David S Price - Vietnam War Heroes, Heroes Memorial

David Stanley Price

Centralia, Washington

March 11 , 1968

Age	Military	Rank	Unit/Location
27	Air Force	Sgt	DET 1 1043 RAD EVAL SQ BOLLING Country of Loss Laos

Welcoming Home Sgt David Price - Click photo below for slideshow.

August 29, 2024

OBITUARY
SGT David Stanley Price
July 14, 1941 – March 11, 1969

US Air Force SGT David Stanley Price, a resident of Centralia, Washington, was presumed Killed In Action on March 11, 1968 while assigned to guard Lima Site 85, a tactical air navigation radar location perched atop the Phou Pha Thi mountain in Laos’ Houaphan Province. He was the husband of Judy Levitt Price and father of Brenda, Bonnie, Barbara and Stanley Don.

After 66 years, SGT Price's remains have been identified and will be returned to his hometown of Centralia where he will be laid to rest with full military honors. The community is invited and encouraged to help us welcome this hero home at last.

A graveside service with full military honors will be held on Friday, August 30, 2024 at 11:00 AM at Greenwood Memorial Park(Cemetery), 1803 Van Wormer St, Centralia, WA 98531. A procession will leave Sticklin Funeral Chapel and travel through Centralia. The procession departure time and route will be released prior to the service date so that neighbors may pay their respects along the procession route.

From Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil

Sgt DAVID STANLEY PRICE
Conflict VIETNAM WAR
Service UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
Status Accounted For
Date of Identification 06/21/2024

On June 21, 2024, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Sergeant David Stanley Price, missing from the Vietnam War.

Sergeant Price entered the U.S. Air Force from Washington and served with Detachment 1, 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron. In 1968, Price and 18 other men were assigned to Lima Site 85, a tactical air navigation radar site on a remote, 5,600-foot mountain peak known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province, Laos. In the early morning of March 11, North Vietnamese commandos attacked the site with grenades and mortars, causing the Americans to seek safety on a narrow ledge of the steep mountain. A few hours later, under the protective cover of A-1 Skyraider aircraft, U.S. helicopters were able to rescue eight of the men. SGT Price and 10 other Americans were killed in action and unable to be recovered. From 1994 to 2009, in cooperation with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) and Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.), joint teams led by DPAA’s predecessor Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted multiple recovery operations, pursuing witness leads and recovering evidence and remains. In 2023, DPAA personnel and members from partner organizations discovered unexploded ordnance, incident-related materials, and possible osseus remains from the research site. Believed to be a potential match to SGT Price, the remains were transferred to the DPAA laboratory for further study and identification. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established an association between this set of remains and SGT Price.

Sergeant Price is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His name is also inscribed along with all his fallen comrades on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.

From TaskPurpose.com
U.S. Air Force Sgt. David Price has been recovered 56 years after he was killed in action during an assault on a classified CIA base on May 11, 1968. (Photos courtesy of DPAA. Task & Purpose composite image.)

In March 1968, North Vietnamese commandoes overran the post, killing 12 Americans. Price’s body was never recovered.

This week, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that Price remains had been identified and will be returned to his family after 56 years.

Brenda Fuller, one of Price’s daughters, was only 7 years old when her father was killed in action on March 11, 1968. Her mother was told only that he was missing but knew nothing else about her husband’s fate.

“My biggest memory there is the day that my mom found out he was missing. She found out over the phone, and I was in the room when she heard, and that was really hard to watch her reactions to that,” Fuller said.

A Desperate Mountain Top Fight

The tactical air navigation radar site known as Lima Site 85 sat on top of the 5,600-foot mountain known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province. The facility — little more than a few shacks around a radar array — was a vital part of the U.S. military’s Vietnam War effort to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Price came to Lima Site 85 from 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron. The site in Laos was kept top secret and lacked much of the security and defenses that a U.S. military site might have had. The few Air Force technicians — who were listed as Lockheed employees during the mission — wore civilian clothes, had little to no combat training and were supposed to be unarmed, though they had brought a cache of rifles and grenades. Security was provided by roughly 1,000 Thai and Hmong soldiers organized and led by a pair of CIA operatives.

After a series of attacks against the site, a team of North Vietnamese commandos finally overran the base during an early morning attack.

The evacuation of the Americans was chaotic, with CIA helicopters hovering overhead as the Hmong and Laotian troops held off 3,000 Vietnamese. Price’s fate and that of 10 others was never precisely determined by survivors who escaped. The site’s senior enlisted leader, Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Richard Etchberger, was killed while loading the final helicopter with survivors and awarded the Air Force Cross, which was upgraded to the Medal of Honor in 2010.

Twelve of the 19 Americans at Lima died in the fighting, along with about 50 of their Thai and Hmong defenders. It was the deadliest ground attack suffered by the Air Force in the war.
Recovering Remains

In cooperation with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and L.P.D.R., Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency teams investigated leads gleaned from dozens of witness interviews, including those involved with the attack. Starting in 2003, the team was able to recover some remains belonging to the missing Americans, but it wasn’t until 2023 that they were able to find remains believed to be Price’s.

For over five decades, Fuller told herself stories as a means to reckon with her father’s MIA status. The clandestine nature of the operation to call in air strikes on the Viet-congs’ supply line from within enemy held territory remained classified until until 1998, leaving blank spots about what happened.

“To make things make sense for me, I made possibilities up in my head. Like, maybe he got away and he’s hiding out somewhere, and he sees that we’re happy, so he’s not coming back to what was in our life, those kind of silly stories,” Fuller said. “I made things up to answer questions and fill in the holes of the information that wasn’t there.”

Fuller holds onto the happy memories from the short time she had with her father. She talked about her memories playing on the beach and how he disapproved of her putting olives on all of her finger tips before eating them.

“My dad was an amazing man. He was loving. He was kind and funny. Everybody who knew him thought he was great. My mom was divorced, and then he came into my life when I was two and a half, that he was my — he was my daddy Dave. He loved us, me and my siblings, just unconditionally, and he was an amazing man. I don’t know how else to put it.”
Price will be buried in Centralia, Washington, on August 30, 2024. Fuller said he will have full military honors before being laid to rest in his hometown. During his time in the military, Price was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart medal, Air Force Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, a Vietnam Service Medal with two Bronze service stars, Air Force Longevity Service Award, and the Republic Of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Ribbon medal.

“I would like the American public to know that my dad served his country in a manner that he felt was going to further the cause, and hopefully make an end of the war,” Fuller said. “That’s, I think, all they need to know, that he loved his country. He believed in what he did, he believed in the men that he served with, and he thought he was doing what was best.”

Frpm Military.com
Remains of Airman Killed in Vietnam War Attack on Secret CIA Radar Base in Laos Identified

The remains of an Air Force sergeant who died defending a top-secret radar site on a mountaintop in Laos during the Vietnam War have been identified and located, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced this week.

Sgt. David S. Price, 26, of Centralia, Washington, who died in 1968, was stationed at Lima Site 85 -- a highly covert tactical air navigation radar site on the remote, nearly 6,000-foot high mountain peak known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province, Laos, the agency said in a news release. He and 18 other men were there working on a top-secret Air Force and CIA mission code-named "Project Heavy Green," according to the Department of Defense, which provided support with a TSQ-81 radar nicknamed COMMANDO CLUB for U.S. bombing runs in North Vietnam.

But the site eventually was seen as a valued target by the North Vietnamese Army and from March 10-11, 1968, the site was bombarded by artillery and commandos and was seized from the small team of radar technicians. While eight of the men were rescued, 11 of them, including Price, died.

A passage from the CIA-published "Studies in Intelligence" quarterly journal detailed that, in the days that followed, bombing runs were ordered on the site to cover up the covert operation, further complicating the retrieval of any American remains.

"By midday, hopes of recovering the missing Americans were discarded and attention turned to destroying the radar to prevent it from falling into the hands of the North Vietnamese, along with the documentation and operational information that was left in the COMMANDO CLUB operations building," the journal detailed. "Between the 12th and 18th, 95 sorties were directed to destroy the radar; and on the 19th, two A-I Sandys leveled every building on the ridge. This aerial barrage had the collateral effect of probably obliterating the remains of any Americans who were left on the mountain."

Due to the secrecy behind the operation, many of the family members were left in the dark about the airmen's whereabouts. A news clipping from March 1970 referenced the shock and surprise of Price's mother after she read about the attack in the national press two years after his death. She had been informed by the Pentagon only that her son was declared dead after he had gone missing in an unnamed Southeast Asian country.

"Now, I know what he was referring to in some of his letters," Price's mother was quoted as saying in the article. "This is definitely where he was."

Decades later, in 1994, the then-Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command tried to search for remains but was unsuccessful. A successful finding of remains at the site happened in 2003, leading to further investigation.

In 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency "discovered unexploded ordnance, incident-related materials, possible material evidence, and possible osseous [or bone] remains from the research site," the agency said in a press release.

To identify Price's remains, the agency used circumstantial evidence and mitochondrial DNA analysis.

His funeral will take place in his hometown of Centralia, Washington, on Aug. 30, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Eight of the 11 men Price died alongside still remain unaccounted for, according to the agency's records.

From The Chronicle
By The Chronicle staff
In 1968, U.S. Air Force Sergeant David S. Price, of Centralia, was one of 19 service members assigned to guard Lima Site 85, a tactical air navigation radar location perched atop the Phou Pha Thi mountain in Laos’ Houaphan Province.

On March 11, 1968, Lima Site 85 was overrun by a North Vietnamese attack, forcing Price and his fellow service members to retreat and seek safety on one of the mountain’s narrow ledges. After a few hours, U.S. helicopters were able to rescue the men, but not after 11 of them — including Price — were reportedly killed in action.

A graduate of Centralia High School, Price was 26 when he was killed.

The remains of those killed were unable to be recovered. Now, more than 66 years later, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced it has finally identified Price’s remains, according to a July 21 news release.

Price’s family was previously unsure where his remains might have been as in 2003 remains of one of Price’s fellow service members were discovered on a ledge of Phou Pha Thi as previously reported by The Chronicle.

Other boots and U.S. service member items were also discovered, but it was unknown if Price’s remains were still there or if he had actually survived and was taken to a prison camp in Russia at the time.

Prior to this, in 1994, the DPAA had actually already started joint recovery operations with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR), though no remains were found at the time.

Between 1994 and 2009, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam also helped assist the DPAA and LPDR, pursuing dozens of witness leads and conducting interviews with those involved in the March 11, 1968 attack.

Despite these combined efforts, it wasn’t until 2023 when DPAA personnel along with partner organization members discovered unexploded ordinance and other battle-related materials along with possible human remains from a research site.

Armed Forces Medical Examiner System scientists used mitochondrial DNA analysis in conjunction with the DPAA using circumstantial evidence to positively identify the remains discovered last year as Price’s.

“Today, Price is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, and on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.,” the release stated. “A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.”

Now that his remains have been identified, Price will be buried in Centralia on Aug. 30. For more information, call the U.S. Air Force Casualty Office at 800-531-5501.

David Price

A plaque honoring Price was placed on the Veterans Memorial Museum Wall of Honor, located outside the building in Chehalis, in the early 2000s. The plaque was paid for by the Centralia High School Class of 1959.

Judy Outland, a representative from the class 1959, told The Chronicle in 2005 that she helped raise money for the project when the museum opened.

"He was a wonderful guy," Outland said of Price at the time, though she admitted she could remember few other details from 46 years ago.

According to the 1959 yearbook, the Skookum Wawa, Price was a member of the band for four years, and during his junior and senior years, he played in concerts and was a member of the pep band.

He was also president of the service club his senior year and president of the projectionists club his junior year.

In the back of the yearbook, seniors wrote one thing they'd will at the end of their high school careers.

"I, David Price, will all of the paper stuffed down my sousaphone to the Boys "C" Club (which consisted of the school's athletic letter winners)," Price wrote in 1959.

From The Chronicle
U.S. Air Force sergeant from Centralia killed in action during Vietnam War laid to rest
DavBy Owen Sexton / owen@chronline.com
Fifty-six years after being killed in action on March 11, 1968, atop Phou Pha Thi mountain in Laos’ Houaphan Province during the Vietnam War, U.S. Air Force Sergeant David Stanley Price finally came home and was laid to rest on Friday, Aug. 30, at Sticklin Greenwood Memorial Park in Centralia.

Price was originally from Centralia and was a Centralia High School graduate.

More than 100 people attended David’s funeral Friday morning, including many of his surviving relatives, members of regional American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars chapters, Patriot Guard riders, former classmates, friends and more.

He was buried with full military honors performed by the Air Force Honor Guard.

“David was my father, though I did not know him, because I was only a year and one month old when he was missing in action,” Stanley Don Price said during the service. “I have heard through my family, through friends, that he was a great man, and I don’t doubt that … We’re here to celebrate him because he was a great man. He gave the ultimate sacrifice of his life for this country.”

On that fateful day in Laos, David was one of 19 service members assigned to guard Lima Site 85 as part of the 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron manning the tactical air navigation radar outpost on Phou Pha Thi.

Their outpost was overrun by a North Vietnamese attack, which quickly overwhelmed them. Along with 10 other service members, Price was believed to be either captured or killed, and no remains were recovered as the survivors were forced to retreat.

Though he never knew him personally, Stanley followed in his father’s footsteps and served 21 years in the Air Force, retiring in 2012.

One of Stanley’s older sisters, Bonnie Hansen, spoke next and recalled when her mother first started dating David when she and her two sisters were still children.

“He fell in love with our mother, Judy, and he also fell in love with her three little girls. The feelings were mutual, and we started calling him Daddy Dave even before they were married,” Hansen said.

They married on Jan. 16, 1965, and David officially adopted Judy’s daughters.

“Sergeant David Stanley Price, Daddy Dave, we love you, we miss you, and we welcome you home,” Hansen added.

Her older sister, Brenda Fuller, thanked everyone for coming to celebrate her father’s life and welcome him home.

“Over 56 years ago, my mother received a call telling her that her husband was missing in action. I remember that day because I was sitting on the floor underneath the ironing board where my mom was ironing, and watched her face,” Fuller said.

After more than five decades, Fuller had accepted that she might never learn what actually happened to her father.

That’s why she could hardly believe it when, in June, she received a phone call from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) saying they had discovered remains in Laos and identified them as her father’s.

“Having him here on earth and not knowing what happened for sure was something that bothered us all,” Fuller said. “Now we know. We know that he died that day on the mountain. We know that now with our heavenly father and our mom.”

id Stanley Price honored during funeral after his remains were recently identified

Armed Forces Medical Examiner System scientists used mitochondrial DNA analysis in conjunction with the DPAA using circumstantial evidence to positively identify the remains discovered last year as Price’s.

Price’s family was previously unsure where his remains might have been as in 2003 remains of one of Price’s fellow service members were discovered on a ledge of Phou Pha Thi.

Other boots and U.S. service member items were also discovered, but it was unknown if Price’s remains were still there or if he had possibly actually survived the attack and was taken to a prison camp in Russia at the time.

Prior to this, the DPAA had already started joint recovery operations with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) in 1994, though no remains were found at the time.

Between 1994 and 2009, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam also helped assist the DPAA and LPDR, pursuing dozens of witness leads and conducting interviews with those involved in the March 11, 1968 attack.

Despite these combined efforts, it wasn’t until 2023 when DPAA personnel along with partner organization members discovered unexploded ordinance and other battle-related materials along with possible human remains from a research site.

“Today, Price is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, and on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.,” the DPAA said in a news release. “A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.”

A plaque honoring Price was placed on the Veterans Memorial Museum Wall of Honor, located outside the building in Chehalis, in the early 2000s. The plaque was paid for by the Centralia High School Class of 1959.

Judy Outland, a representative from the class 1959, told The Chronicle in 2005 that she helped raise money for the project when the museum opened.

"He was a wonderful guy," Outland said of Price at the time, though she admitted she could remember few other details from her high school days.

According to the 1959 yearbook, the Skookum Wawa, Price was a member of the band for four years, and during his junior and senior years, he played in concerts and was a member of the pep band.

He was also president of the service club his senior year and president of the projectionists club his junior year.

In the back of the yearbook, seniors wrote one thing they'd do at the end of their high school careers.

"I, David Price, will all of the paper stuffed down my sousaphone to the Boys "C" Club (which consisted of the school's athletic letter winners)," Price wrote in 1959.