PLUMADORE, KENNETH L.
Name: Kenneth L. Plumadore
Rank/Branch: USMC, E3
Unit: F 2/4 3rd Marine Division
Date of Birth: 28 January 49
Home City of Record: Syracuse, NY
Date of Loss: 21 September 67
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 163813N 1064116E
Status (in 1973): Killed In Action, Body not Recovered
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Other Personnel In Incident:
Source: Compiled by THE P.O.W. NETWORK 02 February 93 from the
following published sources - POW/MIA's -- Report of the Select Committee
on POW/MIA Affairs United States Senate -- January 13, 1993. "The Senate
Select Committee staff has prepared case summaries for the priority cases
that the Administration is now investigating. These provide the facts about
each case, describe the circumstances under which the individual was lost,
and detail the information learned since the date of loss. Information in
the case summaries is limited to information from casualty files, does not
include any judgments by Committee staff, and attempts to relate essential
facts. The Committee acknowledges that POW/MIAs' primary next-of-kin know
their family members' cases in more comprehensive detail than summarized
here and recognizes the limitations that the report format imposes on these
summaries."
"On September 21, 1967, Lance Corporal Plumadore, a member of the 4th Marine
Division, [NETWORK NOTE: Plumadore was a member of the 4th Marine REGIMENT,
3rd Marine DIVISION] was wounded in action while engaging People's Army of
Vietnam forces during Operation Kingfisher in the area of Dong Ha, Quang Tri
Province. He and fourteen other members of his unit were left behind in the
withdrawal from the battle area. When friendly forces retook the area they
located fourteen dead Marines, two of bodies there were difficult to
identity. Information later surfaced that one survivor was reported
captured and was last seen being escorted North. Corporal Plumadore was
declared dead/body not recovered in September 1967.
In April 1986, Vietnam returned remains of someone captured in the same
engagement as the one during in which Corporal Plumadore became
unaccounted-for. Information provided with the remains was that the remains
belonged to an American serviceman captured at Con Thien who had died on
September 27, 1967 at Vinh Linh, North Vietnam. Corporal Plumadore's
records could not be used in remains identification because they were lost
in an aircraft crash on October 2, 1967.
Subsequent to the return of the remains, U.S. intelligence located archival
intelligence information, usually highly reliable, that indicated for the
first time that someone, probably Plumadore, had been captured and taken
North to Vinh Linh. He was last known alive on September 23rd in the area
of Con Thien. He was the only individual who remained missing in the Con
Thien area."
===================================
Please Help: Can you add to information contained in the article below on
Operation Kingfisher, at Con Thein (Sept. 21, 1967,) the subsequent search
and recover operations (Sept. 26th and Oct 9th 1967). Please contact Lynn
O'Shea, National Alliance of Families at 718-846-4350. The Plumadore, Judge
and Berry families are most interested in speaking with you.
Pains of the Vietnam War won't stop
By Paul Salopek - Chicago Tribune
March 31, 1996
Operation Kingfisher would have remained a footnote in the long, tortured
history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam except for a box of yellowed bones in
Hawaii dubbed 0048-86.
Kingfisher-a series of bloody and largely inconclusive battles fought in the
fallow rice paddies of Vietnam's demilitarized zone-captured no territory,
took few prisoners and, for the 2nd Battalion 4th Marines, climaxed on a
hellish September morning in 1967 when 31 Americans were cut down by
artillery and point-blank machine gun fire.
The combat was so savage that withdrawing leathernecks were forced to leave
15 fallen comrades behind. Returning to the cratered battlefield 19 days
later, they pieced together 14 of their badly decomposed dead. All that
remained of the 15th was a helmet.
Or so the military thought.
Today, the Pentagon believes the Marine later linked to that helmet was the
wrong man. And the partial skeleton stored in Hawaii-which was dug up from a
field hospital in Vietnam and returned to American officials in 1986-is the
proof.
But others aren't so sure. And now skeleton 0048-86 has become part of a
vastly complicated, costly and at times almost macabre effort by the U.S.
government to lay to rest the peculiarly haunting legacy of Vietnam, the
nation's only failed war.
It wasn't until 1994 that advanced DNA tests on the bones suggested that the
missing Marine-a man originally thought to have been blown up by explosives
or to have died in captivity-may actually be mistakenly buried in the grave
of a comrade in Ft. Wayne, Ind.
The tests also show that wartime morticians bungled the identities of two
other Marines killed that ill-fated day in 1967. In an almost unprecedented
admission, the Pentagon's own medical experts now say that two families may
have mourned at the graves of complete strangers for the past 29 years.
Among an expanding cast of characters in the drama are officials at a
high-tech Chicago laboratory. And beyond the wrenching human dimensions, the
story puts into relief American traditions of war and its dead. There are
suggestions, as well, that issues of U.S. foreign policy hinge on the
resolution of this and other MIA cases.
Moreover, the government's intention to arrange a bizarre, round-robin swap
of remains- giving the new bones to a family in Indiana, taking the body
buried there to a grave in California and sending the California remains to
the family of the missing Marine in New York-has unleashed, in microcosm,
all the anger, distrust and bitterness that marked the divisive, unpopular
conflict itself.
"I know it's hard for people who haven't lost someone in Vietnam to
understand," said Mary Jellison, the mother of one of the Marines involved,
who lives in Ft. Wayne. "This isn't about holding onto bones. That war
should never have been, and now the government acts like God and wants to
take my son back. So you fight back for respect."
The three young soldiers whose identities have been brought into
question-Pfc. Mark W. Judge, Lance Cpl. Kenneth Plumadore and Cpl. William
Berry-would undoubtedly marvel at the twisting path their case has taken
since they crumpled within 100 yards of one another near a barren, sunbaked
hill called Con Thien.
Lawyers have been hired and fired. Allegations of government whitewashes
have been leveled and denied.
The knotty upshot: The military insists the bones returned by Vietnam in
1986 and warehoused at its Army Central Identification Lab in Hawaii are
Judge; the man mistakenly buried under Judge's headstone is most likely
Berry; and the soldier buried in Berry's grave is probably Plumadore, who
was originally believed to have been vaporized by U.S. bombing.
Deeply mistrustful, all three families have vowed to fight disinterment
until independent DNA tests are run. But the government, after a military
review board hearing April 19, will likely have the right to dig up the
graves regardless.
"We certainly have owned up to the mistake, and it needs to be resolved,"
said Susan Hanson, a Department of Defense spokeswoman. "We also feel for
the families, but we have a mandate to account for the missing. We take this
responsibility seriously."
So does Jellison, Judge's mother, who has been fighting to keep her son's
grave intact almost since a Marine officer showed up on her Ft. Wayne
doorstep in 1994 to break-in an awful re-enactment of a 1967 ritual-"some
bad news."
"They want to dig up my son and claim it's somebody else's brother," said
Jellison, an elegant 71-year-old with a whisper of her Georgia roots in her
voice. "I refuse to violate my son's peace if this is all a lie." The
lie, she says, is one of omission.
A passel of government forensic reports stacked on folding tables in her
home show, Jellison asserts, that the Armed Forces Identification Lab has
withheld portions of the DNA tests run on the 1986 bones. Jellison supplied
blood to make the genetic comparison.
The Pentagon adamantly denies those allegations, saying that although some
of the tests involved fragmented DNA, all have been shared with the families
and show a positive match. But Jellison's demands for new testing are
staunchly backed by the Berrys and Plumadores.
All three families have more in common than the reopened wounds of a lost
war. All are solidly working class, wary of officialdom, without special
connections or clout. And all struggle to remember men who were almost too
young to leave lasting impressions before they were swallowed up in the
shimmering heat waves of Vietnam.
Judge, who was shot down at 20, was a grocery stock boy and a fledgling
college student when he joined the Marines. Berry, the son of a millwright
electrician from Yreka, Calif., was an avid hunter and fisherman who
volunteered for military duty straight out of high school. He was 18 at Con
Thien. Plumadore, a strapping native of Syracuse, N.Y., was even more
gung-ho, enlisting at 17 and dying of gunshot wounds shortly after his 18th
birthday.
"They were sent to a meat grinder that was given the name `Kingfisher,"'
said Patricia Plumadore, 51, Kenneth's sister. "It's just pure anger now.
Anger at the horrible waste of that war and at how they've treated the
families since."
Of all the players in the saga of 0048-86, the Plumadores have perhaps been
traumatized the most.
Young Plumadore, the cocky New Yorker, was the soldier originally
unaccounted for when the Marines reclaimed their dead from the parched
killing field near Con Thien.
Not surprisingly, when the weathered skeleton was handed over to the U.S.
nearly 20 years later, in 1986, American officials were only too ready to
believe that the remains belonged to the long-lost lance corporal. The badly
wounded Marine, the Vietnamese reported, had been dragged from the
battlefield and died a few days later in a rustic field hospital, where he
was buried.
But forensic evidence soon turned that convenient theory on its head:
Military medical experts say a detailed review of the available dental
records of all 15 Marines killed or mortally wounded at Con Thien showed
that the remains most closely matched Judge, not Plumadore. Both Judge and
Berry were difficult to identify after the battle. So the focus shifted to
Ft. Wayne and Yreka. And the nightmare of the body swap began.
Patricia Plumadore, who has been told, successively, that her kid brother
was destroyed by shell fire, died in captivity and was mistakenly buried
beneath the plains of Indiana, now believes none of it. Furious that the
military withheld Vietnamese evidence that her Marine may have been
captured-the government broached the news only in 1992-she says the whole
0048-86 episode is part of a cover-up.
"This is grave robbery. They're doing all this to strike another MIA
(Missing in Action) off their list," Plumadore said. "The fewer of these
guys Vietnam is accountable for, the quicker relations between the two
countries will be hunky-dory. It's cynical."
In the next few weeks, the White House is expected to announce the name of
its first ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Meanwhile, forensic discrepancies have cropped up in the paperwork amassed
by the families, fueling the atmosphere of suspicion.
A Texas bone expert engaged by Jellison's lawyers examined the 0048-86 skull
and declared it to be, inexplicably, a Caucasian female. Because of this,
the lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago-also retained by Jellison's
lawyers-backed out of doing a sophisticated superimposition test to see
whether it matched Judge's high school portraits.
Meanwhile, Jellison has fired her attorneys, maintaining they were too cozy
with the government.
And amid the crossfire of charges and countercharges -Jellison accuses the
government of "blackballing" her at independent DNA labs; federal
officials acknowledge that many of those labs are under federal contract,
and thus have conflicts of interest-the military is standing by its
findings.
"If the government were seeking to mislead the families or cover up
information, the easiest path to follow would have been to do nothing,"
Defense Department spokeswoman Beverly Baker said in response to the
families' complaints. "No one would have been the wiser if the government
had not raised the issue of misidentification." The labyrinthine process of
identifying remains arises because the United States is the only country
that has a policy to repatriate all its war dead.
And in an added effort to bind up the wounds of Vietnam, the Bush
administration in 1992 established a multimillion-dollar program called
Joint Task Force-Full Accounting. Traveling to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia,
experts sift through overgrown battlefields, villages and crash sites for a
tooth, a wedding ring, a firsthand witness to a wartime burial.
"Our people spend weeks in the jungle facing disease and unexploded
ordnance and even tigers," said Baker, who notes that 110 repatriated
remains have been identified by the task force so far, at an average cost of
$2 million per body. Some 2,150 men remain missing from the war.
Despite this astronomical expense, cases of government mishandling or
confusion aren't rare.
Most recently, the Pentagon changed the status of a missing Army sergeant to
"killed in action" after Vietnam allegedly supplied his fragmentary
remains. To the military's intense embarrassment, the man surfaced earlier
this year in Georgia while trying to register for Social Security benefits.
"With what I've seen of the Jellison and Plumadore case, if I were a family
who'd lost someone in a battle where there were many killed, I'd be
wondering what I've got in my grave," said Lynn O'Shea, a spokeswoman for
National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast
Asia.
Mary Jellison, who thinks she will lose the April 19 hearing on her case,
has been forced to face that possibility.
So has Fred Berry of Roseburg, Ore., the younger brother of Cpl. William
Berry.
"I'm a Vietnam vet myself, so I guess I'm a little more understanding of
how confusing things were over there," said Berry, 45, a lumber mill
worker. "But if they're fixing to take my brother away without proving who
he is beyond a doubt, they're going to have problems."
Learning that William had been killed in 1967, Berry says, he "stupidly"
joined the Army at 17 to avenge himself on the Vietnamese.
"Sometimes I wish the government hadn't reopened all this," Berry said.
"Sometimes, I wish it would all just go away."
==================================================
From - Sun Nov 21 09:13:03 1999
Mother Finally Buries Son's Remains
The Associated Press
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - A woman who was given the wrong remains to bury
after her son's 1967 death in Vietnam finally laid him to rest Saturday,
five years after the military learned it made a mistake.
After a 21-gun salute honoring Mark Judge, Mary Jellison accepted an
American flag folded over his coffin by six Marine pallbearers.
"We brought a brother and son home to his family," Marine Corps Gen. Bill
Whitlow said after the services. "War is terrible. It is hell. Mistakes are
made. ... We never leave a Marine on the battlefield."
For years, it was believed that Judge was killed during a search and destroy
mission in Con Thien on Sept. 21, 1967, when he walked into a massive
ambush. The body believed to be Judge's was recovered a month later and
returned to Fort Wayne for burial.
But in 1994, the military learned it had made a mistake. It turned out Judge
survived the ambush and was taken prisoner. He was killed a week later while
trying to escape and was buried on the grounds of a hospital in Vietnam.
The remains Jellison buried in 1967 were actually those of William Berry, a
California-born Marine. His remains were sent home last month.
At least 60 Marines attended the funeral, as did a dozen men wearing black
leather vests with patches declaring "Vietnam veteran" and POW-MIA.
==============================================================
National Alliance Of Families
For The Return Of America's Missing Servicemen
World War II - Korea - Cold War - Vietnam
Dolores Alfond ----- 425-881-1499
Lynn O'Shea ----------- 718-846-4350
Email ----------lynnpowmia@prodigy.net
Website -- http://www.nationalalliance.org
BITS 'N' PIECES November 20, 1999
"In War The First Casualty Is Truth"
###############
Plumadore/Judge/Berry/???/??? Update - mt-DNA tests were conducted on
remains identified in 1967, as PFC Mark Judge. According to the Armed
Forces DNA Identification Lab, test results conclude that the remains are
actually William Berry. Regular readers of "Bits 'N Pieces" know the
inaccuracies of mt-DNA testing. Regular readers also know how mt-DNA
testing was manipulated to conclude that remains returned by the Vietnamese,
in 1986, were Mark Judge. (For more on this subject visit our website at
http://www.nationalalliance.org/kenny.htm)
"In War The First Casualty Is Truth"
On Saturday November 20th, family and friends will gather at Concorde
Gardens Cemetery, in Fort Wayne Indiana to bury remains CIL-HI 0048-86,
designated by the United States Government as Marine PFC Mark Warren Judge.
Long time readers of "Bits 'N' Pieces," know the story of misidentification,
and exhumations and of the battles fought over the last 5 years, by Mary
Judge Jellison, Mark's Mother, and Patricia Plumadore, sister of POW/MIA
L/Cpl. Kenneth Plumadore. (For readers wishing to catch up on the
Plumadore/Judge/Berry/?????/????? case, you can visit our website at http:
//www.nationalalliance.org/liarswin.htm)
In the last two years, Mrs. Jellison has been continually harassed by the
Marine Corp, and threatened with lawsuits. No lawyer would take her case.
The so called "independent" DNA labs refused to conduct tests involving this
case, citing "conflict of interests." The media, after initial interest in
the first exhumation, refused to become involved in this case. The only
exposure this case received was through periodic reports in "Bits 'N' Pieces
." Sadly, our efforts to generate public support for the Judge-Jellison
and Plumadore families were unsuccessful. Mrs. Jellison was able to get one
scientist to conduct a photo super-imposition, on the remains she belevies
are her son's. While the results would not stand up in court, the doctors
conclusion that the skull was "more Mark than Berry."
With all options exhausted, Mrs. Jellison allowed mt-DNA testing on the
remains she believe to be her son. The government, however, never met any
of the three requests made by Mrs. Jellison. Her request were simple. She
wanted all records on CIL-HI 0048-86 generated from the time of their return
in 1986. Records provided by the government start in 1989. She also
requested independent mt-DNA testing on both CIL-HI 0048-86 and the remains
she believes are her son's.
When this battle started Mary said, that if a time came when all avenues had
been exhausted and there was no alternative, she would, in her words "give
the CIL-HI remains a home." It should be remembered that CIL-HI 0048-86,
whoever he is, died as a Prisoner of War, unacknowledged by the United
States government
So, on Saturday November 20th, 1999, CIL-HI 0048-86, a still unidentified
American Serviceman, with a 1 in 64 chance of actually being Mark Judge,
gets a home and a Mom. The government has offered no conclusive evidence to
prove CIL-HI 0048-86 is Mark Judge. No forensic evidence exists to support
the identification.
We spoke, at length with Mary Jellison in the evening of November 17th. She
told us, "I'd like to believe the CIL-HI remains are Mark's, but in my heart
I don't. I still think I had Mark all along and I gave him up. This will
never be over for me because I'll never know."
There will be a full Military funeral, complete with Marine Corp. Band, and
dignitaries from Washington De Ceit. Mary agreed to this, because in her
words; " this poor boy never had a funeral. He deserves the honor."
She ended by saying; "There is no closure for me... The Marine Corp has
closure but I don't."
We are sure that CIL-HI, AFDIL and Marine Corp. Command, representatives are
congratulating themselves on their "victory." Quite simply, they beat a
sick, elderly woman into submission. It must be a real proud day for them.
It should be noted that remains, originally identified as Mark Judge in 1967
, now rest in a California grave as William Berry. In the casket, is a
single rose and an American flag, from the woman who believes in her heart
that she is his mother.
"In War The First Casualty Is Truth"
In mid - 1992, Pat Plumadore posed a series of questions to the Marine Corp.
one of those questions regarded the possible wartime mis-identification of
remains. The response came in the form of memo the from Central
Identification Laboratory - Hawaii. The memo stated "Nothing was detected
during the examination of the available files to suggest a mistake was made
in the identification process. When additional records are received we will
carefully review them from this aspect." This memo was dated 29 October
1992 and signed by Johnie "why does this man still have a job" Webb.
In Sept. 1994, the families were summoned to Washington De Ceit and told of
a possible wartime mis-identification. This conclusion was based on the
exact same records, used to reassure Pat Plumadore, in 1992, that "Nothing
was detected during the examination of the available files to suggest a
mistake was made in the identification process."
Why does Johnie Webb still have a job?
To the CIL-HI, AFDIL and Marine Corp. representative involved in the webb of
lies, our wish to you is that when you leave this world, to meet your maker,
you find St. Peter waiting for you at the Pearly Gates. And, if they are
dead as you say, may you find Kenny Plumadore at St. Pete's left and Mark
Judge at his right. It is our most sincere wish that St. Peter allows Kenny
and Mark to tell you where to go.
In conversation with Pat Plumadore, she stated "I am disgusted with the
Marine Corp and how they treated Mary and her family. I have come to love
them, as I love my own family. The hardest part is knowing after all the
pain and heartache Mary went through, she still does not have the resolution
and closure that we were praying she would reach. She will always wonder
about her son, as I wonder about my brother. Nothing has changed. I still
don't know where my brother is and Mary doesn't know where Mark is."
Here are a few of the reasons Why we can't be sure CIL-HI 0048-86 is Mark
Judge.
The Teeth -
14 September 1992 - "Dental Summary: CIL-HI 0048-86 Forensic Odontology
Section U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii - "...The dental
record of LCpl. Plumadore was compared to the remains and could be excluded.
The mortuary files and available antemortem dental records of the remaining
fourteen other Marines involved in this incident (listed killed, body
recovered) were examined and compared to the remains of CILHI 0048-86. No
records of any of the Marines in this incident matched the dental remains of
CILHI 0048-86."
8 September 1994 - Forensic Odontology Report: CILHI 0048-86 U.S. Army
Central Identification Laboratory - signed by LTC William K Mayher "...In my
opinion, the dental remains designated CILHI 0048-86 are those of: Judge,
Mark Warren."
The Teeth - did they match or didn't they - "In War The First Casualty Is
Truth"
The mt-DNA Testing -
13 July 1994 - Memo from Patricia P Hickerson Brigadier General, U.S. Army,
Adjutant General "Due to unique circumstances, it is requested that CIL-HI
be granted a one-time exception to the use of mtDNA analysis as the primary
means of identification in the case of CILHI 0048-86."
7 August 1998 - Letter from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, Robert L. Jones - "Scientists count on the
power of mtDNA typing to provide the necessary supporting evidence to make
an identification in conjunction with many other factors. MtDNA is not used
as the primary or sole means of identification."
Mt-DNA testing the primary or sole means of identification for CIL-HI 0048-
86 - Yes.. No... "In War The First Casualty Is Truth"
mT-DNA Testing - The Results
17 October 1994 - Department of Defense Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
- "The mtDNA sequence information obtained from AFDIL Specimens 01A (Skull,)
02A (R. Ulna,) 03A (R. Humerus) and 04A (R. Femur) and AFDIL Reference
Specimens 05A (Mrs. Jellison) and 06A (Mrs. Jellison's daughter) is
identical in the overlapping regions...."
"Mitochondrial DNA sequence information obtained from AFDIL Specimens 03A
and 04A is identical to AfDIL Reference Specimens 05A (Mrs. Jellison) and
06A (daughter) in the overlapping regions. This information supports the
identification of the questioned remains as maternal relating to Mary R.
Jellsion..."
21 March 1997 - Department of Defense Armed Forces Institute of Pathology,
Office of Legal Counsel - "...In addition, given the position of 16354 in
the sequence for sample 01A (Skull) should be designated an "N", a new
database search was performed, and 64 of 741 sequences matched. Thus, this
significantly decrease the weight of the match between 01A and the Jellison
family references..."
The unique sequences of mother and son in 1994 became, in 1997, a match to
64 other individuals in the database. In AFDIL's own words "this
significantly decreases the weight of the match between 01A (Skull) and the
Jellison family references." Yet, CIL-HI and the Marine Corp continued to
maintain that the identification of CIL-HI 0048-86 as Mark Judge was a
positive identification. The database used by AFDIL was made up of
reference samples from POW/MIA families and from the FBI's criminal
database.
21 January 1998 - From the POW/MIA Weekly Update, - "The Department of
Defense is reviewing information relating to the interment of remains of a
Vietnam War unknown at the Tomb of the Unknown at Arlington National
Cemetery."
"The review will determine if there is sufficient credible evidence to make
a recommendation on two key questions: 1) does current science enable us,
with confidence to take steps that could help identify the remains in the
Tomb; and 2) do the circumstances surrounding the loss incident of the
individual possibly believed to be interred in the Tomb of the Unknowns
warrant mitochondrial DNA testing? DPMO officials have stated that this
review will be done in a measured, methodical manner, to ensure the
decisions carefully weigh the competing interests of our commitment to the
families of the missing, and the sanctity of the Tomb as hallowed ground,
and the ability of DNA testing to identify remains once considered
unidentifiable."
With that statement DPMO called into question the ability of mt-DNa testing
to make a positive identification. Over the last several years, we would
estimate 80% to 90% of the identifications made were based on mt-DNA testing
. Many of those identifications were on remains previously considered
unidentifiable. Yet, the ability to identify the "Unknown" was questioned."
CIL-HI 0048-86 - Unique mt-DNA match to Mary Judge Jellison... Matches 64
samples in the database.... "In War The First Casualty Is Truth"
What Happened To The Remains Exhumed From The California Grave Originally
Identified As William Berry - To our knowledge, they remain at CIL-HI as
unidentified. Are they the remains of another of the Marines from
"Operation Kingfisher?" Or, are they, as Pat Plumadore suspects, the remain
of one of the 25 + servicemen lost in two airplane incidents, on Oct. 3rd
and Oct. 8th, 1967. evidence exists to support this theory.
The identification of CIL-HI 0048-86 as Mark Judge is highly questionable.
We've given you the truth. We supported that truth with documentation.
CIL-HI, the Marine Corp., and AFDIL presented one misrepresentation after
another, along with several outright lies.
We told the truth. They lied and the liars won.
"In War The First Casualty Is Truth"
##############
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