President Reagan presided over the funeral and presented the Medal of Honor to the Vietnam Unknown. It is very austere and moving. Then, according to Webb, the Pentagon issued a second order: destroy any evidence linking file X-26 to Michael Blassie, including the personal artifacts from the crash site. After the war, Railton advocated for a grave bearing the body of a single soldier to bring the impossibly large tragedy down to a human scale. Weve updated the security on the site. That's where he fell in love with flying, Pat Blassie said. Many thanks for such a great show, this episode and all the others~ Michael's younger sister, Patricia Blassie, was seven years old when her big brother with the gentle smile left for the Air Force Academy in 1966. The Air Force told the Blassie family in St. Louis all they knew: their son had been killed in action, but his remains could not be recovered since he went down in enemy-held territory. Over the next month, enemy forces cinched the noose, pounding the city with artillery and attempting to starve out the population. Becoming a Find a Grave member is fast, easy and FREE. He believed, for example, that Senator John McCain had been brainwashed at the Hanoi Hilton and was sent back to the US to orchestrate official coverups of living POWs in Southeast Asia. He basically sat on a shelf from 1972 to 1984, Patricia Blassie said. That simple, tragic explanation would be the only one that Blassies parents ever heard for 26 years. After graduating from St. Louis University High School he entered the United States Air Force Academy, graduating in 1970. Privacy Policy & Terms of Service. All photos appear on this tab and here you can update the sort order of photos on memorials you manage. At one point he described the wounded, with their meager medical support, as looking like something out of the Civil War. (AP Photo/Brian K. Diggs), In thisJune, 30, 1998, photo,Joan Blassie, right, the mother of the Michael Blassie reacts to the news that the remains in the Tomb of Unknowns were confirmed by DNA testing as belonging to her son Lt. Michael Blassie, who was shot down over Vietnam. "This has meant so much to us. You need a Find a Grave account to continue. Thanks for using Find a Grave, if you have any feedback we would love to hear from you. It turns out that, unlike previous wars, the Vietnam War didnt produce many Unknowns. It represents all soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice for the rest of us. There, a plaque holds words from the Gettysburg Address: "We can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow this ground. Blassie, 24, an Air Force Academy graduate and the oldest of the five children of a St. Louis meat cutter, was flying an A-37 when he was shot down over An Loc, about 60 miles north of Saigon in South Vietnam, on May 11, 1972. Share this memorial using social media sites or email. Michael Blassie was therefore ruled out as a possible match. Or so the story went. At flight school, Michael was assigned to fly a ground attack aircraft known as the A-37. The name he read on the ID card was Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie. The gravesite of 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery on Thursday, June 13, 2013. A helicopter team tried to get to the crash site, but due to heavy enemy fire, they had to leave after just a few minutes empty-handed. Patricia is on Michaels right (Blassie family). Michael Joseph Blassie was born on April 4, 1948. He served as a Tactical Aircraft Pilot and was assigned to the 8TH SPECIAL OPS SQDN, 377TH AIR BASE WING, 7TH AF. The military is now in the process of using the DNA from the families of missing veterans to identify over 650 sets of unknown remains from the Korean War. One of them told her once that their mission guarding the Unknowns is never really over. For Pat Blassie, Michael's sister, the once unknown soldier still is a symbol for the country. Learn more about managing a memorial . To many Vietnam veterans, Patricia explains, it was pretty upsetting to have the Vietnam Unknown disinterred. Patricia still visits the tomb. Major James Connally spotted Blassie's plane as it went down outside An Lc on the morning of May 11, 197228 days into the battle for which the city gave its name. Photos larger than 8Mb will be reduced. She attended Wellston High School but left after three years to work as a nurses aide at DePaul Hospital. A system error has occurred. But his tactics were confrontational and often involved outrageous claims and conspiracy theories. After hours of discussion, Jean Blassie looked at her children and said, For 26 years, we have been told that Michael was never found, according to an article in Checkpoints magazine. . Thats when a Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret named Ted Sampley called Patricias mother out of the blue. "At a moment of great crises in the history of the world, he gave of himself," Archbishop Justin Rigali said to about 350 friends, family members and current and former members of the military. The bones were taken to the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, where officials said they were "believed to be" those of Blassie. They had no way of knowing the remains so caringly committed to the Tomb were that of their son and brother. You can watch his conversation with Colonel Patricia Blassie on A Veterans Story on the VBCs YouTube channel, youtube.com/veteransbreakfastclub. Michael was 24 years old and 72 inches tall when he died. Parnell soon turned the remains over to the Saigon mortuary, along with the ID card and other items. With the invention of the polymerase chain reaction in 1985, DNA analysis moved to the forefront of forensic technologies. Four low-flying F-15s flew overhead, with one pulling out of formation in a missing man salute. The DNA technology that could conclusively identify the remains was just around the corner, but in 1984 they were ordered to prepare X-26 for burial. By the time the package arrived in Hawaii, the wallet and ID were missing, presumed stolen during storage or transit. Web Policies, Careers, Accessibility, HHS Vulnerability Disclosure NLM, 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda MD 20894 NIH, HHS, FOIA, NLM Support Center, Last reviewed: 03 December 2014Last updated: 05 June 2014First published: 16 February 2006, Air Force equipment found with Michael Blassie. Your Scrapbook is currently empty. There, Captain Richard S. Hess of Mortuary Affairs inventoried the package and added a skeletal chart showing the bones locations on the body (right humerus, right pelvis, and four rib bones). He was made one., Whenever Patricias mother received criticism for requesting Michaels removal from the Tomb of the Unknown, she would simply shrug and say, Hes not your son.. They detailed that Michael Blassies remains had been recovered in Vietnam and that the person who recovered them was Chris Calhoon. Webb would later call his grappling with that order the struggle of my life. On the one hand, hed risk court-martial by not destroying the evidence. A 1970 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, he served in the Vietnam War as a 1st Lieutenant the 8th Special Operations Squadron. William S. Cohen, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1998. Today he comes home.". Think you're a Top Gun at aircraft identification? Flying at a low altitude to drop napalm, he would have been propelled into the ground. No animated GIFs, photos with additional graphics (borders, embellishments. Then, as more information about those remains was discovered, only one set of remains remained unknown. [1] He then attended Undergraduate Pilot Training, receiving his aeronautical rating as an Air Force pilot in 1971. The timely and accurate identification of men and women who die while serving in the armed forces has long been a priority for the United States government. With DNA identification being used and hearing that there are no unknowns from Vietnam and that they are working currently on unknowns from the Korean war, I though, How wonderful that there will never again be an unknown soldier, everyone will be eventually brought home. After 26 years, the family of Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie, buried the pilot Saturday, ending a painful mystery that began in 1972. When family members received word that his remains might be buried in the Tomb of the Unknown, they petitioned the Department of Defense to open the site and conduct previously unavailable DNA testing. #HonorVeterans #VetLegacies. Vacant, it will likely remain. "He's still serving today because he now represents those that need to come home," she said. The soldiers anonymity would allow each person who came to the grave to project whatever was most important to them onto the mystery. Fiery train crash in Greece kills dozens, many of them students, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot loses reelection bid. His sister Pat described the evidence succinctly: "The trail leads to the tomb." If you notice a problem with the translation, please send a message to [emailprotected] and include a link to the page and details about the problem. That just couldnt be. I wouldnt think there was a known soldier in the Tomb of the Unknowns, she recalled thinking. Patricia Blassie took the information to officials at the Air Force Casualty Office. But the military didnt tell anyone, officials later explained, because they said they couldnt be certain that it was he. Sampley had no direct evidence proving Michael was in the tomb, but that didnt make him wrong. When Britain dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey in 1920, it garnered a lot of attention. A 1970 graduate of the Air Force Academy, Mike qualified on the A-37B Dragonfly (Super Tweet) Cessna attack aircraft. Over a quarter million people lined the route to Arlington National Cemetery. Scientists at CIL-HI estimated the deceaseds age to be between 26-33 years and height between 65.2-71.5 inches. To Army scientists, these findings superseded any other evidence, such as documents or personal effects. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Blassie, who was killed in Vietnam. Flowers added to the memorial appear on the bottom of the memorial or here on the Flowers tab. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Resend Activation Email. Visit the digital memorial page of Veteran Michael Joseph Blassie where you can share stories, photos, biographies, obituaries, tributes and more. St. Louis native Michael Blassie was the picture of an ideal young Air Force officer: tall, handsome, with a hospitable grin and approachable demeanor. At flight school, Michael was assigned to fly a ground attack aircraft known as the A-37. I thought this is the best example of internet conspiracy garbage Ive seen to date, says Vince Gonzales, a reporter for CBS Denver who came across the story three years later in 1997. In Michaels case, just this once, their mission was completed. She met George Blassie, a butcher, at a ballroom dance. Members of Blassie's family could not be reached immediately for comment yesterday. In the early 1990s, Blassie's family received word that his remains might be buried in the Tomb of the Unknown. In 1998 the Tomb of the Unknown was . This dental device was sold to fix patients' jaws. Michael Joseph Townsend Sr. Obituary. France, Romania, Italy everybody at the same time jumped on this idea. But I know each one had a life worth living. Over 130,000 NVA with their tanks and artillery swept into South Vietnam along three separate fronts, from the DMZ to Saigon. The changing of the guard is quite ceremonial there and is well worth a look. display: none; He died on May 11, 1972 at age 24. They were completely cut off from the rest of the world. Major Johnie Webb was the officer in charge of the Armys Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. During a tour of Vietnam, he served as a member of the 8th Special Operations Squadron. Today: Cloudy with a chance of sprinkles or flurries. The Army lab in Hawaii removed the BTB designation and, through a later discredited technique called morphological approximation, declared Michael Blassies remains as belonging to Unknown.. By the time his mother found out where he was, his remains were entombed in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Washington. The Easter Offensive was the largest and most conventional ground invasion of the Vietnam War. Secretary of Defense William Cohen was on hand for the somber burial. There is nothing but reverence, respect and deep sorrow among visitors. High in t the middle 30s. She was 90 and had been a longtime Florissant resident before moving to Mary Queen and Mother Center in St. Louis. & Spitz, D.J. It has been watched over day and night since 1937 by a lone guard, forever marching back and forth in front of the tomb. I think that barring a complete abolition of war, this is a small consolation. In 1997, Gonzalez contacted Patricia. When it came to tracking MIAs, Sampley was shrewd and tireless. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot loses reelection bid I know about Ted Sampleys past, he told her, but I believe its true.. They said Michael had been killed. She said then-President Ronald Reagan had wanted to add a Vietnam War soldier to the Tomb of the Unknowns, joining the unknown soldiers from World War I and II and the Korean War. Revealing the Unknown: The Mystery of Michael Blassie | Missouri Historical Society 1st Lt. Michael Blassie was killed in action during the Vietnam War, but his remains were unrecovered because the fighting was so intense in the area where his plane crashed. This flower has been reported and will not be visible while under review. The President also acted as next of kin to the unidentified Blassie by accepting the interment flag at the end of the ceremony. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed The report triggered a speedy response from the Department of Defense which, after its own investigation, ordered the Tomb to be opened and the Vietnam Unknowns remains to undergo DNA testing at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. After Years As Vietnam 'Unknown,' Pilot Now Buried At Home. He subsequently qualified as an A-37 Dragonfly pilot and served as a member of the 8th Special Operations Squadron, deployed to Southeast Asia. "He and. Some evidence suggests that the remains ceremonially laid to rest by President Reagan 14 years ago belong to 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, a decorated flier still officially listed as missing in . Because mtDNA is passed along the maternal line, scientists compared the Unknown Soldier's DNA against two samples submitted by First Lieutenant Blassie's mother and sister and found a match. Michael was no longer Unknown. Patricia was 13 years old when the Air Force chaplain knocked on their door to deliver the news of Michaels death. In 1976, they were shipped to Hawaii to be analyzed by the Armys Central Identification Laboratory (CIL-HI). The music is an original piece by our talented composer, Sean Real. During a memorial service Friday evening at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, Blassie was remembered as a courageous young man who fought for peace. Morphological approximation, worthless though it was, provided quick answers and a veneer of scientific validation. 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It was a South Vietnamese Army patrol that scoured the crash site and came back with six bone fragments, a Beacon radio, two compasses, an American flag, a parachute, remnants of a pistol holder, a one-man life raft, fragments of a flight suit, a wallet with family pictures, and an ID that read: 1st Lt. Blassie, Michael Joseph., Air Force equipment found with Michael Blassie: dog tag chain fragment, signal marker pouch, match holder, parachute survival guide, and ammunition pouch (Blassie family). The remains in the tomb are not even technically referred to as an unknown soldier. No one knows which service theyre from, so instead of soldier or sailor or marine, theyre simply referred to as the Unknown. In fact, anything that narrows the scope of who this person could be including where exactly they were found is purposely withheld from the public in order to make sure that they represent every possible service member. I want to bring my son home.. On Friday, Family and friends gathered to welcome his return at Scott Air Force Base, near Blassie's hometown of Florissant, Mo., a St. Louis suburb. Thanks Dennis! On March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) launched a massive surprise attack on the South. Calhoon assumed that Michaels remains would be returning to his family,but that wasnt the case. After 26 years, the family of Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie, buried the pilot Saturday, ending a painful mystery that began in 1972. Prior to the identification of his remains, Blassie was the unknown service member from the Vietnam War buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. They petitioned the Department of Defense to open the site and conduct DNA testing, a technology that had been unavailable . For the Blassie family and the country as a whole, this is a very difficult time. They saw the identification of Michaels remains as a loss for them. Five months later, during a sweep of the area, a South Vietnamese Army patrol recovered a pelvis, an upper arm bone, and some ribs, as well as the remnants of a flight suit, a life raft, pieces of a parachute, and part of a USAF holster. Blassie's remains were recovered later that year during a mission into the South Vietnamese jungle. There are no volunteers for this cemetery. After the Civil War, the Union buried 2,111 soldiers in a mass grave in Arlington that they purposely built in the middle of Robert E. Lees rose garden. World War II, Korea, and Vietnam each would get their own Unknown. Michael Blassies squadron was providing that air support over An Loc. The next morning, he handed the package to a helicopter crew, which delivered it to the Saigon Mortuary. Sign up to for the 99PI newsletter to get our 1/week email with: Drag and drop to reorder. Helton, L.M. Parnell wrapped the remains with the effects and held them overnight. I thought, What is that? I went into the backyard and waited, I mean, everything seemed so strange. Air Force jets fly over Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery during the burial of Lt. Michael Blassie, July 11. Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. The Vietnam unknown was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, beneath the headstone that reads, "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God." Michael Sorkin is a reporter at the Post-Dispatch. Blassie's unidentified remains were designated as the Vietnam Unknown service member by Medal of Honor recipient U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. You grow apart sometimes during this kind of tragedy. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}. Sampley had come across some second-hand accounts suggesting that Americas only set of unknown remains from Vietnam had been recovered from an aircraft that had been shot down in 1972. "Mike lived a hero, and he came home a hero," said Emanuel Cassimatis, the Air Force Academy liaison officer who recruited Blassie in 1965. Previously sponsored memorials or famous memorials will not have this option. Search above to list available cemeteries. Producer Joe Rosenberg spoke with Robert Poole, author of On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery; Patricia Blassie; Bill Thomas, reporter for the Washington Post; Chris Calhoon, former Army Ranger; Vince Gonzales, reporter for CBS Denver, During the last segment of your podcast, Roman asked Joe if there were any other national monuments that had a guard like this. well, that was simply too much to believe. United States Air Force Vietnam Veteran. Your donations are vital to keeping us independent and strong! With the conflicting information between the forensic analysis and the physical evidence, the remains were designated as "Unknown" and assigned the number "X-26.". Interestingly, the soldiers identities *were* known and the Danes made an effort to give each soldier his last rites. But for whatever reason, the first bad decision was not telling the family. First Lieutenant Michael Joseph Blassie, 24, was shot down over South Vietnam in 1972 and presumed dead. At the request of Blassie's family, the Department of Defense exhumed the remains from the Vietnam Unknown's crypt on May 14, 1998. Though discovered in South Vietnam at the crash site, along with personal effects and survival gear, the remains of US Air Force pilot 1st Lt. Michael Blassie got labeled Unknown. It took the hard work of an eccentric Vietnam veteran activist, an investigative reporter, and the Blassie family to cut through years of bureaucratic bungling, official stonewalling, and government deceit to rescue Blassie from the Tomb and bring him home. Even though he knew about the missing wallet, the head of the lab, using now outdated techniques, determined that the remains did not match Michael Blassies physical description. So they finally took him off the shelf, file X-26, and for that Im thankful. Talk to the Veterans Crisis Line now On May 14, 1998, the remains were exhumed and tested, revealing the "unknown" soldier to be Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie. Jump to: Bio graphy Family Photos Comments Obit uary. Blassie, a decorated pilot, was 24 when he died in May 1972. Failed to delete memorial. The Blassie family watches as their family member Michael, is unloaded from a C-130 Hercules cargo plane, July 10. . He must have been killed instantly since he did not transmit a distress call of any kind. DNA tests confirmed that the previously unknown soldier was, in fact, Michael Blassie. Pressure began to mount in Washington to place a service member from Vietnam in the tomb of the unknowns, but by 1980 the Blassie remains were the only ones left that hadnt been conclusively identified. After his remains were identified by DNA testing in 1998, they were reburied at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis County, Missouri. Real soldiers visiting the tomb have a very different perspective on this memorial than I could hope to imagine. Based on mitochondrial DNA testing, Department of Defense scientists were able to identify Blassie's remains. On July 10, 1998, Michael Blassie's body was released to his family. Jean Blassie, mother of 1st Lt. Michael Blassie, 1998. Following the removal of Blassie's remains from the Tomb of the Unknowns, the slab marking "Vietnam" over the crypt that once held his remains was replaced with one that read "Honoring and Keeping Faith with America's Missing Servicemen",[7] as it was decided that the Vietnam crypt would remain a vacant cenotaph. Please enter valid email address to continue. Photo by Erik M. Lunsford elunsford@post-dispatch.com Jean Blassie lost. (She would retire in 2018 as a full-bird Colonel). 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Include gps location with grave photos where possible. ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. Dad set up a little memorial in the basement and would go down there all the time and just sit., When something like this happens in a family, [it] can bring a family together or tear it apart. Prior to the identification of his remains, Blassie was the unknown service member . Blassie was buried Saturday with full military honors at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis. "We write no last chapters, we close no books," Reagan said. Patricia Blassie, today a colonel with the Air Force Reserve who lives in Georgia, told her family of a phone call she had received in 1994 from a former Army Green Beret. Dubbed the "super-tweet . In January 1998, CBS Evening News broke the story: The military had hidden pilot Michael Blassies identity from his family and the public. She was sad about Michaels death but was happy to have him back, Patricia Blassie said. } His 138th combat mission ended near An Loc, South Vietnam, when the wing was blasted off his plane by enemy fire. I think I know where Michael is, he said, producing a paper trail that led to Arlington Cemetery. Actually, they had his remains and his military I.D. By 1994, Patricia had risen from Airman Basic to Captain and was working in the Pentagon in Public Affairs. The writer had been combing through military records, he said, and found that the Air Force had found the wreckage of Michaels plane five months after he was shot down, 60 miles north of Saigon. The nature of combat in Vietnam and advances in forensic medicine had made it difficult for officials to bury a Vietnam unknown. i . Silver StarDistinguished Flying CrossPurple HeartAir Medal & 4 Oak Leaf Clusters (OLC)Killed In Action, Thank you for fulfilling this photo request. But they had also brought back other evidence: an uninflated raft, a parachute, part of Michaels flight suit, and critically: his wallet with pictures of him and his family. Blassie was laid to rest beneath lush bluegrass in the cemetery's oldest section, established in 1826 alongside the original military post. . We will review the memorials and decide if they should be merged. Whatever the case, other aircraft were dispatched to the area to provide cover for an Army chopper rescue team, all for naught. Then, in January 1972, he joined the 8th Special Operations Squadron of the 377th Air Base Wing at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon. He knew morphological approximation was a flawed identification technique, and he suspected that someday, X-26 might be identified, especially given the personal effects and documents associated with the bone fragments. Lawsuits claim it wrecked their teeth. Michael flew as an Air Commando, probably running covert missions into Laos and Cambodia, in addition to his official duties as forward air controller and counterinsurgency operations pilot in South Vietnam. From there, the remains and effects went to Camp Samae San, Thailand, where the US ran a search and recovery center. They brought him home for burial in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery near St. Louis. Blassie died when his A-37B Dragonfly was shot down near An Lc in what was then South Vietnam. That Michael might be in the Tomb of the Unknown . There was a problem getting your location. Through these efforts, they reviewed evidence that suggested the Vietnam War Unknown was likely Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, a pilot who had been shot down in 1972. 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