John Garrett Gardner, age 26, from Hot Springs, North Carolina, Madison county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Saturday, June 3, 1967
Death details: On June 12, 2000, the Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii (CILHI) identified the remains of Captain John Garrett Gardner, missing from the Vietnam War. Captain Gardner entered the U.S. Marine Corps from North Carolina and was a member of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 165, Marine Air Group 36, 1st Marine Air Wing. On June 3, 1967, he copiloted a CH-46A Sea Knight (bureau number 150955, call sign “YWZ”) carrying five other crew members and an unknown number of South Vietnamese special forces members on an extraction mission in Salavan (formerly Saravane) Province, Laos. While taking off from the landing zone, the aircraft was hit by enemy small arms fire and crashed, killing Capt Gardner. His remains could not be recovered at the time. However, between 1993 and 1996, a joint U.S. task force traveled to Salavan Province and recovered artifacts and human remains from the site; the combined remains were sent to CILHI for analysis. Investigators were able to forensically identify Capt Gardner among the remains.
Cemetery: Memorialized at Arlington National, interred in New Flats Cemetery in Spring Creek, North Carolina
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, findagrave.com