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The following is a summary of my second POW/MIA I have adopted through Operation Just Cause.  Please click the bracelet below and adopt a true hero.
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Name:  Dallas Reese Pridemore

Rank/Branch:  E6/US Army

Unit:  Company D, 87th Infantry, 95th MP Battalion, 18th MP Brigade

Date of Birth:  29 April 1941  (Hamlin WV)

Home City of Record:  East Liverpool, Ohio

Date of Loss:  08 September 1968

Loss Coordinates:  105055N  1064535E (XS946989)

Status (in 1973):  Prisoner of War

Category:  1

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.  Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK.

Remarks:  Kidnapped
 
 

Synopsis

SSGT Dallas R. Pridemore was a member of D Company, 87th Infantry, 95th Military Police Battalion, 18th Military Police Brigade.  Company D was a separate rifle security company attached to the 95th MP at Long Binh.

On September 8, 1968, SSGT Pridemore was in civilian clothes, visiting a Vietnamese family residing at 655 Cu Xa Kien Thiet Village, Thu Duc District, Gia Dinh Province, South Vietnam. (some say this was the home of SSGT Pridemore's girlfriend.)  At about 2200 hours, a platoon of the Thu Duc District (Viet Cong) Unit came to the house during a search for a former Viet Cong who had defected to the government of Vietnam and kidnapped Pridemore.  The Viet Cong took him to a pagoda in Phong Phu where he was turned over to a special action group and taken to an unknown location.

The Vietnamese family reported that the Viet Cong told them Pridemore would be returned in a day or two.  Pridemore was never released by the Viet Cong.  The U.S. Army has more information relating to Dallas Pridemore, but it is still classified.

When 591 Americans were released in Operation Homecoming in 1973, Dallas Pridemore was not among them.  The Vietnamese deny any knowledge of him.  Since that time, the U.S. has given information to the Vietnamese related to Pridemore in hopes that the Vietnamese will tell us what happened to him, but if any information has been forthcoming, it is classified.

Since the war ended, over 10,000 reports relating to Americans prisoner, missing or unaccounted for in Southeast Asia have been received by the U.S. Official government policy is that one or more may be alive, and that the government is operating under that assumption.  some officials, however, having reviewed the information, are convinced that hundreds of Americans are still alive in captivity today.

However, much of the information relating to these men are classified, and the American public is forced to believe that in twenty years the U.S. has been helpless to achieve the release of a single prisoner of war.  Detractors of U.S. policy in this matter believe that the will to compel the Vietnamese to release our servicemen simply does not exist.

Regardless of blame, there may be hundreds of Americans waiting for their country to come for them.  It's time we got answers and bring our men home.

Dallas Pridemore was promoted to Sergeant First Class during the period of his captivity.

SSG Pridemore was last reported alive in a temporary screening and interrogation center for U.S. POW's in Svay Teap District Svay Rieng Province, Cambodia.  there is no information which would indicate evidence of death.
 
 

CASE SUMMARY

1.  On 8 September 1968 SSG Dallas Pridemore was visiting a Vietnamese family residing at 655 Cu Kien Thiet village, in the vicinity of grid coordinates XS 946 989, Thu Duc District, Gia Dinh Province, South Vietnam.  At about 2200 hours a platoon of the Thu Duc District Unit came to the house during a search for a former Viet Cong who had defected to the Government of Vietnam, and abducted him.  SSG. Pridemore was wearing civilian clothes at the time of his abduction.  The Viet Cong took him to a pagoda in Phong Phu, where he was turned over to a Special Action Group and taken to an unknown location.

2.  On 10 September 1968 it was reported that SSG Pridemore was being held in Ong Thang Swamp in the vicinity of XS 965 975.  The next reported knowledge of SSG. Pridemore was on 6 January 1969 when a South Vietnamese source stated he had learned from an individual that this individual's brother, who was a Viet Cong Rear Service postal clerk, had told him of seeing the name "Dollas Primont" with the descriptive information "sergeant, Military Police, U.S. Army" on a roster at a temporary screening and interrogation center for U.S. POW's in the vicinity of XT 105 265, Svay Teap District, Svay Reing Province, Cambodia.  SSG Pridemore had been brought to this camp on or about 25 September 1968 from Gia Dinh Province, South Vietnam, and had ben wearing civilian clothes when he arrived.  He was last known to be in this camp on 4 January 1969.

3.  ADO Comment:  Numerous visits were made to the capture site in an attempt to confirm the circumstances of capture and obtain additional details without success.  No official or person in the area would admit knowledge of the incident.  some villagers told Rural Development cadremen they recalled an M.P. and a girl but didn't know what had happened to them.  The Province Chief and Two Party Joint Military Commission were given details of this case.  PUBCOM were distributed throughout the area, but there were no results.  In November 1974 a source reported to ADO, MR-IV that he knew of a live American in MR-IV.  (Source was referred to ADO, MR-IV, after he reported to ADO, MR-III, knowledge of a score of American graves in the Delta, and offered to exhume the remains for several million plasters).
In February 1975 this report was tentatively correlated to Pridemore but follow-up by ADO, MR-IV, determined the source to be highly unreliable.  Pridemore's name and identifying data were given to the Communist PRG Delegation of the Four-Party Joint Military Team on 8 August 1973 with a request for information.  No response was forthcoming.  SSG Pridemore is currently carried in the status of Captured.