Name: Charles Gregory Huston Rank/Branch: E5/US Army Special Forces Unit: C & C Detachment, Drawer 22 (MACV-SOG), 5th Special Forces Group Date of Birth: 29 September 1945 Home City of Record: Sidney OH Date of Loss: 28 March 1968 Country of Loss: Laos Loss Coordinates: 164730N 1062000E (XD434574) Status (in 1973): Missing In Action Category: 4
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground Refno: 1108 Other Personnel In Incident: Alan L. Boyer; George R. Brown (missing) Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 June 1990 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 1998.
REMARKS:SYNOPSIS: 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 March 28, 1968, Sgt. Alan L. Boyer, Sgt. Charles G. Huston, both
riflemen, and SFC George R. Brown, intelligence sergeant, were
conducting a
reconnaissance patrol in Laos, along with 7 Vietnamese personnel. The
men
were attached to Command and Control Detachment, MACV-SOG. About 15
miles
inside Laos, northeast of Tchepone, the patrol made contact with an
unknown
enemy force and requested exfiltration by helicopter.
Because of the terrain in the area, the helicopter could not land, and
a
rope ladder was dropped in for the team to climb up to board the
aircraft.
Six of the Vietnamese had already climbed to the aircraft, when, as the
7th
climbed aboard, the helicopter began receiving heavy automatic weapons
fire.
This forced the helicopter to leave the area.
Simultaneous to these events, Sgt. Boyer began to climb the ladder when
seconds later, the ladder broke. When last seen during the extraction,
the
other 2 sergeants (Huston and Brown) still on the ground were alive and
appeared unwounded.
On April 1, a search team was inserted into the
area and
searched 6 hours, but failed to locate any evidence of the three men.
Boyer, Huston and Brown are among the nearly 600 Americans missing in
Laos.
When the war ended, agreements were signed releasing American Prisoners
of
War from Vietnam. Laos was not part of the peace agreement, and
although the
Pathet Lao stated publicly that they held "tens of tens" of prisoners,
not a
single American held in Laos has ever been released.
Any of the three members of the reconnaissance team operating that day
in
March 1968 could be among the hundreds of Americans experts believe to
be
alive today. The last they saw of America, it was flying away,
abandoning
them to the jungle and the enemy.
