U.S. Air Force Sgt. David Price was one of 18 Americans at Lima Site 85, a top secret CIA radar site in Laos that served as a vital navigational beacon for U.S. bombers from atop a craggy mountain peak.
In March 1968, North Vietnamese commandoes overran the post, killing 12 Americans. Price’s body was never recovered.
This week, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that Price remains had been identified and will be returned to his family after 56 years.
Brenda Fuller, one of Price’s daughters, was only 7 years old when her father was killed in action on March 11, 1968. Her mother was told only that he was missing but knew nothing else about her husband’s fate.
“My biggest memory there is the day that my mom found out he was missing. She found out over the phone, and I was in the room when she heard, and that was really hard to watch her reactions to that,” Fuller said.
A Desperate Mountain Top Fight
The tactical air navigation radar site known as Lima Site 85 sat on top of the 5,600-foot mountain known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province. The facility — little more than a few shacks around a radar array — was a vital part of the U.S. military’s Vietnam War effort to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Price came to Lima Site 85 from 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron. The site in Laos was kept top secret and lacked much of the security and defenses that a U.S. military site might have had. The few Air Force technicians — who were listed as Lockheed employees during the mission — wore civilian clothes, had little to no combat training and were supposed to be unarmed, though they had brought a cache of rifles and grenades. Security was provided by roughly 1,000 Thai and Hmong soldiers organized and led by a pair of CIA operatives.
After a series of attacks against the site, a team of North Vietnamese commandos finally overran the base during an early morning attack.
The evacuation of the Americans was chaotic, with CIA helicopters hovering overhead as the Hmong and Laotian troops held off 3,000 Vietnamese. Price’s fate and that of 10 others was never precisely determined by survivors who escaped. The site’s senior enlisted leader, Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Richard Etchberger, was killed while loading the final helicopter with survivors and awarded the Air Force Cross, which was upgraded to the Medal of Honor in 2010.
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Twelve of the 19 Americans at Lima died in the fighting, along with about 50 of their Thai and Hmong defenders. It was the deadliest ground attack suffered by the Air Force in the war.
Recovering Remains
In cooperation with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and L.P.D.R., Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency teams investigated leads gleaned from dozens of witness interviews, including those involved with the attack. Starting in 2003, the team was able to recover some remains belonging to the missing Americans, but it wasn’t until 2023 that they were able to find remains believed to be Price’s.
For over five decades, Fuller told herself stories as a means to reckon with her father’s MIA status. The clandestine nature of the operation to call in air strikes on the Viet-congs’ supply line from within enemy held territory remained classified until until 1998, leaving blank spots about what happened.
“To make things make sense for me, I made possibilities up in my head. Like, maybe he got away and he’s hiding out somewhere, and he sees that we’re happy, so he’s not coming back to what was in our life, those kind of silly stories,” Fuller said. “I made things up to answer questions and fill in the holes of the information that wasn’t there.”
Fuller holds onto the happy memories from the short time she had with her father. She talked about her memories playing on the beach and how he disapproved of her putting olives on all of her finger tips before eating them.
“My dad was an amazing man. He was loving. He was kind and funny. Everybody who knew him thought he was great. My mom was divorced, and then he came into my life when I was two and a half, that he was my — he was my daddy Dave. He loved us, me and my siblings, just unconditionally, and he was an amazing man. I don’t know how else to put it.”
Price will be buried in Centralia, Washington, on August 30, 2024. Fuller said he will have full military honors before being laid to rest in his hometown. During his time in the military, Price was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart medal, Air Force Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, a Vietnam Service Medal with two Bronze service stars, Air Force Longevity Service Award, and the Republic Of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Ribbon medal.
“I would like the American public to know that my dad served his country in a manner that he felt was going to further the cause, and hopefully make an end of the war,” Fuller said. “That’s, I think, all they need to know, that he loved his country. He believed in what he did, he believed in the men that he served with, and he thought he was doing what was best.”
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