Father, missing in Vietnam for decades, coming home

A phone call woke Tara O'Grady early Saturday morning and changed her life.

Her father, who had been missing since his plane was shot down over Vietnam 45 years ago, was coming home.

"No matter what, this Memorial Day will be different," O'Grady said Saturday.

Her dad, Maj. John O'Grady, was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, training for service in Vietnam, when 6-year-old Tara watched him leave home for the last time. He was 37 years old and left seven children behind.

During a bombing mission in Vietnam, his F-105D was hit, and he ejected.

His body was not found .

His daughter Patricia, who was a high school freshman when he left for war, searched for him for decades.

Over the years, she pieced his story together, according to multiple reports from Newsday, a Long Island, N.Y., newspaper that has covered the search extensively, and from the website she operates, johnogradypowmia.com.

Maj. O'Grady apparently landed in a tree, far from where his comrades thought he'd be because the wind had carried him away.

Two Vietnamese men found him. They later said that he had a broken leg and seemed generally OK, but that he soon died, perhaps from internal injuries.

The men buried him near a star fruit tree so they would remember where he was. They included his dog tags, too, so someday, when his remains were recovered, everyone would know who he was.

Decades passed. Patricia took trips to Vietnam, met villagers, but there was no news.

Until two months ago, when she got an email, her website says.

"I want to discover if you are daughter of John O'Grady in Vietnam," the email read. "The soldiers who buried your father are searching for you. My mother-in-law in Vinh has a neighbor who knows two soldiers, Vo Dinh An and Ngyuen Huy Thiet, who buried your father. Two years ago they showed the U.S. team where your father was buried but no one ever came back to get him."

Patricia traveled to Vietnam again last week to oversee the Vietnamese government's excavation of the gravesite.

She called her sister Tara in Las Vegas at 1:30 a.m. Saturday with the news.

"I had a real emotional reaction," Tara said. "Much more than I thought I would."

She has been living for 45 years knowing her dad was probably dead, but not knowing any of the details.

She had only the random memories of a kindergartner. Her dad driving her to school. Her dad's car pulling up in the driveway. Her dad, a pumpkin suit and Halloween.

"I can still remember as clear as a bell the day he left for Vietnam," she said. "I can remember the day those two men came to the door, me trying to comprehend."

She clings in particular to the words in the last letter he ever wrote, which was to her, dated April 8, 1967. Though the letter was lost in a fire 20 years ago, O'Grady said she has "memorized every single word."

"Daddy is flying a lot and the more he flies the sooner he can get home and give out great big hugs and kisses, especially to little girls in the first grade and that is what he wants more than anything else in the world," he wrote, according to a posting O'Grady put on her Facebook page."

The apparent discovery of his remains, though it has not been confirmed by the U.S. government, changes everything, she said.

No one was available Saturday at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii, which handles the search for and identification of Americans missing in past conflicts.

O'Grady's dog tags were found with his remains, which were exactly where the Vietnamese men said they would be, but Tara O'Grady acknowledged that a more positive identification will likely be necessary before the government will say the remains are his, for sure.

But she is convinced.

She is already trying to figure out how she'll pay for a trip to Hawaii, when his remains are transferred there, and to wherever he is eventually buried, perhaps Arlington National Cemetery.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.