Name: Robert Lenwood Platt Jr.
Rank/Branch: E3/US Army
Unit: Company B, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne
Division
Date of Birth: 01 September 1947
Home City of Record: Charleston SC
Date of Loss: 10 June 1967
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 145228N 1084623E (BS605455)
Status (in 1973): Missing in Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Other Personnel in Incident:
(none missing)
Source:
Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 June 1990 from one or more of the
following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with
POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS:
PFC Robert L. Platt Jr. was a member of Company B, 2nd Battalion,
502nd Infantry in Vietnam. On June 10, 1967, he was a member of a ten-man patrol
on a search and destroy mission operating about five miles southwest of the city
of Mo Duc in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam.
During the patrol, the team was ambushed and Platt was reportedly wounded in the shoulder. When the patrol withdrew under fire, Platt was carried a short distance when the man carrying him was wounded and Platt was again wounded in the back. At this point, Platt was left behind.
After the patrol regrouped, search operations were begun and continued until June 16. During the search, items were found that were believed to belong to Platt, but he was not found. A captured enemy document indicated that an individual whose first name was Robert had been captured and died the next day from wounds. This report was not specific enough to classify Platt as a prisoner of war. He was classified Missing in Action.
In 1973, 591 Americans were released from POW camps in Vietnam, and the communist governments released a list of those who had died in captivity. Platt did not return, nor was his name on any list provided by the Vietnamese. He was one of about 2500 who remained prisoner, missing or unaccounted for at the end of the war.
Mounting evidence indicates that some Americans are still alive being held prisoner of war in Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese pledged to return all prisoners of war and provide the fullest possible accounting of the missing in the peace accords signed in 1973. They have done neither, and the U.S. has not compelled them to do so.
The United States government pledged that the POW/MIA issue is of "highest national priority" but has not achieved results indicative of a priority. Platt and the nearly 2500 Americans who remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia deserve our best efforts to bring them home, not empty rhetoric.
Robert L. Platt Jr. was promoted to the rank of Staff Sergeant during the period he was maintained missing.
