GySgt Richard W. Fisher, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam

40 years later, missing Marine to be buried
By Ryan J. Foley - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Nov 16, 2007 7:21:15 EST

MADISON, Wis. - A Marine who disappeared during the Vietnam War will be buried next week after his remains were recently identified with DNA testing.

Lance Cpl. Richard W. Fischer, 20, was declared missing in action in January 1968 while conducting military operations in Vietnam's Quang Nam Province. His remains were recovered in 1994 but they weren't positively identified until earlier this year, the Marine Corps said Thursday.

The remains are expected to arrive Friday at the Milwaukee airport from Hawaii, where a military laboratory works to identify missing soldiers and Marines. They will be driven to Madison, where Fischer's family has scheduled a memorial service for Monday. Fischer is expected to be buried later Monday with full military honors.

Glen Reichelderfer, a pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church who is helping plan the service, called the identification "really quite an amazing thing."

"It's the diligence of the military that has allowed this to happen," he said. "They did an incredible job in finding his remains. It was sort of 'CSI.' It's a very interesting story."

Reichelderfer would not elaborate. Marine spokesman Capt. Brian Ahrens said the remains were identified using DNA testing but he had no other details.

The military has increasingly used DNA samples from maternal relatives to identify remains in recent years, said Ann Mills-Griffiths, executive director of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. The Hawaii laboratory identifies about 100 missing U.S. personnel from various wars every year, she said.

She said Fischer's family had long been members of her group.

"It's the uncertainty that motivates people and getting an end to that uncertainty is very important for each of these families," she said. "I know what this means to the family so it's good news, even though it can be very emotional like it just happened."

Some 1,767 soldiers, Marines and civilians remain missing in Southeast Asia from the Vietnam War era, according to statistics from the Defense Department. The remains of 817 Americans have been returned since the end of the war in 1975, Mills-Griffiths said.

Fischer enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966 after one year of college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to his obituary. "Dick" Fischer had worked as a lifeguard at Madison's beaches and enjoyed sailing on the city's lakes.

He went to Vietnam in October 1967 and was declared missing in action as a result of hostile fire just months later. While he was missing, Fischer was promoted to the rank of gunnery sergeant. He was classified as presumed "killed in action" in 1978.

Fischer's father had died in 1958. His mother died in 2002, never learning for sure whether her son was killed. He is survived by his sister, Ann Fischer, who did not respond to an interview request made through Reichelderfer.

Reichelderfer acknowledged next week's memorial service would be "very unusual."

"But our faith is one that says there is hope and there is life after death," he said. "And for the family, there is a time for mourning and a time for celebrating a life. That's true of every memorial service. This one will be a little bit different, though, as you can well understand."

Gods speed

welcome home gunny! semper fi