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Lance Corporal Bruce Wayne Staehli, USMC Date of Birth: 24 September 1948 Home City of Record: Crow Point Lake IN Date of Loss: 30 April 1968 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 164930N 1070200E Status (in 1973): Missing In Action |
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Lance Corporal Bruce Wayne Staehli, USMC Date of Birth: 24 September 1948 Home City of Record: Crow Point Lake IN Date of Loss: 30 April 1968 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 164930N 1070200E Status (in 1973): Missing In Action |
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Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Others In Incident: none missingSYNOPSIS: Bruce Staehli was a Marine in Vietnam when the fighting was intense. His Marine brothers at Khe Sanh had fought the Vietnamese in one of the bloodiest battles of the war earlier in the year, while the Marines at Hue were fighting the enemy in the streets. By April, the Marines at Khe Sanh had finished operation Pegasus and had embarked on a series of missions called Scotland II to search and clear the area of enemy presence.
It was perhaps on such a mission that Bruce Staehli disappeared on April 30, 1968, near the city of Dong Ha, South Vietnam. Dong Ha is only a few miles from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and less than 30 miles northeast of Khe Sanh. Staehli is the only missing man from the action that day, and there is good reason to believe the enemy knows his fate. He may have been captured.
When American prisoners were released 5 years later, the Staehli family was shocked and disappointed that their son was not one of them. Experts say there were hundreds expected to be released who were not.
Since the end of American involvement in Vietnam, thousands of reports of Americans still held captive in Southeast Asia have been received by the U.S. Government. Official policy states that there is not enough proof to act, but that presumably, one or more American is held. Critics of that policy, including individuals in government, say the proof is there, but that no one is willing to pay the price of freedom for these captive Americans.
If one of them is Bruce Staehli, what must he be thinking of us?
All Biographical and loss information on POWs provided by Operation Just Cause have been supplied by Chuck and Mary Schantag of POWNET. Please check with P.O.W. Network regularly for updates. Additionally, some personal information from Scopesys database. In some cases the incident information has been compiled from searches conducted at the Federal Research Division. Various other informational resources were also used including - Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA), the Personnel Missing South East Asia (PMSEA) list, as well as other informational sites that returned information from an internet search on an individual far too numerous to list here. Those sources are identified within the individual information.
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