANOTHER MARINE
KILLED IN THE CON THIEN BATTLE ON SEPT. 21, 1967, WILLIAM BERRY...."
The investigation continues......
============================
NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF FAMILIES
FOR THE RETURN OF AMERICA'S MISSING SERVICEMEN.
WORLD WAR II - KOREA - COLD WAR - VIETNAM
APRIL 9, 1996
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FAMILY EXHUMES GRAVE OF SERVICEMAN THOUGHT KILLED IN VIETNAM, IN EFFORT
TO ASSURE PROPER IDENTIFICATION.
DUE TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENTS ONGOING EFFORT TO WITHHOLD INFORMATION VITAL
TO PROVING OR DISPROVING THE IDENTIFICATION OF REMAINS HELD AT THE
CENTRAL IDENTIFICATION LABORATORY IN HAWAII (CIL-HI,) WE ARE FORCED TO
TAKE THIS ACTION.
ON TUESDAY APRIL 9TH, 1996 THE FAMILIES OF MARK JUDGE, WILLIAM BERRY AND
KENNETH PLUMADORE GATHERED AT A SMALL CEMETERY IN FORT WAYNE INDIANA TO
WITNESS THE EXHUMATION OF A 28 YEAR OLD GRAVE. ACCORDING TO THE U.S.
GOVERNMENT THE INDIANA GRAVE HOLD THE REMAINS OF WILLIAM BERRY. IT IS
SAID KENNETH PLUMADORE IS BURIED IN WILLIAM BERRY'S CALIFORNIA GRAVE.
THE REMAINS OF MARK JUDGE, ACCORDING TO THE GOVERNMENT, ARE THE REMAINS
HELD AT CIL-HI.
THE HISTORY OF THIS REMAINS MIS-IDENTIFICATION IS LONG AND COMPLICATED.
THIS CASE REPRESENTS 28 YEARS OF LIES TO THE PLUMADORE FAMILY.
ORIGINALLY, KENNETH PLUMADORE WAS THE ONLY MAN UNACCOUNTED FOR AFTER A
BLOODY BATTLE AT CON THIEN, QUANG TRI PROVINCE ON SEPTEMBER 21, 1967.
ON THAT DAY, 15 MARINES WERE LEFT ON THE FIELD. THE FAMILIES WERE TOLD
ALL 15 WERE DEAD. INTELLIGENCE REPORTS PROVING THE CAPTURE OF ONE MAN
THAT DAY WERE WITHHELD FROM THE FAMILIES. SUBSEQUENT SEARCH EFFORT
RECOVERED 14 BODIES. THE PLUMADORE FAMILY WAS TOLD THAT KENNY'S BODY HAD
BEEN "CONSUMED BY MORTAR AND ARTILLERY FIRE," AND UNRECOVERABLE.
IN 1986, THE VIETNAMESE RETURNED THE REMAINS OF A MARINE, THEY SAID WAS
CAPTURED AT CON THIEN, ON SEPT. 21, 1967. BOTH THE VIETNAMESE AND U.S.
GOVERNMENT NOW ACKNOWLEDGE THAT AT LEAST ONE MAN WAS CAPTURED THAT DAY.
AFTER AN EXAMINATION OF THOSE REMAINS, IT WAS DETERMINED THEY WERE NOT
THE REMAINS OF THE ONLY MAN ACKNOWLEDGED AS MISSING FROM THAT BATTLE,
KENNETH PLUMADORE. THE PLUMADORE FAMILY PURSUED THIS CASE VIGOROUSLY.
IN 1992, PATRICIA PLUMADORE INQUIRED ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF A
MIS-IDENTIFICATIO N OF REMAINS IN 1967. SHE WAS ASSURED VERBALLY AND IN
WRITING THAT THAT POSSIBILITY WAS CONSIDERED AND REJECTED.
THEN IN 1994, THE MARINES CONTACTED MRS. MARY JELLISON, MOTHER OF MARK
JUDGE. MRS. JELLISON WAS INFORMED THAT HER SON MARK DIED AS AN
UNACKNOWLEDGED PRISONER OF WAR. THE GRAVE SHE TENDED FOR THESE 28 YEAR
CONTAINED, ACCORDING TO THE GOVERNMENT THE REMAINS OF ANOTHER MARINE
KILLED IN THE CON THIEN BATTLE ON SEPT. 21, 1967, WILLIAM BERRY.
THERE IS NO FORENSIC EVIDENCE TO VERIFY THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE CIL-HI
REMAINS AS THOSE OF MARK JUDGE. INDEPENDENT EXAMINATION STATED THAT THE
REMAINS COULD BE MONGOLOID FEMALE. ADDITIONALLY, FULL RESULTS OF DNA
TESTING HAS BEEN WITHHELD FROM THE JUDGE FAMILY. ON APRIL 19TH, THE
ARMED FORCES IDENTIFICATION REVIEW BOARD HEARING (AFIRB) WILL EXAMINE
THIS CASE. WE EXPECT THE AFIRB WILL "RUBBER STAMP" THE CILHI
IDENTIFICATION OF REMAINS AS THOSE OF MARK JUDGE, IN SPITE OF
CONFLICTING EVIDENCE. IN ORDER T O PROTECT OUR ACCESS TO ACCURATE
INFORMATION, WE FELT ACTION MUST BE TAKEN.
IN THE PRESENCE OF A BOARD CERTIFIED FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGISTS, AND
ODONTOLOGIST, THE GRAVE THOUGHT TO CONTAIN THE REMAINS OF MARK JUDGE
WAS EXHUMED. EXPERTS CHOSEN BY THE JUDGE, PLUMADORE AND BERRY FAMILIES
WILL EXAMINE THESE REMAINS UNDER STRICT RULES OF EVIDENCE. THIS ACTION
IS TAKEN TO ASSURE THAT THE FAMILIES INVOLVED WILL HAVE FULL AND
ACCURATE INFORMATION AS TO WHAT IS CONTAINED IN THE INDIANA GRAVE.
EXPERTS WILL REPORT THEIR CONCLUSIONS DIRECTLY TO THE FAMILIES. IT IS
THE FAMILIES HOPE THAT THE GOVERNMENT WILL ALLOW THEM TO CONDUCT THEIR
INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION, WITHOUT INTERFERENCE.
MARY JUDGE JELLISON MOTHER OF MARK JUDGE
PATRICIA PLUMADORE SISTER OF KENNETH PLUMADORE
FRED BERRY BROTHER OF WILLIAM BERRY
=====================================
[ap05.96 05/14/96]
The Associated Press.
By SHARON COHEN
Associated Press Writer
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) -- For three decades, Mary Jellison visited her
Marine son's grave -- to mourn and cry, to place American flags and his
favorite yellow tea roses next to his black marble headstone.
She had lost her handsome, brown-eyed son in Vietnam 29 years ago, to a
hero's death at the tender age of 20. His mother's only solace was that her
child's body was returned home for burial.
Or so she thought.
On a raw, gloomy April day, cemetery workers lifted a mud-splotched
casket from the frozen earth. A week later, forensic experts tentatively
confirmed the news the Marines first broke to her two years earlier: A
mistake was made. The soldier she buried in this Indiana soil apparently
wasn't her son, Mark Warren Judge.
But if it wasn't him, who was it? And how could such a heartbreaking
error occur?
The explanation provided by the Defense Department served only to plunge
two more families into excruciating limbo:
It believes the exhumed casket held another Marine, Cpl. William Berry,
who died with Judge on a bloody September morning in 1967.
And in a tragic domino-like scenario, it suspects Lance Cpl. Kenneth
Plumadore, a third Marine whose body was thought to have been obliterated in
ferocious fighting, is buried in California -- in Berry's grave.
A singular action in 1986 sparked the discovery of the unprecedented
three-way mix-up: Vietnam returned a set of deteriorating bones to the U.S.
government that the military later identified as Judge.
But rather than offering comfort, the repatriation has anguished three
families and left them mistrustful and suspicious of the motives of the
country their loved ones fought and died for more than a generation ago.
So many mistakes were made in Vietnam. This was yet another gut-wrenching
error.
As the final pieces of this 30-year-old puzzle fall into place, the
likelihood that Mary Jellison never buried her son has left her reeling.
"I just felt so sad, thinking I had my son 29 years," she says. "Then I
thought, `You're not the only mother in the world that didn't get your son
back.' You just have to live with that. You just have to accept it and go
on.
"It gives you a funny feeling, to look to where your son's tomb was and
think, `Maybe I won't be coming out here anymore,' " she adds. "It gives you
a sick feeling thinking you may not have a grave to go to at all."
------
On that blustery April day at Concordia Gardens Cemetery, a Lutheran
pastor read a prayer before the exhumation:
"Give all those here today the strength, knowledge and wisdom to find the
answers to our many questions. Grant us peace and healing of the wounds
still evident from that horrible war so many years ago."
The day marked the first time since the ordeal began that the three
families of the Marines, strangers all, had come together.
Now, they share scars, as well as memories, of three young men whose
eager, boyish faces seem frozen in time.
Mrs. Jellison, a youthful-looking, 71-year-old grandmother, smiles sadly
when she thinks of her lanky son, who worked as a grocery clerk while in
high school and then returned home to study at his maple desk until 3 a.m.
"He was the best son a mother could have," she recalls, reminiscing how
he always urged her to save money. "He was so grown up. I always feel
guilty. He was never a kid. He had a 40-year-old head on 18-year-old
shoulders.'
Pat Plumadore remembers her brother Kenneth as a popular, towering kid
whose friends say he was destined to be a Marine, an avid outdoorsman who
got an M-21 rifle for his 16th birthday, enlisted at 17 and was a Vietnam
casualty at 18.
And Fred Berry remembers his older brother, William, as a born athlete
who excelled as a track-and-field star in high school and also loved to hunt
and fish.
A Vietnam veteran who joined the Army after William's death, Fred Berry
found it especially difficult witnessing the exhumation of the casket that
apparently holds his brother.
"It just brought back a lot of memories that were hidden away," the
soft-spoken lumber mill worker says. Still, he had traveled nearly 2,000
miles from his Roseburg, Ore., home to be there.
The twisted root of this turmoil is Operation Kingfisher, a
search-and-destroy mission near the Con Thien fire base in the Quang Tri
Province, in Vietnam's demilitarized zone.
According to the Pentagon, Pfc. Judge, assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 4th
Marine Regiment, was the point man, taking the brunt of the first
machine-gun fire when hit by the enemy on Sept. 21, 1967. (His bravery
earned him the Navy Cross, posthumously.)
Survivors say the Marines were surrounded in a "pinwheel" ambush as
machine-gun fire and grenades rained down and the enemy closed in on the
Americans, trapped in knee-high grassy, open fields.
The fighting was so intense that the Marines were forced to withdraw.
They returned nearly three weeks later, piecing together and taking to an
Army mortuary in Da Nang the decomposed remains of all but one of the 15
dead comrades left behind -- raising the possibility the Vietnamese may have
captured one of the men.
And that's where the accounting process began to go awry.
Of the 14 bodies, 12 were positively identified. But Defense Department
records note "considerable difficulty" in identifying two sets of remains.
Finally, it was determined they were Judge -- Mrs. Jellison's son by a prior
marriage -- and Berry.
Plumadore was believed to be the 15th man, the missing casualty, and he
was declared killed in action. His sister says the family originally was
told no body would be returned.
That's how things stood until 1986, when Vietnam returned the remains of
a Marine buried outside a field hospital. The critically wounded American
supposedly had been dragged from the battlefield to a hospital, where he
died within days.
The Pentagon first thought it was Plumadore, but dental records ruled him
out. The remains didn't match any of the other men unaccounted for, and
sophisticated DNA testing wasn't available to investigate further. So, for
several years, Remains No. 0048-86 were stored at the Army Central
Identification Lab in Hawaii.
By 1994, the military said tests indicated the repatriated remains were
Judge, and blood samples taken from Mrs. Jellison and her daughter confirmed
a DNA match.
Believing the morticians misidentified the remains after the chaotic 1967
battle, the Defense Department has laid out this theory:
--Mark Judge's body was the one returned by Vietnam in 1986.
--Berry apparently is buried in Judge's grave. Mrs. Jellison says
military experts and private specialists told her Berry's dental records
match the remains in her son's grave. And Fred Berry says he recently was
told something similar.
--Plumadore is likely buried in Yreka, Calif. -- in Berry's grave.
The Defense Department says it regrets the trauma the mixup has caused,
and is owning up to its error.
"We're not trying to cover anything up or to create a problem for any of
these families," says Susan Hansen, a department spokeswoman. "It would have
been an easier course of action for the U.S. government not to do anything."
That candor is appreciated by Ann Griffith, director of the National
League of POW-MIA Families.
"As horrendous as it must be for the families involved ... admitting a
mistake of that gravity is not an easy thing to do," Griffith says.
"It also causes others to wonder how many more mistakes were made. It's
an uncertainty you don't need."
For the three families, uncertainty still reigns: The California grave
must be exhumed, more tests must be conducted and a military review board
must sign off on the identifications.
It has been an agonizing time for Mrs. Jellison, a genteel Georgia native
who has become a tenacious detective, looking for proof that the body
returned to American officials a decade ago was, in fact, her son.
She has filed Freedom of Information requests, traveled to Washington and
fired the attorney she was urged to hire, saying he delayed matters. She
also has tangled with the Defense Department, accusing them of providing her
with incomplete records, and trying to bully her into accepting the body
Vietnam handed over.
Mrs. Jellison has insisted on independent DNA tests before she accepts
the remains, but says private labs are reluctant to help because they do
government work.
Fearing the government was about to dig up the Indiana grave, she moved
first with the exhumation and called in local anthropologists, who joined
military forensic experts in examining the remains. In addition to the
dental identification, she says she was told the bones appear to be too
stocky to be her son.
Mrs. Jellison has no regrets about her tenacity.
"I was fighting for my son's respect," she says. "I couldn't turn my back
on my son."
Pat Plumadore has been just as aggressive and outspoken in her efforts to
clear up conflicting reports about her brother. She has written elected
officials and placed ads in veterans magazines, searching for anyone who had
seen her brother die.
"We've never really had any resolution," says the 50-year-old Syracuse,
N.Y., county worker. "You don't have the finality of a burial. The grieving
goes on and on."
Ms. Plumadore says that over the years, she has heard her brother died in
battle, was taken prisoner, could be buried in Indiana -- and now may be
buried in California. She also says she is outraged the government didn't
tell her until 1992 that Kenneth may have been taken captive.
Ms. Plumadore, who has requested her brother's status be changed from
killed to missing, thinks the government wants to say it can account for all
three Marines to facilitate relations with Vietnam.
She will travel to California when the grave is exhumed, but isn't
optimistic: Mortuary records indicate a 5-foot-8 man is buried there, she
says -- much shorter than her brother.
"If they do tests and it is a 6-3 Marine, I will be so thankful,"
Kenneth's sister says. "I will thank God for answering my prayers and
bringing my brother home."
Fred Berry, too, will go to California. A combat veteran, he understands
how a mix-up could occur in battle; he knows men can get left behind. He has
no quarrel with the government, but isn't ready to blindly accept official
conclusions.
"They haven't done anything to me," he says. "But I'm going to watch
them."
------
When the Marines first approached her in August 1994, Mary Jellison's
heart momentarily brimmed with hope. "I asked, `Is my son alive?' ... I
thought maybe he was an invalid somewhere."
Now, nearly two years later, she still has not accepted the remains the
Vietnamese handed over in 1986.
Mrs. Jellison wants more tests done, including a facial reconstruction of
the skull the Marines says is her son, before she holds a second burial. But
even that won't bring her true peace of mind.
She tries, somehow, to be philosophical about the outcome.
"Whether it be my son or somebody's else son, I have five plots at the
cemetery," she says. "I would give him a home and call it my son and be
hoping and praying it is my son. But how would I know? How will I ever
know?"
"It's almost like you have to accept it and it's closure, but in your
heart, you will always wonder, `Is Mark still out there?' "
======================
The NETWORK archive houses numberous additional articles on this case.
Contact us at
Use your Browser's BACK function to return to the PREVIOUS page