NOLAN, McKINLEY

Name: McKinley Nolan
Rank/Branch: E2/US Army
Unit: CO A 2 BN 16 INF 1ST INF DIV
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: Washington TX
Date of Loss: 09 November 1967 (671109 USAEREC LIST)
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 104520N 1063900E
Status (in 1973): AWOL/Deserter
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground

Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 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: LAST SEEN PA>AA 2 NOV 1973

SYNOPSIS: PVT McKinley Nolan served with the 1st Infantry Division near
Saigon. On November 9, 1967, he disappeared with his Cambodian wife. After
that, all sources seem to indicate that Nolan went over to the enemy.

Nolan later turned up in Hanoi, doing some broadcasts for Radio Hanoi and
writing leaflets that were circulated among American prisoners of war. One
returned POW, James Stockdale, described him as a "U.S. soldier who defected
in South Vietnam and supplied Hanoi Hannah with tapes on defecting."

Returned POWs reported seeing him almost daily, together with his Cambodian
wife and child. He reportedly later went over to the Khmer Rouge, who were
then fighting alongside the Vietnamese. When the Americans left in 1975, and
Vietnam invaded Cambodia, Nolan was caught in the middle and told a source
he had been "mistreated" by the Vietnamese.

In late May, 1974, Nolan and his family were seen at a coffee plantation in
Cambodia where he went by the name of Buller. A later CIA document stated he
was alive and healthy in 1978 and there was an unconfirmed report that he
visited Cuba in 1978. This report was confirmed by a late-returning POW
(Robert Garwood) who stated he had heard this information while held in
Vietnam.

In 1986, several national news articles revealed that intelligence documents
showed at least 7 missing Americans had been seen alive in Vietnam in the
last dozen years, including McKinley Nolan.

POW/MIA advocacy groups reverberated with anticipation, wondering if Nolan
would ultimately be brought home, to provide new information on those men
still missing would be available. No further word surfaced on Nolan in the
next few years, and the hope vanished.

Nolan, for whatever reason, apparently chose love of a woman over love of
his country and remained behind, perhaps even to defect. America cannot
completely ignore a man who may have a wealth of information on Americans
still alive in Vietnam. If McKinley Nolan should ever wish to return to his
homeland, will what he has to say about missing Americans be discounted
because of allegations that he defected? How much less forgiving would we be
to him than we were to those Americans who fled to Canada to avoid the
war?...or to a woman who once playfully aimed a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun
to the skies over Hanoi in protest of American bombing of Vietnam?

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