initials "TH" stomped in the tall elephant grass

near the crash site. A number of reports have been

received which indicate Tom Hart, if not others, 

was still alive as late as 1988.

In the early 1980's a delegation comprised in part

of several POW/MIA family members visited the site

of the aircraft crash in Laos. Mrs. Anne Hart

found material on the ground in the area which she

believed to be bone fragment. She photographed the

material and turned it over to the U.S. Government.

In February, 1985, a joint excavation of the crash

site was done by the U.S. and Laos from which a 

large number of small bone fragments were found.

Analysis by the U.S. Army's Central Identification

Laboratory (CIL) in Hawaii reported the positive

identification of all 13 missing crewmembers.

Some critics dubbed this identificatin "Voodoo 

Forensics."

Mrs. Hart was immediately skeptical.  She was 

concerned that the positive identification of all

13 missing men onboard the aircraft had seemed too

convenient. She was further concerned that among

the remains said to be those of her husband, she

found the bone fragment which she had herself

found at the crash site location several years 

before. She believed this was too much of a 

coincidence.

Anne Hart had an independent analysis of the seven

tiny fragments of bone which the government said 

constituted the remains of her husband. Dr. Michael

Charney of Colorado State University, an 

internationally respected

Board Certified Forensic Anthropologist with nearly

50 years of experience in anthropology, conducted

the study.

"It is impossible," Charney wrote in his report,

"to determine whether these fragments are from LTC

Hart or any other individual, whether they are 

from one individual or several, or whether they 

are even from any of the crew members of the 

aircraft in study."

Mrs. Hart refused to accept the remains and sued

the government, challenging its identification 

procedures. Her challenge produced additional 

criticism of CIL and the techniques it uses in 

identifying remains. Some scientists, including 

Charney, charged that CIL deliberately 

misinterpreted evidence in order to identify 

remains. They said the Army consistently drew 

unwarranted conclusions about height, weight, sex

and age from tiny bone fragments.

Eleven of the "positive" identifications made on

the AC130 crew were determined to be scientifically

impossible.

"These are conclusions just totally beyond the

means of normal identification, our normal limits

and even our abnormal limits," said Dr. William 

Maples, curator of physical anthropology at 

Florida State Museum.

Among the egregious errors cited by Charney was 

a piece of pelvic bone that the laboratory 

mistakenly said was a part of a skull bone and was

used to identify Chief Master Sgt. James R. Fuller.

The Reaid ID had been made based on bits of upper

arm and leg bones and a mangled POW bracelet said

to be like one Reaid wore. The MacDonald ID had 

been made based on the dental records for a single

tooth.

Mrs. Hart won her suit against the government. Her

husband's identification, as well as that of 

George MacDonald, was rescinded. The Government 

no longer claimed that the identifications were 

positive. However, these two men were listed as 

"accounted for."

Mrs. Hart's suit on behalf of her husband made it

U.S. Government policy for a family to be given 

the opportunity to seek outside confirmation of 

any identification of remains said to be their 

loved ones. Mrs. Hart also believed that the suit

was successful in keeping her husband's file open.

Reports were still being received related to him.

In 1988, the Air Force forwarded a live sighting 

report of Tom Hart to Mrs. Hart. The Air Force had

concluded the report was false or irrelevant

because Tom Hart was "accounted for." Mrs. Hart 

again went to court to try and ensure that her 

husband was not abandoned if, indeed, he is still

alive. She wanted him put back on the "unaccounted

for" list.

In early March, 1990, the 11th Circuit Court of 

Appeals overturned the lower court decision that

had ruled the U.S. Government erred in identifying

bone fragments as being the remains of Thomas 

Hart. The appellate court ruled that the government

is free to use "its discretion" in handling the

identification of victims of war and that courts 

should not second-guess government decisions on 

when to stop searching for soldiers believed to 

be killed in action.

The court also denied Mrs. Hart's request to have

her husband returned to the "unaccounted for" list.

"The government must make a practical decision at

some point regarding when to discontinue the search

for personnel," the court said in its ruling.

Most Americans would make the practical decision

to serve their country in war, if asked to do so.

Even though there is evidence that some of this 

crew did not die in the crash of the aircraft, the

U.S. Government has made the "practical decision,

" and obtained the support of the Justice system,

to quit looking for them.

How can we allow our government to close the books

on men who have not been proven dead whose biggest

crime is serving their country? If one or more of

them are among the hundreds many believe are still

alive in captivity, what must they be thinking of

us?

Knowing one could be so callously abandoned, how 

SUPPOSED TO BE A SECRET, NOT THEIR FATE.

Philadelphia Inquirer (PI) - Sunday, January 11,

1998

By: Alfred Lubrano

Edition: D  Section: FEATURES INQUIRER MAGAZINE 

 Page: 24

Alfred Lubrano is an Inquirer staff writer.

The Vietnam War had been over for a week.....

In November 1972, Col. Thomas Hart was in a 

helicopter gunship shot down over Pak Se, Laos. 

The Air Force sent Hart's wife, Ann, 12 pieces of

bone in  July 1985, saying they belonged to him.

If she didn't accept them, they would  be  buried

in a mass grave in Arlington National Cemetery,

they told her. Wanting to be sure, Hart had two 

private, forensic anthropologists examine the 

fragments. All that anyone could know from these

remains, they reported, was that the bits were 

human, and not necessarily from the same person.

Hart  sued the government, then learned something

startling during the  discovery  process: At the

crash site, military intelligence had found five 

open parachutes, apile of bloody bandages and the

initials "TH" stamped  out in nearby elephant

grass. She won her suit, and the government had to

retract its identification.

"The military was lying over what they saw, trying

to clear up the books on the  war,"  charges 

Michael Charney, a Colorado forensic anthropologist

who examined the remains identified as Hart's and

others.

Sam Dunlap, a physical anthropologist who worked

at the Army Central Identification  Laboratory  in

Honolulu during the 1980s, says the lab made 

impossible extrapolations about a man's identity 

from dime-sized fragments of matter. "There 

probaby should be exhumations of remains" now

buried, he says. Since the mid-1980s, though, the

lab has improved. "What comes out of there  now 

is impeccable," says Lowell Levine, a dentist who

works for the government. "The lab has made 

quantum leaps."

The people of the Bamboo Pipeline recite the 

Thomas Hart story the way televangelists invoke 

the Bible.

"Talk  to  one  family, and they sound crazed," 

says Kathryn Fanning, an Oklahoma woman who exhumed

her husband's remains in 1985, only to learn they

weren't  his. "But when you listen to what five 

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