Butler County Pennsylvania

Joseph George Kusick, age 22, from Bruin, Pennsylvania, Butler county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Wednesday, November 9, 1967
Death details:  On November 9, 1967, an HH-3E Jolly Green Giant (tail number 66-13279) with a crew of four took off on a rescue mission in Saravane Province, Laos. The Jolly Green Giant was the second of two helicopters responding to an emergency call made by a reconnaissance team that had suffered heavy casualties. The first helicopter successfully extracted all the team except for two wounded men. This Jolly Green Giant picked up these last two men, but was hit by ground fire after liftoff, crashed, and burned. The helicopter’s pilot survived the incident and was rescued, but the other occupants died in the crash. A recovery team reached the crash site later that day and found several sets of remains, but poor weather and enemy forces prevented helicopters from successfully extracting the bodies they found. Continued hostile presence in the area precluded further recovery efforts, and the remaining five men who were aboard the Jolly Green Giant are still unaccounted for.

Specialist Four Joseph George Kusick, who joined the U.S. Army from Pennsylvania, was a member of the Command and Control Detachment, 5th Special Forces Group. He was a member of the reconnaissance patrol that was picked up by the Jolly Green Giant, and was killed in the crash. Attempts to recover his remains have been unsuccessful. Subsequent to the incident, the U.S. Army posthumously promoted Specialist Four Kusick to the rank of Sergeant (SGT). Today, Sergeant Kusick is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives., Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency