By Dave Bakke
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Jan 24, 2009 @ 11:46 PM
It was popular in the early 1970s for people to put on metal bracelets bearing the name of an American service members who was listed as a prisoner of war or missing in action during the Vietnam War.
Cindy Ponder was one of those people. She put a bracelet on and kept it on for 36 years. She wears it today. She wore it on her wedding day, during the birth of two children and for gall bladder surgery, even though the surgery staff said she had to remove it. She refused.
“People were wearing the bracelets, and then in six months or so their soldier would come home and they’d take the bracelets off,” Cindy says. “My guy never came home.”
Her guy is Air Force Maj. Henry P. Brauner of Franklin Park, N.J. Her bracelet bears his name, his rank and the date he disappeared — March 29, 1972.
That night, Brauner was on a secret mission into Laos to disrupt enemy supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh trail. He was navigator on an AC-130A Spectre. It was shot down over Laos by a surface-to-air missile.
The American government never acknowledged the military’s Laotian operations in those days, and that included the loss of the plane and its crew of 14.
A pilot flying backup for the Spectre’s crew reported later that it was too dark to see any signs of life around the wreckage, but there were reports that some of the homing transmitters the crew carried had gone off after the crash. The transmitters had to be activated manually, giving some indication that there were survivors.
Since March 29, 1972, Brauner’s fate has been a mystery. There have been varying stories over the decades. The plane burned, but then it didn’t. The crew was killed, but then it wasn’t. Some remains were found, but their identification and what proof they offer is unclear.
Last May, more than 36 years after the plane went down, word came from Laos that Brauner’s dog tags had been found in the wreckage. A news story in the Newark Star-Ledger, based on a Department of Defense statement, said the dog tags were found in 2005 or 2006, during excavations of the crash site in Laos.
Brauner’s family had mixed reactions to the news. It opened up old wounds and yet was still not conclusive evidence that Brauner had been killed.
Cindy doesn’t know if he is living or dead, but as long as there is a glimmer of hope she wears the bracelet.
She says it began with a few dollars sent to a company in 1973. She received in return the bracelet with Brauner’s name on it. She was in high school at the time.
Her bracelet gets comments.
“People have asked, ‘Did you know him?’ No. ‘Then why do you wear it?’ They think it’s weird,” says Cindy. “I would have taken it off if he had returned.”
But Brauner hasn’t returned, and it remains on her wrist always.
When Cindy went into the hospital for gall bladder surgery, the staff in the operating room said she could not wear any metal during the procedure. She took her wedding ring off, but not the bracelet. The staff made the best of it, putting tape around the bracelet during the operation.
Cindy has never had any contact with Brauner’s family. The major had two daughters before he left for the war. One of them, Kristin, posted a message on the Newark Star-Ledger’s Web site after last year’s story about the discovery of her father’s dog tags.
A woman who has worn Brauner’s POW-MIA bracelet for 20 years had posted a message on the newspaper’s Web site. Brauner’s daughter read it and responded with her thanks and more. She urged people not to give up hope that her father still is alive.
So Cindy will continue to wear the bracelet, especially tomorrow. Monday would be Brauner’s 73rd birthday.
Dave Bakke can be reached at 788-1541 or dave.bakke@sj-r.com. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment