Family waits for closure on lost [Mayaguez] marine

March 11, 2012
By JODY MURPHY (jmurphy@newsandsentinel.com)
Parkersburg News and Sentinel (West Virginia, USA)

PARKERSBURG - It's been 37 years since U.S. Marine Pvt. Danny G. Marshall was last seen.

In May 1975, Marshall and two other Marines were overlooked during an evacuation operation known as the Mayaguez Incident.

The soldiers comprised a three-man machine gun team assigned to protect the flank during an evacuation of Koh Tang Island in the Gulf of Thailand off the coast of Cambodia.

In the course of the evacuation, Marshall, Gary Hall and Joe Hargrove were overlooked and left behind. They were never seen again.

Marshall, an 18-year-old private, was declared dead by the military more than a year later, but his remains were never recovered. Thirty-seven years after his death, members of his family still have no closure and few answers.

"There's no closure," said Danielle Jones, Marshall's niece. "It is kind of hard on everybody just because we don't know."

Kelton R. Turner is reported as the last American soldier killed in the Vietnam War. Kelton, an 18-year-old Marine, was killed in action two weeks after the evacuation of Saigon on May 15, 1975.

Others list Hall, Hargrove and Marshall as the last to die in Vietnam.

In July 1976 the military changed the soldiers' status from missing to "died while missing." It is believed the three men were executed by the Khmer Rouge. Their names are among the last on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Marshall's body has never been recovered.

"There are so many conflicting stories on what happened to those three we will probably never know," Jones said. "It seems like every member of the Khmer Rouge, every one knows exactly where all three are buried, but they go to excavate the site and they are never there."

Jones and her son, Daniel, are both named in memory of Marshall.

Marshall came from a family of eight children. Born in 1957, he grew up in Waverly. While Marshall's birthday is listed as March 9, Jones said his mother always celebrated it March 10. He would have been 55 this weekend.

Jones said both of Danny's parents are gone; his mother died in 2008.

"His brothers and sister don't talk about it," Jones said. "My mom does, but she has been sick, so I have taken over dealing with this."

Marshall's family is hesitant to speak with the media. The family opted not to participate in last year's Vietnam Memorial Wall service at City Park. Jones was recovering from surgery and her mother had been sick. The rest of the family has tried to avoid the spotlight.

"My family has been hounded by anybody that thinks they can make a story out of anything," she said. "I've grown up with it. I have been hounded myself."

There have been books written about the Mayaguez Incident and Jones said the family is often approached when rumors surface of government officials going back to recover the bodies of missing soldiers.

Jones said the family is often misquoted in books, articles and stories about Marshall.

"At one point it was so crazy for a few days I had to unplug the house phone and barricade the door because of the reporter," Jones said.

Still, she lends her time to those seeking information about her uncle.

"I do everything I can," she said.

Jones said she gets emails from kids and students from around the country seeking information about Marshall and the Mayaguez Incident.

"They want to do book reports," she said. "I will ask them what they need."

Jones, a 2002 graduate of Williamstown High School, did a report on Marshall.

Jones hopes one day Marshall will be found, but after close to 40 years of waiting and hoping she's not optimistic.

Family members placed a bronze headstone in Marshall's memory in the family cemetery. The headstone was replaced a few years ago after it- along with a number of bronze flower holders-were stolen.

"Ideally, we would love to have him brought home," Jones said. "Is it something worth counting on? Probably not."