PERRICONE, RICHARD ROBERT
Name: Richard Robert Perricone
Rank/Branch: E4/US Army
Unit: Company B, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division
Date of Birth: 1946
Home City of Record: Uniondale NY
Date of Loss: 12 Jul 1967
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 134026N 1073809E (YA850131)
Status (in 1973): Released POW
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Other Personnel In Incident: Nathan B. Henry; Cordine McMurray; Stanley A.
Newell; Martin S. Frank (all released); James F. Schiele; James L. Vanbendegom
(both missing). Held with men from at least two other incidents including:
Incident on 18 May 1967: Joe L. DeLong (missing); Incident on 17 Feb 1967:
David W. Sooter (released).
REMARKS: 730305 RELSD BY PRG
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.
SYNOPSIS: In the spring of 1973, 591 American Prisoners of War were released
from prisons and camps in Vietnam. Among them were six of a group of nine U.S.
Army 4th Infantry Division personnel captured in and near Pleiku Province,
South Vietnam during the year of 1967 whose lives had been intertwined for the
past six years. All had belonged to that part of the "Ivy Division" which was
assigned to Task Force Oregon conducting border operations called Operation
Sam Houston (1 Jan - 5 Apr 67) and Operation Francis Marion (5 Apr - 12 Oct
67).
On February 17, 1967, W1 David W. Sooter was the only man captured from a OH23
helicopter downed at the southeastern edge of Kontum Province near the edge of
Pleiku Province, and near the Cambodian border.
PFC Joe Lynn DeLong was the machine gunner for his company, on a company-sized
patrol in Rotanokiri Province, Cambodia on May 18, 1967. (Note: most records
list this loss as in South Vietnam, and coordinates place it in the Ia Drang
Valley, Pleiku Province, South Vietnam near the border of Cambodia, but U.S.
Army casualty reports state that the loss was in Kotanokiri Province,
Cambodia.) While on patrol, his unit was hit by a Viet Cong force of unknown
size and cut off from the rest of the company. DeLong's platoon formed a
defensive perimeter and attempted to hold their position. Later that day, at
about 1830 hours, DeLong's platoon position was overrun. The next morning,
another unit reached his position, and was able to account for all platoon
members except for DeLong. It was later learned that DeLong had been captured.
Nearly two months later, on July 12, 1967, SP4 Martin S. Frank, PFC Nathan B.
Henry, Sgt. Cordine McMurray, PFC Stanley A. Newell, PFC Richard R. Perricone,
SP4 James F. Schiele and PFC James L. Van Bendegom, all members of Company B,
1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, were conducting a search
and destroy mission along the Cambodian border when their position was overrun
by the Viet Cong. With the execption of Schiele, all the men were captured.
The U.S. Army notes that Schiele and Van Bendegom were captured by the North
Vietnamese, while the others, apparently, were captured by Viet Cong.
PFC Schiele was seen by his platoon leader as his unit was forced to withdraw,
leaving him behind. He had been hit a number of times by automatic weapons
fire in the legs and chest and was thought to be dead. PFC Perricone stated in
his debrief upon return to the U.S. that the enemy camp commander of Camp 102
told him that SP4 Schiele had died of wounds received in the fire fight.
However, since there was no positive proof of death, the U.S. government
placed Schiele in a Missing in Action category. Classified information given
to the Vietnamese by Gen. John Vessey in 1987, however, states that both
Schiele and Van Bendegom were captured by the North Vietnamese.
PFC Vanbendegom was also wounded in the engagement, and was seen alive by
other Americans captured in the same battle about one week after his capture
at a communist field hospital in Cambodia, not far from his capture location.
One of the released Americans was later told by the commanding North
Vietnamese officer at his prison camp in Cambodia that SP4 Vanbendegom had
died of his wounds. Vanbendegom was categorized as a Prisoner of War.
The other seven Americans were held in prison camps on the Vietnam/Cambodia
border for several months. According to the debriefs of releasees Sooter and
Perricone, they and DeLong had attempted to escape from a border camp in
Cambodia on November 6, 1967, but were recaptured the same day. Two days
later, Sooter and Perricone were shown DeLong's bullet-ridden and blood-soaked
trousers and were told that DeLong had been killed resisting recapture. The
Vietnamese included DeLong's name on a list of prisoners who had died in
captivity (saying he died in November 1967), did not return his remains, and
did not offer any explaination.
Sooter, Frank, Henry, Perricone, McMurray and Newell were all released by the
PRG in 1973. Frank was never known to be a prisoner by the U.S. Henry was
injured, and maintains a permanent disability today. The U.S. is certain the
Vietnamese also know the fates of DeLong, Schiele and Vanbendegom, but the
Vietnamese continue to remain silent.
Since the end of the war, only a few score of the many remains the Vietnamese
could provide have been returned to U.S. control. Each return of remains
signals some political move by the Vietnamese. Strong moves towards
normalization of relations began in the mid-80's, which most Americans would
not oppose. As evidence mounts that hundreds of Americans are still held
captive by these same governments the U.S. is rushing to befriend, many
concerned Americans believe that in our rush to leave Indochina, we abandoned
our best men. And that in our rush to return, we will sign their death
warrants.
SOURCE: WE CAME HOME copyright 1977
Captain and Mrs. Frederic A Wyatt (USNR Ret), Barbara Powers Wyatt, Editor
P.O.W. Publications, 10250 Moorpark St., Toluca Lake, CA 91602
Text is reproduced as found in the original publication (including date and
spelling errors).
UPDATE - 09/95 by the P.O.W. NETWORK, Skidmore, MO
RICHARD R. PERRICONE
Staff Sergeant - United States Army
Captured: July 12, 1967
Released: March 5, 1973
I was a member of Co. B. 1st Bn. 12th Infantry 4th Infantry Division. I was
captured on July 12th 1967 and spent a little over two years in the jungles of
Cambodia. Then I moved to North Vietnam where I stayed until March 5, 1973,
the day I was released. I was captured about 25 miles west of Pleakui City,
with four other Americans. When we reached the first jungle camp in Cambodia
we met two other American POWs. We all tried to escape from there November 6,
1967, but failed and were recaptured.
The camp I lived in was 20 miles inside Cambodia. The buildings I lived in
were made of small trees put together like beams. They were about three
inches apart. The roof was made of large leaves. The beds were made of thin
strips of bamboo tied together with vines. There were stocks the whole length
of the bed. At night we put our legs into the stocks. The stocks were two
trunks about five inches in diameter. But after the escape attempt, our legs
were in the stocks all of the time. The general routine each day was: We would
get up at about 5:30 A.M. Eat our first meal at 7 A.M., which was two or three
cups of rice and the tops of sweet potato plants. We would then just lay
around all day. Then at 4, we would have our second meal. Then, at about 5:30
or 6, we would be locked up again for the night. Some life, don't you think???
We were allowed to bathe about once a week or ten days. This mostly depended
upon which guard was on duty that day.
December 1996
Ricahrd and his wife Maria live in New York.
Sat Feb 21 1998
25 YEARS AFTER RELEASE... ONE POW'S VICTORY
PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY Daily News Staff Writer
Twenty-five years ago last week, the first of 556 American
prisoners of war began arriving home from captivity in North Vietnam.
In poignant scenes emblazened on the American memory, the survivors
embraced families, friends and lives forever changed by the conflict.
What follows is the story of one remarkable New Yorker who returned
and thrived.
IT WAS AN EXPERIENCE that took part of his life, the very heart of
his young adulthood. It would also give context and meaning to the
rest of his years.
"Two thousand and sixty-four days," says Richard Perricone,
shaking his head in disbelief and smiling slightly. As a prisoner of
war in Vietnam, he sometimes lost track of which day of the week it
was, but he never missed tabulating his time in captivity.
Twenty-five years later, Perricone doesn't think about those lost
years every single day. But when he does, he can call up every
detail of the fear, brutality and boredom; his endless, simple dreams
of eating pancakes in a diner or taking a long, hot shower; the
terror of hearing U.S. bombs drop around him.
Perricone is 52 now, but his thin frame and dark, though receding,
hair give him a younger appearance. He manages a 340-unit apartment
building on W. 56th St., where he lives with his wife, Maria, and 4-
year-old daughter Alexandria.
He is one of 556 POWs who came home in February, March and April
of 1973 to rejoin everyday life in a country transformed. Some went
on to more public service, such as Douglas (Pete) Peterson, the
country's first ambassador to Vietnam, and U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-
Ariz.) and Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.).
Most just picked up their lives and found jobs and wives and had
children in anonymity. But all are bound by an experience that, in
Perricone's words, "You can never picture, nobody could ever picture.
There are just a handful of us; we're the only ones who can picture
it."
All but about 75 of the POWs were pilots, so Perricone, being an
Army grunt captured on the ground, is among an even more exclusive
fraternity. He keeps in touch with five other men in his company who
survived the Hanoi Hilton with him.
"We were very tight . . . we became like brothers," he said.
"After spending 5 1/2 years together, closer than brothers. When we
meet, we kiss and hug."
He talks easily about his arduous past, by turns proud, angry,
laughing, rubbing his arms to erase goose bumps as he describes the
ambush that killed most of his company, and holding back a tear when
he thinks of March 5, 1973, the day he was freed.
With 25 years' perspective, he concludes that the experience
helped him. "It made me really cherish life and be a hardworking
person," Perricone said. "Nothing bothers me. I've been through so
much, and my life was on the line all those years. It made me a hard
person, and that keeps me going, and keeps me young."
He was very young 19 and working in his father's butcher shop
and hanging around his hometown of Uniondale, L.I., when he was
drafted in 1965. He arrived in South Vietnam a year later, to an
almost partylike atmosphere, with girls kissing him and his buddies
when they stepped off the ship.
Reality quickly appeared in the form of skirmishes, sniper fire
and body bags.
"The scariest part was the darkness, at night you couldn't see a
thing, and you didn't know what was out there, or coming at you," he
said. "When the light came up, you could finally breathe a sigh of
relief."
The third platoon of B Company, 1/12th Infantry Battalion, 4th
Division, had barely taken that first gasp of morning air on July 12,
1967, northwest of Pleiku, when hell arrived.
"We walked right into an ambush," Perricone said. "The company
was wiped out except for seven guys. We were captured by the 66th
North Vietnamese Army regiment. I got shot in the leg, had shrapnel
in my arm, and I got knocked out by a hand grenade, and the next
thing I knew a guy was shaking me awake; I was already tied up."
In the first days, "we didn't know what they'd do, I was worried
about torture, that they'd pull my fingernails out," Perricone said.
"They didn't do that stuff, but they'd beat the s--- out of you.
They broke my nose."
He and six other men from his company were held in the Cambodian
jungle, in a thatched hut, their feet in stocks at night, eating rice
and tops of sweet potatoes. Two pals died of disease.
There were two previously captured soldiers there. "We were told
not to talk, so we communicated by songs," he said, laughing. "I'd
sing, 'Hello my name is Richard, I'm from New York,' and the guards
didn't realize we were exchanging information."
He said he could hear American voices every two or three weeks,
being so close to the border of South Vietnam, and figured if they
fled their captors and headed south they'd be saved. So, on Nov. 22,
1967, "we contemplated the great escape," Perricone said.
He was the healthiest, so he had to jump the guard. They waited
until the dumbest guard was on duty. They called him Elvis because
of his long sideburns, and Perricone slammed him with a rock.
"We ran, and pretty soon we heard shots ... they caught us, all
except for one guy, Joe, and took us back and beat us with sticks,"
he said. "A few days later, a Viet Cong guerrilla came in with a
sack dripping blood. I thought it was gonna be Joe's head. The guy
took out a shirt, it had Joe's name on it and about 20 bullet holes.
He threw it on the ground and said, 'That's what's left of your
friend.' "
They were held in the jungle until Thanksgiving Day 1969, when
they were marched to North Vietnam on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a three-
week trek. Perricone passed truckloads of soldiers and supplies
heading south to fight U.S. troops.
His new prison was Hoa Lo in Hanoi, dubbed the Hanoi Hilton, where
he was kept in a locked cement room with other captives, most of them
pilots. Those who "misbehaved" were put in solitary.
"They told us we were never going home, that we'd be tried as war
criminals after the war," Perricone said. "They showed us movies of
anti-war protesters ... it hurt to see that."
But the sanitary conditions were better, and he heard news of what
was going on back home.
"The other prisoners told us about the girls wearing short skirts,
and flower power, free love, the new cars," he said. "We heard
American music. The Vietnamese would play Connie Francis records,
but always called her Francis Connie."
They ate pumpkins and cabbage, sometimes bread. "The biggest
topic for five years was food," he said. "We'd talk about how good
it would be to go to a diner for pancakes, or to have a big steak."
He remembers the December 1972 bombing of Hanoi like it was
yesterday.
"We were in a room with no windows, just a small opening on the
ceiling, and you could see the flashes and hear sirens ... you'd hear
surface-to-air missiles taking off right next to you. In 1973, the
carpet bombings, they came really close. It would go on for three or
four minutes straight. It was the most frightening, to think that I
was going to die this way, after all those years of being sick and
being a prisoner."
Some of the POWs cracked under the pressure and made propaganda
statements. Perricone doesn't condemn them. "Some guys just
couldn't take it ... the ones who complied got to write home, they
got some privileges."
He endured until that March day in 1973 when the North Vietnamese
released him, sending him home with a plastic bag containing candy
and toiletries, including a metal comb made from a recycled, shot-
down U.S. plane. He still has the gray and maroon striped pajamas he
wore in captivity.
Upon arriving at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, two of
his long-held dreams came true: He had a steak dinner and was given a
bar of soap, a washcloth and a long, hot shower.
He came home to a parade in Uniondale, with thousands of people
lining the streets to welcome him. His father had longish hair,
sideburns and wore bell-bottoms.
"People looked so weird to me, but they hugged me and thanked me .
. . it was great."
His parents told him that if his younger brother had been drafted,
they were going to send him to Canada. "I said, 'Are you kidding me?
What did I go over there for?' "
In the first three years home, Perricone suffered from nightmares.
He saw every Vietnam War movie that came out. Meanwhile, he bought a
house and took college courses. He married the woman who had worn
his POW bracelet and they had a son, Anthony, in a marriage that
lasted 16 years.
He marched in the ticker-tape parade down Broadway in May 1985.
"People hugged and thanked and congratulated me all over again," he
remembered.
He was chief engineer at Phillip Morris corporate headquarters on
E. 42nd St., then got the manager's job at 150 W. 56th St. in 1990.
He met and married his wife, Maria.
They talk of visiting Vietnam.
"I'd like to go back there, just to see what it's like," Perricone
said. "I wouldn't get mad at them; war is war."
He may not hold anger anymore, but he will never shake the pain.
"I lost 5 1/2 years of my life, years that should have been the
best part," he said, wistfully.
"But I don't regret going."
Use your Browser's BACK function to return to the PREVIOUS page