Friday, July 4, 2025
D+ 238/166/1295 corrected
1776 Congress proclaimed independence from Great Britain
1826 Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
1855 In Brooklyn, the first edition of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" is published
1944 1st Japanese kamikaze attack on the US fleet near Iwo Jima
1966 LBJ signed the Freedom of Information Act
2012 Scientists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of a new particle consistent with the Higgs boson, the so-called 'God particle
In bed at 10, awake at 5 after bladder pain and hourly pit stops, up at 5:30. 67°, high of 84°, 0.15" of rain last night, more expected for the next 2 hours.
Meds, etc. I was in bad shape yesterday, regretting life, enduring. I forgot to take any meds until near 10 p.m. when I went to bed. I spent most of this morning sleeping, coming out of the bedroom at noon. I'm in a very blue mood again and unable to write anything. Rather than leave today's journal empty, I note a story in today's NY Times, "Vietnam Aches for Its M.I.A.s. Will America Stop Funding Science to Identify Them? -- New breakthroughs in DNA analysis offer a chance to identify more of the lost from wars and disasters stretching back decades — if the U.S. helps." Of course, it looks like the U.S. is not going to continue to help, another blow against Vietnam, along with the huge tariffs Trump is imposing. The effect of all this will be to drive Vietnam closer to China, its traditional enemy. This, of course, is exactly what we fought the Vietnam/American War to prevent. In any event, reading the story reminded me of "Moon Mullen," a friend in Danang, shot down over Laos after I had left Vietnam for Okinawa, and it gives me a sorry excuse to copy and paste "Moon's" story here rather than leave the pages blank. From my memoir:
At the beginning of May, the war became more personal to those of us who had come to Camp Schwab from the wing headquarters in DaNang. We received news that our friend Bill “Moon” Mullen had been shot down over Laos. The American government refused to admit that we were conducting operations in Laos but we all knew it. The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through Laos and our aircraft regularly bombed it. On April 29th, Moon flew an A4E to a bombing mission in the most heavily defended area of the trail, the area around the Mia Gia Pass. His plane was the last in the formation. It was hit by anti-aircraft fire as he pulled away from the target. The plane went down, but the other pilots picked up radio beeper signals from the ground where his plane went down. The circling pilots radioed instruction to him, which he complied with, indicating he had ejected safely. Soon, the radio on the ground was still active, but instructions from the air were not being followed. It appeared Moon had been captured or killed. He was never found. It was never learned whether he had been captured or killed or died from injuries from the anti-aircraft fire or the ejection. The 1973 Paris treaty provided for return of POWs held by the VC and by North Vietnam, but not those held by Laotian communists. In 1994, I ran my fingers over his name on the Vietnam Wall in Washington. He is still listed as among the ‘missing.’
FN: In 1986, St. Martin’s Press published Every Effort, a book written by Bill’s wife, Barbara Mullen Keenan, about her ordeal trying to obtain information about Bill and about living without knowing whether he was dead or alive. Bill and Barbara had two sons, Sean and Terry who were four and two years old, respectively, when Bill was shipped to Vietnam. Barbara was a leader in the POW/MIA movement for years. In April 1976, after the 1973 Paris ‘peace with honor’ agreement worked out by Nixon and Kissinger, and a year after Saigon fell in 1975, Barbara had Bill declared dead. It had been 10 years since he was shot down. She eventually remarried. The story she told in Every Effort was hard to read, not because it wasn’t well written, but because it brought home to me, again, and vividly, how dreadful the Vietnam experience was for so many people, especially the families of the dead, the wounded, the imprisoned and the missing. The story of what she went through also reminded me how very bitter was the divide between the pro-war Americans and the anti-war Americans, including the wives and families of POWs and MIAs.
Moon Mullen was well liked and highly respected by all of us in the headquarters squadron in DaNang. He regularly flew missions with his old A4 squadron based in Chu Lai though he was assigned to the Intelligence section of Wing headquarters. Unlike some others, he never looked down his nose on those of us who were not aviators. He was a captain and a few years older than most of us. He had just turned 31 when he was shot down; most of us were first lieutenants in our mid 20s. When we could talk him into it, ‘by popular demand,’ Moon would stand up next to the bar or his table at the officers’ club and sing, always the same song –
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,
It’s you, it’s you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,
It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,—
Oh, Danny boy, O Danny boy, I love you so!
But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,
If I am dead, as dead I well may be,
Ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say an Avè there for me.
And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,
For you will bend and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me!
When Moon sang Danny Boy, we all shut up. The juke box would be turned down or unplugged and the Righteous Brothers, Simon and Garfunkle and the Mamas and Papas would give way to Moon Mullen, a capella.
I suspect most, perhaps all of us thought Moon was probably dead; I did. We may have even hoped that he was dead rather than living as a captive in a cave in a mountain in Laos or sick and abused in a jungle prison. I don’t know what we thought because we did not talk about it. We didn’t talk about it, but we all thought about it, about him. We thought of him as we drank each night at the officers’ club. We thought of him as we watched the gung ho grunts go through their training before heading south, some to die, some to lose limbs, some perhaps to be among the missing, most to return alive but messed up in their heads and hearts to one degree or another. I think of Moon every time I hear Danny Boy. For many years, I hated to hear the song. My eyes would start burning when I head it. It would take me a while to ‘come back’ after hearing it and I never sang it, though it had been one of my favorites before May, 1966.
I think Moon Mullen was for us emblematic of the ambiguous character of the war itself. He was neither alive nor dead, just ‘missing.’ He went down in a country (of sorts) where our government wouldn’t even admit we were fighting, though every Tom, Dick and Harry knew we were.⁰ The terrain he was bombing was not land that we would ever in any sense ‘take’ or ‘capture’ or ‘seize’ or ‘hold.’ It would be used for years as a principal line of communication and logistics between North Vietnam and forces in the south and for years pilots would fly missions trying to slow the flow of men and materials southward and for years pilots would be shot down over that land. Indeed, when Nixon’s so-called ‘peace with honor’ was negotiated in Paris in 1973, there was no written agreement for the identification and repatriation or return of the bodies of pilots shot down over Laos. The treaty only bound “the parties hereof and the signatories hereto,” which did not include the government of Laos which was not ‘officially’ involved in the war. What happened to Moon Mullen and his family, the long, inconclusive waiting, the deceptions, the ultimate loss, was a microcosm of what was happening to American, and to Vietnam. I believe we knew that as we poisoned ourselves at the club each night and as we looked on those infantry Marines so intensely preparing for what awaited them in Vietnam. More Danny Boys, more Moons.
⁰ Here’s the telegram Barbara received (after the personal visit and notification by a Marine officer):
MRS. WILLIAM F. MULLEN. DELIVER. DON’T PHONE.
452 SILVER CREEK ROAD, MARQUETTE, MICH.
I DEEPLY REGRET TO CONFIRM THAT YOUR HUSBAND CAPTAIN WILLIAM F. MULLEN USMC ON 29 APRIL 1966 BECAME MISSING WHILE ON A FLIGHT MISSION IN THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM. EXTENSIVE SEARCH OPERATIONS ARE IN PROGRESS AND EVERY EFFORT IS BEING MADE TO LOCATE HIM. IT IS SUGGESTED THAT YOU REFRAIN FROM FURNISHING ANY PERSONS OUSIDE OF YOUR IMMEDIATE FAMILY WITH ANY BACKGROUND DATA REGARDING YOUR HUSBAND’S PERSONAL HISTORY AND MILITARY SERVICE. RELEASE OF SUCH DATA COULD ADVERSELY AFFECT HIS WELFARE SINCE IT MAY BE USED BY HOSTILE FORCES FOR COERCION AND PROGAGANDA PURPOSES. YOU ARE ASSURED THAT ANY SIGNIFICANT INFORMATION DEVELOPED CONCERNING YOUR HUSBAND WILL BE SENT YOU PROMPTLY. I EXTEND TO YOU ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS OUR SINCERE SYMPATHY DURING THIS PERIOD OF GREAT ANXIETY.
WALLACE M. GREENE, JR.
GENERAL, USMC, COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS.
Barbara was told that Moon went down “in the Republic of Vietnam,” a knowing falsehood. At the end of the war, there were still 2,338 men listed as ‘missing.’
The last I learned of Moon's situation was this posting by Barbara on pownetwork.org:
September 10, 2008
The following information should be included in his file and his personal
website under William F. Mullen:
About six years ago intelligence from former North Vietnam military officers
confirmed to our Defense Department that my husband's parachute had carried
him straight down into a North Vietnam Headquarters on the Ho Chi Minh Trail
in Laos. Since then the Defense Department has located a grave where
eventually the North Vietnamese buried him.
My husband and an estimated 400 plus aviators were shot down, many captured
and later buried by the North Vietnamese along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and
elsewhere in Laos - so many, in fact, that although my husband's grave was
found more than five years ago, the list for returning the remains of these
POWs is so long they will not excavate my husband's grave for at least three
more years.
I will appreciate your making these changes as soon as possible.
With appreciation,
Barbara Mullen, 535 Pierce Street Unit 5313, Albany, CA 94706 ,510 528 6831
POSTED ON 9.1.2018 POSTED ON THE WALL OF FACES OF THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL FUND BY: CHARLES D. CLAUSEN
STILL REMEMBERED
"Moon" and I served in MWHG-1 at Danang in 1965-66, I at the TACC, he at Wing G2. My warmest memory of those days was the din of the small Officers Club growing quiet every time "Moon" stood up and sang "Danny Boy" a cappella. I learned of his A4 going down over Laos after I had been transferred to Camp Schwab, Okinawa. I still feel heartache over his loss.
The photo of "Moon" on The Wall of Faces, a photo I would never recognize as him. He was warm and gregarious, very unlike this stern, tough Marine photo.
The Vietnam Wall Panel 07E Line 011
Notes from The Virtual Wall
Accounts of Captain William "Moon" Mullen's loss vary somewhat. The POW Network has the simple statement that.
"On April 29, 1966, Capt. Mullen was sent on a combat mission near the Ban Karai Pass in Laos. When the time arrived that he should have returned, and he had not, the Marines began to try to find him. Bill Mullen was never found."
while the Task Force Omega (TFO) site says that
"At 1235 hours, during a series of attacks by US Marine Corps and US Air Force aircraft on an important communist installation that was known to be protected by a large number of anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) sites, ten aircraft were hit and two shot down. The Air Force crew of the other downed aircraft was later rescued. Capt. Mullen, the last man in his flight, was pulling up and away from the target after completing his bomb run. ... [and] was believed to be unharmed until he failed to initiate a normal radio check."
Hobson, in "Vietnam Air Losses" gives a third version:
"Captain Mullen was taking part in a strike against gun emplacements near the Ban Karai Pass in Laos, near the DMZ, when he was shot down on his first low level pass. His aircraft was last seen on fire entering cloud and heading towards the north."
The implication in the POW Network statement is that Captain Mullen was flying a single-aircraft strike. He was not. The TFO statement implies a massed USMC/USAF effort which resulted in two losses; that too is demonstrably incorrect. The United States lost six aircraft on 29 April 1966, and none of the other five aircraft was anywhere near the Ban Karai area:
USMC A-4E BuNo 151057, CAPT W F Mullen, MIA, vicinity Ban Karai, Laos
USN F-8E BuNo 150867, LTJG T E Brown, KIA, vicinity Haiphong, NVN
USN A-1H BuNo 137576, LCDR W P Egan, KIA, vicinity Ban Senphan, Laos
USAF F-105D 62-4304, 1LT D W Bruch, MIA, vicinity Thai Nguyen, NVN
USAF F-101C 56-0218, MAJ A E Runyan, POW, vicinity Yen Bai, NVN
USAF A-1E 52-132680, CAPT L S Boston, MIA, vicinity Na San, NVN
Although assigned to the 1st Marine Air Wing Headquarters Squadron (MWH&S-1, MWHG-1) at the time of his loss, Captain Mullen had deployed to Chu Lai as a member of Marine Attack Squadron 211 and was doing his flying with Marine Attack Squadron 223, also at Chu Lai. The MWHG-1 Command Chronology for April 1966 contains the following entry: "5. CASUALTIES. (U) Captain William F. MULLEN, Group S-2 [Intelligence] Officer, was reported as missing in action while on a strike mission while flying with a local A4E squadron."
Regardless of the exact details of the loss, Captain Mullen was not recovered and was placed in MIA status. On 05 May 1976, the Secretary of the Navy approved a Presumptive Finding of Death for William Mullen, who was promoted to Major while in MIA status. As of 10 Jan 2003, his remains have not been repatriated.
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