Tag: Ballwin Missouri

Randolph Bothwell Suber from Ballwin, Missouri, St. Louis county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: November 13, 1969

Death details: On the afternoon of November 13, 1969, a six-man reconnaissance team comprising two Americans and four local troops were on a mission in Laos when they were attacked by a numerically superior enemy force. Three of the four local team members were killed in the initial contact, and the two Americans were both hit by enemy gunfire and severely wounded. The remaining local team member survived the incident, and reported that the area was subsequently overrun by the enemy and that the Americans were both still lying on the ground wounded when he left the area. Beeper signals were received in the days following the incident, but bad weather and heavy enemy presence in the area prevented search and rescue teams from recovering the two American troops. Neither was seen again and further attempts to locate them were unsuccessful.

Sergeant Randolph Bothwell Suber entered the U.S. Army from Missouri and served in Command and Control North, 5th Special Forces Group. He was one of the Americans on this patrol, and the survivor reported that SGT Suber fell to the ground after being hit by enemy small arms fire. Attempts to locate SGT Suber or his remains following the incident have been unsuccessful. He was promoted to Sergeant First Class after his disappearance. Today, Sergeant First Class Suber is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Office