PREISS, ROBERT FRANCIS, JR.
Remains returned 06/30/98
Name: Robert Francis Preiss, Jr.
Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Special Forces
Unit: CCN/MACV-SOG, 5th Special Forces Group
Date of Birth: 27 April 1945 (Queens NY)
Home City of Record: Cornwall NY
Date of Loss: 12 May 1970
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 160211N 1070853E (YC298740)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)
REMARKS:
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.
SYNOPSIS: SSgt. Robert F. Preiss was assigned to MACV-SOG (Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam Studies and Observation Group). MACV-SOG was a joint service
high command unconventional warfare task force engaged in highly classified
operations throughout Southeast Asia. The 5th Special Forces channeled
personnel into MACV-SOG (although it was not a Special Forces group) through
Special Operations Augmentation (SOA), which provided their "cover" while under
secret orders to MACV-SOG. The teams performed deep penetration missions of
strategic reconnaissance and interdiction which were called, depending on the
time frame, "Shining Brass" or "Prairie Fire" missions.
On May 12, 1970, SSgt. Preiss was a team leader of reconnaissance team COBRA
when during a rest break, the team was taken under fire by a squad-sized NVA
element. SSgt. Preiss suffered a mortal wound and later died. Due to the
tactical situation, the team was forced to withdraw, leaving Preiss behind.
On May 18, 1970, a recovery team was inserted into the area to search for the
body of SSgt. Preiss. From all indications, the battle area had been sterilized
and a large rockslide had occurred. The only sign of Preiss was the smell of
decomposing flesh from beneath the rock slide. It was believed that SSgt.
Preiss' body was under the rocks, but they were large and could not be moved.
For every mission like Preiss' that was detected and stopped, dozens of other
commando teams safely slipped past NVA lines to strike a wide range of targets
and collect vital information. The number of MACV-SOG missions conducted with
Special Forces reconnaissance teams into Laos and Cambodia was 452 in 1969. It
was the most sustained American campaign of raiding, sabotage and intelligence
gathering waged on foreign soil in U.S. military history. MACV-SOG's teams
earned a global reputation as one of the most combat effective deep penetration
forces ever raised.
The missions Preiss and others were assigned were exceedingly dangerous and of
strategic importance. The men who were put into such situations knew the
chances of their recovery if captured was slim to none. They quite naturally
assumed that their freedom would come by the end of the war. For 591 Americans,
freedom did come at the end of the war. For another 2500, however, freedom has
never come.
Since the war ended, nearly 10,000 reports relating to missing Americans in
Southeast Asia have been received by the U.S., convincing many authorities that
hundreds remain alive in captivity. Although it does not appear that Preiss is
among them, there are clearly some who are alive. What must they be thinking of
us? What would SSgt. Robert F. Preiss, Jr. think of us?
-----------------------------------
[dn0323.97 03/25/97]
Lost Casualty Of Secret War
Family fights for G.I.'s remains
Daily News - 3/23/97
That last day, Don Preiss remembers, he was brushing his teeth when his
brother Bobby came into the bathroom and punched him lightly on the
shoulder.
"I'll be gone by the time you get home from school," said Bobby, the Green
Beret.
Don remembers a quick hug.
That was in the autumn of 1969.
For the next 27 years, until just last week, Robert F. Preiss vanished in a
hole of secrecy and lies about a war in Southeast Asia that never officially
happened.
On Monday, Don Preiss got a call from a military office in Washington.
"We have word from the lab in Hawaii that the DNA from you and your sister
do match the remains of your brother," said Lt. Col. Rosemary Salak.
It has taken the Preiss family most of three decades to dig up the truth
about the death of Robert F. Preiss, son and brother, killed in Laos on May
12, 1970.
And now, it turns out, the remains of Bobby Preiss are buried not only under
rocks in Laos, but in red tape. They were located two years ago, and a
portion removed. It took two years for military investigators to complete
the DNA work confirming his identity.
The earliest "tentative" date for exhuming the other remains of Robert Preiss
is October 1998 97 a date which could easily be later.
"We need help from the elected officials in Washington," says Don Preiss.
"The military know exactly where the remains are. But because of the
arrangements with the Laos government, they won't bring him out until they
have completed searching other parts of the country.
"We would like to put some closure to this."
Making of a Warrior
Robert F. Preiss Jr. was born in New York City on April 27, 1945, the second
of four children of Robert Preiss and Dorothy Doyle. They lived on Liberty
Avenue in Richmond Hills until the suburban housing boom of the postwar
years, when they moved to Roosevelt, L.I.
"Carol was the eldest, Bobby was the second, then Susan and me," said Don
Preiss. "Bobby was eight years older than me. When we were kids, we fought."
In Roosevelt, Bobby Preiss played high school football. "He quit school
around the 11th grade," said Don. "He didn't agree on anything with my dad.
It seemed like he had to go in the military, or he was going to prison."
The nation was looking for young men like Bobby. Lyndon B. Johnson was then
leading a massive American buildup in Vietnam.
"Bobby ended up in the Army, and he went into Special Forces, the Green
Berets," Preiss said. "He did a tour in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. When he
came back home to reenter society, he had a very difficult time."
By then, the Preiss family had moved to upstate Cornwall.
"He took me out and played pool. I was just 16 or 17, and he bought beers
for me. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world," said Don. "He
took it on himself to tell me about sex."
Bobby tried a roofing job, but he couldn't stand it. Combat had taken over
some part of him. He decided to go back.
His mother worried. His father was stoic. "Bobby thought the bullet had not
been made that had his name on it," said Don. "A lot of kids in high school
were anti-war. I couldn't be anti-war. I believed in my brother. It wasn't
until much later that I realized how stupid it all was."
At a going-away party, Bobby saved the last dance for his sister Susan.
Everyone remembers that they danced to "Yesterday."
A Tragic Enigma
Six months later.
"A Saturday night, and I'm getting ready to go out," said Don. "Just me and
my mom are home. She starts hollering for me to come downstairs. I don't pay
attention, then she hollers again."
In the front door, he could see the stripe on the pants leg.
"They told us he had been wounded and was missing in action," said Don.
What kind of action? Where? Who was with him? These were secrets. The family
wrote to his Army buddies. No one could say anything, but one man did write
and assure them: They would never leave behind a wounded man. A few months
later, they got another telegram. He was now listed as killed in action.
"Perhaps you may find some measure of comfort in knowing he served his
nation with courage and honor at a time of great need," wrote Gen. William
Westmoreland.
It was no comfort to Bobby Preiss' mother. His death was a torment of
unanswered questions. She chose to believe the first notification, that he
was wounded and missing. He was wandering somewhere, waiting to be rescued.
Over and over, she read the letters from his friends, the telegrams. "My
father finally burned a lot of it," said Don. "She died in 1984. She could
never put it to rest."
In 1988, Don Preiss, now working for IBM, visited Washington on business. He
stopped by the Vietnam Memorial, which listed his brother as missing.
"You are entitled to know what happened," said a veteran in a booth at the
wall. "You can use the Freedom of Information Act."
Don Preiss brought the questions to his congressman, Ben Gilman, and they
finally learned that Bobby had not died in Vietnam.
Battle in Shadows
The major supply trail for the Viet Cong ran along the Ho Chi Minh trail,
which cut through Laos, the country next to Vietnam. Officially, and
legally, the United States had no actions in Laos. Militarily, it was a
natural. U .S. planes dropped 2 million tons of bombs in Laos, thousands of
which never exploded and are salted today through the earth.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Preiss family finally learned
their own piece of the shrouded history of a secret war:
On May 12, 1970, Sgt. Bobby Preiss was the leader of a six-man team that
dropped into Laos. At noon, they took a water break. Three men waited by a
small stream. Preiss and two others went to the top of a steep hill
overlooking the stream.
They were ambushed. Preiss was shot in the back. He fell 70 feet, down a
steep rocky slope, dislocating his shoulder. He rolled against a tree, a few
feet from Sgt. Jeffrey Lyman, a trained medic. Lyman dressed the wounds and
started an IV solution. But Preiss was groaning loudly.
"In order to quiet him and perhaps make him more comfortable, I administered
. . . morphine, hoping it would have a tranquilizing effect," wrote Lyman.
But Preiss was sinking quickly. His pulse failed. He stopped breathing. CPR
did not help. His eyes were open and fixed. After a half-hour, Lyman
rejoined the rest of the team to be evacuated.
They came back to check on Preiss before they left. His body was stiffening.
The area was then "sterilized," or bombed. At first, the Preiss family was
told the bombing had been done by American forces, to conceal the presence
of the dead Green Beret. Other documents suggest it was done by the Viet
Cong.
In any case, the bombing sent a shower of rocks onto the remains of Bobby
Preiss.
A Mountain's Secret
On May 19, 1995, 25 years and one week later, a man named Mr. Leup from the
Laotian village of Ban Glo brought a team of American military investigators
to a mountainous site where he had been hunting. He had seen a boot and some
bones.
That day, they found 10 bone fragments. There were two morphine syrettes,
one of which was still inside a case. A packet of Alka Seltzer. A boot
insole. A pen light.
They could get no more remains then, because heavy excavation is needed to
move the rocks. The villagers will have to be appeased on the subject of
disturbing the spirits, which will be accomplished by hiring them to clear
a helicopter landing site.
The bone fragments were carried back to a military lab in Hawaii. But for
months, military DNA tests were put on hold because, believe it or not, of
the controversy around the O.J. Simpson trial. Then they were restarted.
"When they bring him back," Robert Preiss Sr. told his children, "just tell
me then. Tell me where to go."
Last fall, Robert Preiss Sr. died. The positive DNA identification was
announced this week. It comes a few weeks after Susan Preiss Martin was sent
a letter saying no one could give a firm date on the recovery of the other
remains. Wrote an officer in Hawaii: "We cannot determine the exact date
when we will be able to recover the REFNO 1618-0-01 burial site."
That REFNO 1618-0-01 would be the mortal remains of Bobby Preiss: The boy
who raced across the grass on the football field at Roosevelt High School,
the brother who bought the beers and showed Don how to handle a pool stick;
the brother who danced with his sister, on that one last song, "Yesterday,"
before he went away.
----------------------------------
[WDN0326.97 03/27/97]
Touchy call over MIA dig
By RICHARD SISK
Daily News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON
The Army yesterday faced a heartrending dilemma in trying to bring home Sgt.
Robert Preiss Jr., whose remains in Laos have been identified by DNA
analysis.
If Army forensic teams were to seek quick permission to excavate the remote
site where bone fragments of the Queens-born Preiss were found, they would be
breaking agreements with Laos on when and where searches can be conducted.
They also would be breaking the hearts of other families waiting for the
return of their missing loved ones from the Vietnam War.
"If we jump ahead on where we plan to search" to recover Preiss' remains,
"then some other family will lose out," Army Lt. Col. Roger King said.
"Somebody else is going to be disappointed."
There are at least six other pending cases of servicemen lost in Laos whose
fragmentary remains have been identified by DNA but whose bodies have not
been recovered, he said.
King, a spokesman for the Joint Task Force Full Accounting in Hawaii, said
the plan for U.S. teams to search sites from north to south in Laos was
reached in difficult negotiations with the Laotians.
"It's not like we can say 'this is where we want to go.' It's not our
backyard," King said. The site where Preiss is believed to be buried under
the debris left by a U.S. bombing raid would probably not be reached until
late 1998, King said.
In Cornwall, N.Y., Don Preiss, the younger brother of the missing Green Beret
sergeant, said he fully understood the Army's problem and would not ask for
preference in the search for his brother.
"By no means do I want any other family put aside," said Preiss, whose plight
was first detailed by Daily News columnist Jim Dwyer. "What I'm praying for
is that the Laotian government agrees to let us get all the guys, let's get
the other guys, too."
According to the Pentagon, Preiss, who was 25 when he was killed on a patrol
in 1970, is among 455 Americans still listed as missing in Laos, from 2,128
missing in the Vietnam War.
-------------------------------------
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS
June 30, 1998
No. 110-M
The remains of two American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from
Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their families
for burial in the United States.
They are identified as US Marine Corps Capt. John B. Sherman of Darien,
Conn., and US Army Staff Sgt. Robert F. Preiss, Jr., of Cornwall, NY
On March 25, 1966, Sherman was dive-bombing enemy positions in Quang Ngai
Province, South Vietnam when his F-8E Crusader was struck by enemy ground
fire. The aircraft crashed in Quang Nam-Da Nang Province. A ground search
for his remains was not possible because of enemy activity in the area.
In April and May 1993, a joint team of U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam
investigators interviewed several local informants in Quang Nam-Da Nang
Province who provided information about the crash of a US aircraft. The
US team, led by the Joint Task Force Full Accounting, reported that two of
the informants recalled an incident in March or April 1966 in which they
buried the body of an American pilot near a crash site. Two other
witnesses reported they disinterred the remains in 1990, which they turned
over to the joint team.
The joint team surveyed the crash and burial sites indicated by the local
Ainformants and found aircraft wreckage as well as pilot-related items.
The remains and other items were returned to the U. S. Army Central
Identification Laboratory, Hawaii, where laboratory analysis confirmed the
identification.
On May 12, 1970, Preiss was the leader of a reconnaissance team that came
under enemy fire in Laos. He suffered a mortal wound but because of enemy
action and difficult terrain his body could not be recovered. Six days
later, a recovery team failed to locate Preiss' body. The team reported
that a rock slide had covered the body with large boulders.
In March and April of 1995, a joint U.S./Lao People's Democratic Republic
team investigated Preiss' loss in Xekong Province. The team conducted a
ground search along the banks of the stream in the vicinity of the loss
location with negative results. In May 1995, another joint team
interviewed villagers nearby and persuaded them to take the team to a place
where remains allegedly had been seen. The team did recover some
personal equipment and possible human remains.
A third trip was made to the area in April 1997. This team recovered
material evidence, however no remains or personal effects were found during
this investigation. In early 1998, another joint team excavated the site
where they recovered possible human remains and personal effects.
Anthropological analysis of the remains and other evidence by CILHI confirmed
the identification of Preiss. With the identification of these two
servicemen, 496 Americans have been accounted for since the end of the war in
Southeast Asia, with 2,087 still unaccounted-for.
The US government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of the
governments of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People's
Democratic Republic that resulted in the accounting of these servicemen.
We hope that such cooperation will bring increased results in the future.
Achieving the fullest possible accounting for these Americans is of the
highest national priority.
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