This is the Marine POW/MIA I have sponsored. Please write your congressman
and ask that they take action. Thank you, Brandon Nason
Capt. Gary Fores and his weapons systems operator, Lt. Gary Lashlee where flying
an attack mission over Laos in their F4B Phantom jet. At a point about 5 miles
inside of Laos in Northern Saravane Province, Fors' aircraft was hit and he and
Lashlee ejected. Lashlee, the first to eject and still drifting twards the ground,
observed Fors as he parachuted safely to the ground near the crash site of the
aircraft. As Fors was landing on the ground, Lashlee observed communist troops
were approaching. Lashlee drifted father away and could not see what happened next.
The Marine Corps concluded that Fors had probably been captured.
In 1969, Fors' family identified him in pictures of captured servicemen. The
military first ruled the photo unrecognizable, then agreed with an AIr Force
POW who, after he was released in 1973, said it was a picture of himself.
In 1972, a Pathet Lao defector reported that he had seen someone who looked like
Gary Fors chained near a limestone cave in Laos. A photograph of a POW in
captivity was correlated to Fors by CIA in 1973.
In 1980, a Seattle refugee resident named Boukeva Phavavont said that in 1976,
after his own capture by communist soldiers the year before, he saw five
Americans imprisoned in a cave near the site where Fors was shot down.
Fors is one of nearly 600 Americans who were left behind in Laos. Even though
the Pathet Lao stated publicly that they help "Tens of tens" of American
prisoners, these men were not negotiated for in the Paris Peace Accords which
resulted in the release of 591 Americans from North Vietnam.
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