the deserters
By May 6, 1968, the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive had entered a second, more deadly, phase.
Ground combat was intense and American losses were especially heavy.
Ships from the US Navy supported the American effort from positions offshore, in the Gulf of Tonkin.
On May 6, two sailors serving aboard a Navy cruiser, then about twenty miles offshore in the Gulf, failed to report to their duty stations.
None of the ship’s lookouts had seen any sign of anyone going overboard, so the ship’s compartments were searched.
When the men could not be found, two other Navy vessels joined in an area search, supported by aircraft from a Navy aircraft carrier.
But nothing was found in the water.
The missing men, Mike Kustigian and Harry Mitchell, were both nineteen and best friends.
They had last been seen the night before on the ship’s main deck engaged in an intense conversation.
Sailors reported they seemed unwilling to talk with others.
When the men’s lockers were searched, a set of swim fins, face mask and snorkel tube was missing from Harry’s locker.
In Mike’s locker, searchers found a book entitled "American War Crimes in Vietnam."
Two sets of wet suits were reported missing from the ship’s inventory.
So, the Navy concluded that Mike and Harry had left the ship voluntarily.
They were deserters.
Faced with this devastating charge, Mike’s family pushed for a further investigation.
And a former radio operator onboard the ship then came forward, reporting that he had decoded a message which said Mike and Harry had been picked up by fishermen and handed over to enemy forces.
But few people believed the radio operator.
There was no record of this message and ship’s commanding officers claimed they had no recollection of ever receiving this report.
Eleven years would pass, with Mike’s and Harry’s status shifting from ‘missing’ to ‘unauthorized absence,’ before they would be reclassified as ‘presumed dead.’
Their desertion had come at an especially difficult time.
More American men would be killed in Vietnam in May 1968 than in any other month.
The sting of the young men’s disloyalty at a time when so many others were dying in battle proved difficult to bear.
An anonymous online posting about Harry in 2018:
“I still carry the memory of the day they came to my door to speak to me about your disappearance.
“A part of me died then.
“We had so many plans and dreams and they live on in my heart.”
After Mike’s mom died in 2022, her family said she never gave up hope that he would one day walk through her door.
And Mike’s niece has written recently that she will never give up searching for the uncle she never knew.
Magical thinking.
We all want to believe that the good in us will always prevail.
Even now.
So, look around.
Tell me everything is going to be okay.
******************************
I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
Banner image: Walter Cronkite of CBS News in Hue, South Vietnam, Feb. 20, 1968.
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