In Memory of SSGT Frank Neil Badolati.
*** Staff Sergeant Badolati was a rifleman with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 5th Special Forces Group. On January 29, 1966, he was on a reconnaissance team in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan, South Vietnam. He was killed while fighting the enemy. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.
You may be gone, no longer living on this earth; but you will live on - in the memories of your family and friends. There will always be a part of you living in those who knew you. You will live on because we remember you!
FRANK NEIL BADOLATI - Army - SSGT - E6 - Special Forces
Age: 32
Race: Caucasian
Date of Birth Mar 19, 1933
Born State: New York
From: GOFFSTOWN, NH
Religion: ROMAN CATHOLIC
Marital Status: Married - Jonny Helga, Born Aug. 10, 1944 (lives in Azalea,OR. as of 2009), who is from Denmark, never remarried. Daughter, Daisy Ann Badolati (Also known as.. Sumoza Daisy Schechter/Daisy Ann Schechter and Daisy Schechtersumoza) Born March 22, 1962.
***** AL Smith - Near him, when he fell
Roanoke, Tx., 76262, USA
wish, I could Have Done More
I was giving covering fire and I wish I could have done more. I will tell your family, if I find them.
****** Army Staff SERGEANT Frank Badolati grew up in Goffstown but lived at Fort Bragg,North Carolina, before shipping out to Vietnam, said his daughter, Daisy.
She was 2 when he left.
Badolati, 33, was a rifleman in a Special Forces reconnaissance team.
On 28 January 1966, he and five other soldiers were sent to the An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province, according to information gathered by the POW/MIA Network, a nonprofit organization.
That morning, Vietcong soldiers attacked Badolati's team.
Badolati was badly wounded by a bullet that hit his upper left arm, according to family members and information gathered by POW/MIA groups.
The team split into two groups and continued to move away from the site where they had been ambushed.
The two soldiers with Badolati said he died the next morning.
They left his body, hoping they could come back for it once they escaped from the valley and had outside support.
When soldiers returned, they could not find his body.
Badolati's wife, Jonny, who is from Denmark, never remarried, Daisy Badolati said.
The family never spoke about Frank Badolati, she said.
In 1999, Daisy Badolati, who teaches at a bilingual school in Oregon, decided to explore her father's life and death.
She met one of the soldiers who served with him that day, Master Sergeant Wiley Gray.
She met people who wore bracelets with her father's name and the date he went missing.
That year, she saw a picture of her father for the first time.
She keeps it in her wallet.
"I brought him home as best I could," she said.
Length of service 14 years
Casualty was on Jan 29, 1966
In , SOUTH VIETNAM
Hostile, died while missing, GROUND CASUALTY
Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Special Forces
Unit: HQ & HQ Company, 5th Special Forces Group ABN 1SF SFG
Date of Birth: 19 March 1933 (New York, NY)
Home City of Record: Goffstown NH
Date of Loss: 29 January 1966
Loss Coordinates: 143704N 1085242E (BS719172)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Body was not recovered
Panel 04E - Line 105
Other Personnel In Incident: The seven men who died were
Recon Team ROADRUNNER:
MSG Cecil J. Hodgson, Greenville, TX
SSG Frank N. Badolati, Goffstown, NH
SSG Ronald T. Terry, Niagara Falls, NY (Dist Svc Cross)
Recon Team CAPITOL:
SFC Marlin C. Cook, Vernon, AL (Silver Star)
SFC Jesse L. Hancock, Seattle, WA
SSG Donald L. Dotson, Alcoa, TN
SSG George A. Hoagland, Phoenix, AZ
The five men from Team ESKIMO were extracted successfully, although one had a serious head wound. Team CAPITOL's six men were brought out, both dead and alive. Team ROADRUNNER's survivors were forced to leave three men behind. Their bodies have not been recovered.
On January 29, 1966, he was on a reconnaissance team in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan, South Vietnam.
Frank N. Badaloti and Ronald T. Terry were riflemen on a Special Forces reconnaissance team operating in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan in South Vietnam when his team was split during a firefight.
The patrol came under enemy fire on the afternoon of 28 January 1966 during which time Badolati was hit.
Cecil Hodgson, the patrol leader, from Detachment B52 Delta, was apparently treating Badolati's wounds as the patrol traveled in small groups from the location where Badolati was hit.
Badolati was with two other individuals who survived, and as he was too badly wounded to continue, the three remained for about two hours in their position.
Badolati's condition worsened, and when the two survivors left the area, they reported that Badolati was dead. They had no choice but to leave his body behind.
Hodgson and Terry evaded for the rest of the day. On January 29, they moved at first light into a defensive position, whereupon they encountered enemy forces and another firefight ensued. Terry indicated that he had been hit, and others thought he had been killed. When they looked for Hodgson, he was gone.
Survivors heard additional shots, which they believed were shots fired at Hodgson, and they believed he also had been killed. The team could not search for Hodgson because of the heavy enemy activity, and were forced to move to a rallying point. They evaded capture for the remainder of the day, and were ultimately picked up by helicopter.
Searches for all three missing were conducted for the next 4 days with no results. Hodgson was classified Missing In Action.
Badolati and Terry were classified Killed/Body Not Recovered.
**************************************
25 July 2005
A Man is Not Dead Until He is Forgotten
The Story of Frank N. Badolati
By Ray Davidson
After a trip to the Vietnam Wall the daughter of Goffstown, New Hampshire, native SSGT Frank Badolati wrote,
"It was terribly sad and lonely, but there I found a place to cry and many people to share my tears. I don't believe I will ever see my father in this lifetime. I was only three the last time I saw him." Daisy Badolati of the small Azalea, Oregon community goes on to say, ". It has been a very difficult issue for me to deal with over the years, so much so that I made the greatest effort to accept my loss and [when the pain was just too great I would try to] forget ever having had a father."
SSGT Badolati was a member of Detachment B-52, Project Delta, 5th Special Forces Group. Project Delta was formed in October 1964. Their missions included some of the most hazardous and critical actions in South Vietnam. Augmenting the 5th Special Forces (Green Berets) was a Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) Security Company, a group of South Vietnamese Special Forces, a South Vietnamese Ranger Battalion and a CIDG "Roadrunner" Company (Roadrunners were equipped with enemy uniforms, equipment and weapons).
"Stay Out of the An Lao Valley"
Operation Masher (January 24 - March 6, 1966) was the largest search and destroy mission up to that point in the war. Project Delta was selected to reconnoiter the northern end of the An Lao valley.
This area of the An Lao Valley is covered with thick vegetation with a great deal of elephant grass, three to four feet tall, and interspersed with cultivated fields. Steep slopes bound the valley on both sides with anti-aircraft emplacements. Intelligence indicated that there were two Regiments of North Vietnamese in the valley supported by Viet Cong insurgents. With such a heavy concentration of enemy forces, the former commander of Project Delta, Major Art Strange, warned incoming commander Major Charles "Charging Charlie" Beckwith in July of 1965 to "Stay out of the An Lao Valley. They have sophisticated warning systems and tracking dogs."
Operation Masher and "Charging Charlie" ignored good advice. The operation required insertion of recon teams into the valley but problems plagued the mission. Beckwith decided to not augment the Recon teams with South Vietnamese counterparts (as was standard procedure), ground intelligence was unconfirmed, the weather was bad, helicopter and gunship support would be limited due to the anti-aircraft guns, and, as stated before, the enemy controlled the valley. The last time friendly forces were in the valley was 1958.
Beckwith choose to insert three teams comprised of American Special Forces troopers. Badolati was assigned to Team ROADRUNNER along with SFC Marcus Huston (Team Leader), SSGT Billy McKeith, MSGT Wiley Gray, SSGT Ron Terry and SSGT Cecil Hodgson.
The mission quickly disintegrated. Team ESKIMO had to abort with one wounded. A woodcutter in the hills spotted Team CAPITOL and they were ambushed, losing four men and the other two were wounded.
Team ROADRUNNER made initial contact with enemy forces at around 9:30 on 28 January and again at about 12:30. During the first volley of fire that afternoon Badolati was hit in the upper left arm, the bullet almost severing the arm. SFC Hodgson applied a tourniquet while the team was still under fire. The team then broke contact and moved about 600 yards, stopping to provide medical help to Badolati. They immediately came under fire. The team then split into two groups to evade the pursuing enemy.
Gray, Hodgson and Terry evaded the ambush site in a different direction from Badolati, Huston and McKeith. The group with Badolati tried to use the cover along the steep slopes and after dark used a streambed to hide their trail. Finally Badolati stated that he "could not go any further" and for them to leave him behind. Ignoring his plea, Huston and McKeith stopped in a concealed position two to three feet up the stream bank. Despite constant medical attention to Badolati's mangled arm, his condition continued to deteriorate. He died in the early morning hours of 29 January 1966. The remaining team members were forced to leave Badolati's body hidden in the boulders and scrubs with the hope to recover it with a Search and Rescue (SAR) team. The two survivors successfully evaded and were recovered later by helicopter.
According to Homecoming II records, Gray, Hodgson and Terry successfully evaded the rest of that day and then settled into a hiding place for the night. At first light on the 29th, the three men began moving again and did not make contact with the enemy until 4:30 that afternoon. All three were lying in elephant grass when they saw seven Viet Cong soldiers standing four feet to the right and rear of them. They opened fire, killing three of the seven. Shortly thereafter, Gray heard Terry yell that he had been hit and saw him holding his right side. Suddenly Terry's body arched as another bullet struck him, it was obvious this second bullet killed Terry.
Gray could not locate Hodgson and decided to move roughly 20 feet to a more defendable position and waited in ambush for the enemy. A little later Gray heard both enemy and Hodgson's weapons being discharged, then silence. Gray continued to evade the enemy and was recovered the next day by helicopter.
Charging Charlie was wounded on the fire support mission and left Project Delta the next week. Of the seventeen men who went into the An Lao Valley seven were killed and three wounded.
Ray Davidson
***********************************************
.
*** Staff Sergeant Badolati was a rifleman with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 5th Special Forces Group. On January 29, 1966, he was on a reconnaissance team in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan, South Vietnam. He was killed while fighting the enemy. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.
You may be gone, no longer living on this earth; but you will live on - in the memories of your family and friends. There will always be a part of you living in those who knew you. You will live on because we remember you!
FRANK NEIL BADOLATI - Army - SSGT - E6 - Special Forces
Age: 32
Race: Caucasian
Date of Birth Mar 19, 1933
Born State: New York
From: GOFFSTOWN, NH
Religion: ROMAN CATHOLIC
Marital Status: Married - Jonny Helga, Born Aug. 10, 1944 (lives in Azalea,OR. as of 2009), who is from Denmark, never remarried. Daughter, Daisy Ann Badolati (Also known as.. Sumoza Daisy Schechter/Daisy Ann Schechter and Daisy Schechtersumoza) Born March 22, 1962.
***** AL Smith - Near him, when he fell
Roanoke, Tx., 76262, USA
wish, I could Have Done More
I was giving covering fire and I wish I could have done more. I will tell your family, if I find them.
****** Army Staff SERGEANT Frank Badolati grew up in Goffstown but lived at Fort Bragg,North Carolina, before shipping out to Vietnam, said his daughter, Daisy.
She was 2 when he left.
Badolati, 33, was a rifleman in a Special Forces reconnaissance team.
On 28 January 1966, he and five other soldiers were sent to the An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province, according to information gathered by the POW/MIA Network, a nonprofit organization.
That morning, Vietcong soldiers attacked Badolati's team.
Badolati was badly wounded by a bullet that hit his upper left arm, according to family members and information gathered by POW/MIA groups.
The team split into two groups and continued to move away from the site where they had been ambushed.
The two soldiers with Badolati said he died the next morning.
They left his body, hoping they could come back for it once they escaped from the valley and had outside support.
When soldiers returned, they could not find his body.
Badolati's wife, Jonny, who is from Denmark, never remarried, Daisy Badolati said.
The family never spoke about Frank Badolati, she said.
In 1999, Daisy Badolati, who teaches at a bilingual school in Oregon, decided to explore her father's life and death.
She met one of the soldiers who served with him that day, Master Sergeant Wiley Gray.
She met people who wore bracelets with her father's name and the date he went missing.
That year, she saw a picture of her father for the first time.
She keeps it in her wallet.
"I brought him home as best I could," she said.
Length of service 14 years
Casualty was on Jan 29, 1966
In , SOUTH VIETNAM
Hostile, died while missing, GROUND CASUALTY
Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Special Forces
Unit: HQ & HQ Company, 5th Special Forces Group ABN 1SF SFG
Date of Birth: 19 March 1933 (New York, NY)
Home City of Record: Goffstown NH
Date of Loss: 29 January 1966
Loss Coordinates: 143704N 1085242E (BS719172)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Body was not recovered
Panel 04E - Line 105
Other Personnel In Incident: The seven men who died were
Recon Team ROADRUNNER:
MSG Cecil J. Hodgson, Greenville, TX
SSG Frank N. Badolati, Goffstown, NH
SSG Ronald T. Terry, Niagara Falls, NY (Dist Svc Cross)
Recon Team CAPITOL:
SFC Marlin C. Cook, Vernon, AL (Silver Star)
SFC Jesse L. Hancock, Seattle, WA
SSG Donald L. Dotson, Alcoa, TN
SSG George A. Hoagland, Phoenix, AZ
The five men from Team ESKIMO were extracted successfully, although one had a serious head wound. Team CAPITOL's six men were brought out, both dead and alive. Team ROADRUNNER's survivors were forced to leave three men behind. Their bodies have not been recovered.
On January 29, 1966, he was on a reconnaissance team in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan, South Vietnam.
Frank N. Badaloti and Ronald T. Terry were riflemen on a Special Forces reconnaissance team operating in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan in South Vietnam when his team was split during a firefight.
The patrol came under enemy fire on the afternoon of 28 January 1966 during which time Badolati was hit.
Cecil Hodgson, the patrol leader, from Detachment B52 Delta, was apparently treating Badolati's wounds as the patrol traveled in small groups from the location where Badolati was hit.
Badolati was with two other individuals who survived, and as he was too badly wounded to continue, the three remained for about two hours in their position.
Badolati's condition worsened, and when the two survivors left the area, they reported that Badolati was dead. They had no choice but to leave his body behind.
Hodgson and Terry evaded for the rest of the day. On January 29, they moved at first light into a defensive position, whereupon they encountered enemy forces and another firefight ensued. Terry indicated that he had been hit, and others thought he had been killed. When they looked for Hodgson, he was gone.
Survivors heard additional shots, which they believed were shots fired at Hodgson, and they believed he also had been killed. The team could not search for Hodgson because of the heavy enemy activity, and were forced to move to a rallying point. They evaded capture for the remainder of the day, and were ultimately picked up by helicopter.
Searches for all three missing were conducted for the next 4 days with no results. Hodgson was classified Missing In Action.
Badolati and Terry were classified Killed/Body Not Recovered.
**************************************
25 July 2005
A Man is Not Dead Until He is Forgotten
The Story of Frank N. Badolati
By Ray Davidson
After a trip to the Vietnam Wall the daughter of Goffstown, New Hampshire, native SSGT Frank Badolati wrote,
"It was terribly sad and lonely, but there I found a place to cry and many people to share my tears. I don't believe I will ever see my father in this lifetime. I was only three the last time I saw him." Daisy Badolati of the small Azalea, Oregon community goes on to say, ". It has been a very difficult issue for me to deal with over the years, so much so that I made the greatest effort to accept my loss and [when the pain was just too great I would try to] forget ever having had a father."
SSGT Badolati was a member of Detachment B-52, Project Delta, 5th Special Forces Group. Project Delta was formed in October 1964. Their missions included some of the most hazardous and critical actions in South Vietnam. Augmenting the 5th Special Forces (Green Berets) was a Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) Security Company, a group of South Vietnamese Special Forces, a South Vietnamese Ranger Battalion and a CIDG "Roadrunner" Company (Roadrunners were equipped with enemy uniforms, equipment and weapons).
"Stay Out of the An Lao Valley"
Operation Masher (January 24 - March 6, 1966) was the largest search and destroy mission up to that point in the war. Project Delta was selected to reconnoiter the northern end of the An Lao valley.
This area of the An Lao Valley is covered with thick vegetation with a great deal of elephant grass, three to four feet tall, and interspersed with cultivated fields. Steep slopes bound the valley on both sides with anti-aircraft emplacements. Intelligence indicated that there were two Regiments of North Vietnamese in the valley supported by Viet Cong insurgents. With such a heavy concentration of enemy forces, the former commander of Project Delta, Major Art Strange, warned incoming commander Major Charles "Charging Charlie" Beckwith in July of 1965 to "Stay out of the An Lao Valley. They have sophisticated warning systems and tracking dogs."
Operation Masher and "Charging Charlie" ignored good advice. The operation required insertion of recon teams into the valley but problems plagued the mission. Beckwith decided to not augment the Recon teams with South Vietnamese counterparts (as was standard procedure), ground intelligence was unconfirmed, the weather was bad, helicopter and gunship support would be limited due to the anti-aircraft guns, and, as stated before, the enemy controlled the valley. The last time friendly forces were in the valley was 1958.
Beckwith choose to insert three teams comprised of American Special Forces troopers. Badolati was assigned to Team ROADRUNNER along with SFC Marcus Huston (Team Leader), SSGT Billy McKeith, MSGT Wiley Gray, SSGT Ron Terry and SSGT Cecil Hodgson.
The mission quickly disintegrated. Team ESKIMO had to abort with one wounded. A woodcutter in the hills spotted Team CAPITOL and they were ambushed, losing four men and the other two were wounded.
Team ROADRUNNER made initial contact with enemy forces at around 9:30 on 28 January and again at about 12:30. During the first volley of fire that afternoon Badolati was hit in the upper left arm, the bullet almost severing the arm. SFC Hodgson applied a tourniquet while the team was still under fire. The team then broke contact and moved about 600 yards, stopping to provide medical help to Badolati. They immediately came under fire. The team then split into two groups to evade the pursuing enemy.
Gray, Hodgson and Terry evaded the ambush site in a different direction from Badolati, Huston and McKeith. The group with Badolati tried to use the cover along the steep slopes and after dark used a streambed to hide their trail. Finally Badolati stated that he "could not go any further" and for them to leave him behind. Ignoring his plea, Huston and McKeith stopped in a concealed position two to three feet up the stream bank. Despite constant medical attention to Badolati's mangled arm, his condition continued to deteriorate. He died in the early morning hours of 29 January 1966. The remaining team members were forced to leave Badolati's body hidden in the boulders and scrubs with the hope to recover it with a Search and Rescue (SAR) team. The two survivors successfully evaded and were recovered later by helicopter.
According to Homecoming II records, Gray, Hodgson and Terry successfully evaded the rest of that day and then settled into a hiding place for the night. At first light on the 29th, the three men began moving again and did not make contact with the enemy until 4:30 that afternoon. All three were lying in elephant grass when they saw seven Viet Cong soldiers standing four feet to the right and rear of them. They opened fire, killing three of the seven. Shortly thereafter, Gray heard Terry yell that he had been hit and saw him holding his right side. Suddenly Terry's body arched as another bullet struck him, it was obvious this second bullet killed Terry.
Gray could not locate Hodgson and decided to move roughly 20 feet to a more defendable position and waited in ambush for the enemy. A little later Gray heard both enemy and Hodgson's weapons being discharged, then silence. Gray continued to evade the enemy and was recovered the next day by helicopter.
Charging Charlie was wounded on the fire support mission and left Project Delta the next week. Of the seventeen men who went into the An Lao Valley seven were killed and three wounded.
Ray Davidson
***********************************************
.
In Memory of SSGT Frank Neil Badolati.
*** Staff Sergeant Badolati was a rifleman with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 5th Special Forces Group. On January 29, 1966, he was on a reconnaissance team in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan, South Vietnam. He was killed while fighting the enemy. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.
You may be gone, no longer living on this earth; but you will live on - in the memories of your family and friends. There will always be a part of you living in those who knew you. You will live on because we remember you!
FRANK NEIL BADOLATI - Army - SSGT - E6 - Special Forces
Age: 32
Race: Caucasian
Date of Birth Mar 19, 1933
Born State: New York
From: GOFFSTOWN, NH
Religion: ROMAN CATHOLIC
Marital Status: Married - Jonny Helga, Born Aug. 10, 1944 (lives in Azalea,OR. as of 2009), who is from Denmark, never remarried. Daughter, Daisy Ann Badolati (Also known as.. Sumoza Daisy Schechter/Daisy Ann Schechter and Daisy Schechtersumoza) Born March 22, 1962.
***** AL Smith - Near him, when he fell
Roanoke, Tx., 76262, USA
wish, I could Have Done More
I was giving covering fire and I wish I could have done more. I will tell your family, if I find them.
****** Army Staff SERGEANT Frank Badolati grew up in Goffstown but lived at Fort Bragg,North Carolina, before shipping out to Vietnam, said his daughter, Daisy.
She was 2 when he left.
Badolati, 33, was a rifleman in a Special Forces reconnaissance team.
On 28 January 1966, he and five other soldiers were sent to the An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province, according to information gathered by the POW/MIA Network, a nonprofit organization.
That morning, Vietcong soldiers attacked Badolati's team.
Badolati was badly wounded by a bullet that hit his upper left arm, according to family members and information gathered by POW/MIA groups.
The team split into two groups and continued to move away from the site where they had been ambushed.
The two soldiers with Badolati said he died the next morning.
They left his body, hoping they could come back for it once they escaped from the valley and had outside support.
When soldiers returned, they could not find his body.
Badolati's wife, Jonny, who is from Denmark, never remarried, Daisy Badolati said.
The family never spoke about Frank Badolati, she said.
In 1999, Daisy Badolati, who teaches at a bilingual school in Oregon, decided to explore her father's life and death.
She met one of the soldiers who served with him that day, Master Sergeant Wiley Gray.
She met people who wore bracelets with her father's name and the date he went missing.
That year, she saw a picture of her father for the first time.
She keeps it in her wallet.
"I brought him home as best I could," she said.
Length of service 14 years
Casualty was on Jan 29, 1966
In , SOUTH VIETNAM
Hostile, died while missing, GROUND CASUALTY
Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Special Forces
Unit: HQ & HQ Company, 5th Special Forces Group ABN 1SF SFG
Date of Birth: 19 March 1933 (New York, NY)
Home City of Record: Goffstown NH
Date of Loss: 29 January 1966
Loss Coordinates: 143704N 1085242E (BS719172)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Body was not recovered
Panel 04E - Line 105
Other Personnel In Incident: The seven men who died were
Recon Team ROADRUNNER:
MSG Cecil J. Hodgson, Greenville, TX
SSG Frank N. Badolati, Goffstown, NH
SSG Ronald T. Terry, Niagara Falls, NY (Dist Svc Cross)
Recon Team CAPITOL:
SFC Marlin C. Cook, Vernon, AL (Silver Star)
SFC Jesse L. Hancock, Seattle, WA
SSG Donald L. Dotson, Alcoa, TN
SSG George A. Hoagland, Phoenix, AZ
The five men from Team ESKIMO were extracted successfully, although one had a serious head wound. Team CAPITOL's six men were brought out, both dead and alive. Team ROADRUNNER's survivors were forced to leave three men behind. Their bodies have not been recovered.
On January 29, 1966, he was on a reconnaissance team in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan, South Vietnam.
Frank N. Badaloti and Ronald T. Terry were riflemen on a Special Forces reconnaissance team operating in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan in South Vietnam when his team was split during a firefight.
The patrol came under enemy fire on the afternoon of 28 January 1966 during which time Badolati was hit.
Cecil Hodgson, the patrol leader, from Detachment B52 Delta, was apparently treating Badolati's wounds as the patrol traveled in small groups from the location where Badolati was hit.
Badolati was with two other individuals who survived, and as he was too badly wounded to continue, the three remained for about two hours in their position.
Badolati's condition worsened, and when the two survivors left the area, they reported that Badolati was dead. They had no choice but to leave his body behind.
Hodgson and Terry evaded for the rest of the day. On January 29, they moved at first light into a defensive position, whereupon they encountered enemy forces and another firefight ensued. Terry indicated that he had been hit, and others thought he had been killed. When they looked for Hodgson, he was gone.
Survivors heard additional shots, which they believed were shots fired at Hodgson, and they believed he also had been killed. The team could not search for Hodgson because of the heavy enemy activity, and were forced to move to a rallying point. They evaded capture for the remainder of the day, and were ultimately picked up by helicopter.
Searches for all three missing were conducted for the next 4 days with no results. Hodgson was classified Missing In Action.
Badolati and Terry were classified Killed/Body Not Recovered.
**************************************
25 July 2005
A Man is Not Dead Until He is Forgotten
The Story of Frank N. Badolati
By Ray Davidson
After a trip to the Vietnam Wall the daughter of Goffstown, New Hampshire, native SSGT Frank Badolati wrote,
"It was terribly sad and lonely, but there I found a place to cry and many people to share my tears. I don't believe I will ever see my father in this lifetime. I was only three the last time I saw him." Daisy Badolati of the small Azalea, Oregon community goes on to say, ". It has been a very difficult issue for me to deal with over the years, so much so that I made the greatest effort to accept my loss and [when the pain was just too great I would try to] forget ever having had a father."
SSGT Badolati was a member of Detachment B-52, Project Delta, 5th Special Forces Group. Project Delta was formed in October 1964. Their missions included some of the most hazardous and critical actions in South Vietnam. Augmenting the 5th Special Forces (Green Berets) was a Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) Security Company, a group of South Vietnamese Special Forces, a South Vietnamese Ranger Battalion and a CIDG "Roadrunner" Company (Roadrunners were equipped with enemy uniforms, equipment and weapons).
"Stay Out of the An Lao Valley"
Operation Masher (January 24 - March 6, 1966) was the largest search and destroy mission up to that point in the war. Project Delta was selected to reconnoiter the northern end of the An Lao valley.
This area of the An Lao Valley is covered with thick vegetation with a great deal of elephant grass, three to four feet tall, and interspersed with cultivated fields. Steep slopes bound the valley on both sides with anti-aircraft emplacements. Intelligence indicated that there were two Regiments of North Vietnamese in the valley supported by Viet Cong insurgents. With such a heavy concentration of enemy forces, the former commander of Project Delta, Major Art Strange, warned incoming commander Major Charles "Charging Charlie" Beckwith in July of 1965 to "Stay out of the An Lao Valley. They have sophisticated warning systems and tracking dogs."
Operation Masher and "Charging Charlie" ignored good advice. The operation required insertion of recon teams into the valley but problems plagued the mission. Beckwith decided to not augment the Recon teams with South Vietnamese counterparts (as was standard procedure), ground intelligence was unconfirmed, the weather was bad, helicopter and gunship support would be limited due to the anti-aircraft guns, and, as stated before, the enemy controlled the valley. The last time friendly forces were in the valley was 1958.
Beckwith choose to insert three teams comprised of American Special Forces troopers. Badolati was assigned to Team ROADRUNNER along with SFC Marcus Huston (Team Leader), SSGT Billy McKeith, MSGT Wiley Gray, SSGT Ron Terry and SSGT Cecil Hodgson.
The mission quickly disintegrated. Team ESKIMO had to abort with one wounded. A woodcutter in the hills spotted Team CAPITOL and they were ambushed, losing four men and the other two were wounded.
Team ROADRUNNER made initial contact with enemy forces at around 9:30 on 28 January and again at about 12:30. During the first volley of fire that afternoon Badolati was hit in the upper left arm, the bullet almost severing the arm. SFC Hodgson applied a tourniquet while the team was still under fire. The team then broke contact and moved about 600 yards, stopping to provide medical help to Badolati. They immediately came under fire. The team then split into two groups to evade the pursuing enemy.
Gray, Hodgson and Terry evaded the ambush site in a different direction from Badolati, Huston and McKeith. The group with Badolati tried to use the cover along the steep slopes and after dark used a streambed to hide their trail. Finally Badolati stated that he "could not go any further" and for them to leave him behind. Ignoring his plea, Huston and McKeith stopped in a concealed position two to three feet up the stream bank. Despite constant medical attention to Badolati's mangled arm, his condition continued to deteriorate. He died in the early morning hours of 29 January 1966. The remaining team members were forced to leave Badolati's body hidden in the boulders and scrubs with the hope to recover it with a Search and Rescue (SAR) team. The two survivors successfully evaded and were recovered later by helicopter.
According to Homecoming II records, Gray, Hodgson and Terry successfully evaded the rest of that day and then settled into a hiding place for the night. At first light on the 29th, the three men began moving again and did not make contact with the enemy until 4:30 that afternoon. All three were lying in elephant grass when they saw seven Viet Cong soldiers standing four feet to the right and rear of them. They opened fire, killing three of the seven. Shortly thereafter, Gray heard Terry yell that he had been hit and saw him holding his right side. Suddenly Terry's body arched as another bullet struck him, it was obvious this second bullet killed Terry.
Gray could not locate Hodgson and decided to move roughly 20 feet to a more defendable position and waited in ambush for the enemy. A little later Gray heard both enemy and Hodgson's weapons being discharged, then silence. Gray continued to evade the enemy and was recovered the next day by helicopter.
Charging Charlie was wounded on the fire support mission and left Project Delta the next week. Of the seventeen men who went into the An Lao Valley seven were killed and three wounded.
Ray Davidson
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.
*** Staff Sergeant Badolati was a rifleman with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 5th Special Forces Group. On January 29, 1966, he was on a reconnaissance team in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan, South Vietnam. He was killed while fighting the enemy. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.
You may be gone, no longer living on this earth; but you will live on - in the memories of your family and friends. There will always be a part of you living in those who knew you. You will live on because we remember you!
FRANK NEIL BADOLATI - Army - SSGT - E6 - Special Forces
Age: 32
Race: Caucasian
Date of Birth Mar 19, 1933
Born State: New York
From: GOFFSTOWN, NH
Religion: ROMAN CATHOLIC
Marital Status: Married - Jonny Helga, Born Aug. 10, 1944 (lives in Azalea,OR. as of 2009), who is from Denmark, never remarried. Daughter, Daisy Ann Badolati (Also known as.. Sumoza Daisy Schechter/Daisy Ann Schechter and Daisy Schechtersumoza) Born March 22, 1962.
***** AL Smith - Near him, when he fell
Roanoke, Tx., 76262, USA
wish, I could Have Done More
I was giving covering fire and I wish I could have done more. I will tell your family, if I find them.
****** Army Staff SERGEANT Frank Badolati grew up in Goffstown but lived at Fort Bragg,North Carolina, before shipping out to Vietnam, said his daughter, Daisy.
She was 2 when he left.
Badolati, 33, was a rifleman in a Special Forces reconnaissance team.
On 28 January 1966, he and five other soldiers were sent to the An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province, according to information gathered by the POW/MIA Network, a nonprofit organization.
That morning, Vietcong soldiers attacked Badolati's team.
Badolati was badly wounded by a bullet that hit his upper left arm, according to family members and information gathered by POW/MIA groups.
The team split into two groups and continued to move away from the site where they had been ambushed.
The two soldiers with Badolati said he died the next morning.
They left his body, hoping they could come back for it once they escaped from the valley and had outside support.
When soldiers returned, they could not find his body.
Badolati's wife, Jonny, who is from Denmark, never remarried, Daisy Badolati said.
The family never spoke about Frank Badolati, she said.
In 1999, Daisy Badolati, who teaches at a bilingual school in Oregon, decided to explore her father's life and death.
She met one of the soldiers who served with him that day, Master Sergeant Wiley Gray.
She met people who wore bracelets with her father's name and the date he went missing.
That year, she saw a picture of her father for the first time.
She keeps it in her wallet.
"I brought him home as best I could," she said.
Length of service 14 years
Casualty was on Jan 29, 1966
In , SOUTH VIETNAM
Hostile, died while missing, GROUND CASUALTY
Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Special Forces
Unit: HQ & HQ Company, 5th Special Forces Group ABN 1SF SFG
Date of Birth: 19 March 1933 (New York, NY)
Home City of Record: Goffstown NH
Date of Loss: 29 January 1966
Loss Coordinates: 143704N 1085242E (BS719172)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Body was not recovered
Panel 04E - Line 105
Other Personnel In Incident: The seven men who died were
Recon Team ROADRUNNER:
MSG Cecil J. Hodgson, Greenville, TX
SSG Frank N. Badolati, Goffstown, NH
SSG Ronald T. Terry, Niagara Falls, NY (Dist Svc Cross)
Recon Team CAPITOL:
SFC Marlin C. Cook, Vernon, AL (Silver Star)
SFC Jesse L. Hancock, Seattle, WA
SSG Donald L. Dotson, Alcoa, TN
SSG George A. Hoagland, Phoenix, AZ
The five men from Team ESKIMO were extracted successfully, although one had a serious head wound. Team CAPITOL's six men were brought out, both dead and alive. Team ROADRUNNER's survivors were forced to leave three men behind. Their bodies have not been recovered.
On January 29, 1966, he was on a reconnaissance team in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan, South Vietnam.
Frank N. Badaloti and Ronald T. Terry were riflemen on a Special Forces reconnaissance team operating in An Lao Valley of Binh Dinh Province 12 miles west of Tam Quan in South Vietnam when his team was split during a firefight.
The patrol came under enemy fire on the afternoon of 28 January 1966 during which time Badolati was hit.
Cecil Hodgson, the patrol leader, from Detachment B52 Delta, was apparently treating Badolati's wounds as the patrol traveled in small groups from the location where Badolati was hit.
Badolati was with two other individuals who survived, and as he was too badly wounded to continue, the three remained for about two hours in their position.
Badolati's condition worsened, and when the two survivors left the area, they reported that Badolati was dead. They had no choice but to leave his body behind.
Hodgson and Terry evaded for the rest of the day. On January 29, they moved at first light into a defensive position, whereupon they encountered enemy forces and another firefight ensued. Terry indicated that he had been hit, and others thought he had been killed. When they looked for Hodgson, he was gone.
Survivors heard additional shots, which they believed were shots fired at Hodgson, and they believed he also had been killed. The team could not search for Hodgson because of the heavy enemy activity, and were forced to move to a rallying point. They evaded capture for the remainder of the day, and were ultimately picked up by helicopter.
Searches for all three missing were conducted for the next 4 days with no results. Hodgson was classified Missing In Action.
Badolati and Terry were classified Killed/Body Not Recovered.
**************************************
25 July 2005
A Man is Not Dead Until He is Forgotten
The Story of Frank N. Badolati
By Ray Davidson
After a trip to the Vietnam Wall the daughter of Goffstown, New Hampshire, native SSGT Frank Badolati wrote,
"It was terribly sad and lonely, but there I found a place to cry and many people to share my tears. I don't believe I will ever see my father in this lifetime. I was only three the last time I saw him." Daisy Badolati of the small Azalea, Oregon community goes on to say, ". It has been a very difficult issue for me to deal with over the years, so much so that I made the greatest effort to accept my loss and [when the pain was just too great I would try to] forget ever having had a father."
SSGT Badolati was a member of Detachment B-52, Project Delta, 5th Special Forces Group. Project Delta was formed in October 1964. Their missions included some of the most hazardous and critical actions in South Vietnam. Augmenting the 5th Special Forces (Green Berets) was a Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) Security Company, a group of South Vietnamese Special Forces, a South Vietnamese Ranger Battalion and a CIDG "Roadrunner" Company (Roadrunners were equipped with enemy uniforms, equipment and weapons).
"Stay Out of the An Lao Valley"
Operation Masher (January 24 - March 6, 1966) was the largest search and destroy mission up to that point in the war. Project Delta was selected to reconnoiter the northern end of the An Lao valley.
This area of the An Lao Valley is covered with thick vegetation with a great deal of elephant grass, three to four feet tall, and interspersed with cultivated fields. Steep slopes bound the valley on both sides with anti-aircraft emplacements. Intelligence indicated that there were two Regiments of North Vietnamese in the valley supported by Viet Cong insurgents. With such a heavy concentration of enemy forces, the former commander of Project Delta, Major Art Strange, warned incoming commander Major Charles "Charging Charlie" Beckwith in July of 1965 to "Stay out of the An Lao Valley. They have sophisticated warning systems and tracking dogs."
Operation Masher and "Charging Charlie" ignored good advice. The operation required insertion of recon teams into the valley but problems plagued the mission. Beckwith decided to not augment the Recon teams with South Vietnamese counterparts (as was standard procedure), ground intelligence was unconfirmed, the weather was bad, helicopter and gunship support would be limited due to the anti-aircraft guns, and, as stated before, the enemy controlled the valley. The last time friendly forces were in the valley was 1958.
Beckwith choose to insert three teams comprised of American Special Forces troopers. Badolati was assigned to Team ROADRUNNER along with SFC Marcus Huston (Team Leader), SSGT Billy McKeith, MSGT Wiley Gray, SSGT Ron Terry and SSGT Cecil Hodgson.
The mission quickly disintegrated. Team ESKIMO had to abort with one wounded. A woodcutter in the hills spotted Team CAPITOL and they were ambushed, losing four men and the other two were wounded.
Team ROADRUNNER made initial contact with enemy forces at around 9:30 on 28 January and again at about 12:30. During the first volley of fire that afternoon Badolati was hit in the upper left arm, the bullet almost severing the arm. SFC Hodgson applied a tourniquet while the team was still under fire. The team then broke contact and moved about 600 yards, stopping to provide medical help to Badolati. They immediately came under fire. The team then split into two groups to evade the pursuing enemy.
Gray, Hodgson and Terry evaded the ambush site in a different direction from Badolati, Huston and McKeith. The group with Badolati tried to use the cover along the steep slopes and after dark used a streambed to hide their trail. Finally Badolati stated that he "could not go any further" and for them to leave him behind. Ignoring his plea, Huston and McKeith stopped in a concealed position two to three feet up the stream bank. Despite constant medical attention to Badolati's mangled arm, his condition continued to deteriorate. He died in the early morning hours of 29 January 1966. The remaining team members were forced to leave Badolati's body hidden in the boulders and scrubs with the hope to recover it with a Search and Rescue (SAR) team. The two survivors successfully evaded and were recovered later by helicopter.
According to Homecoming II records, Gray, Hodgson and Terry successfully evaded the rest of that day and then settled into a hiding place for the night. At first light on the 29th, the three men began moving again and did not make contact with the enemy until 4:30 that afternoon. All three were lying in elephant grass when they saw seven Viet Cong soldiers standing four feet to the right and rear of them. They opened fire, killing three of the seven. Shortly thereafter, Gray heard Terry yell that he had been hit and saw him holding his right side. Suddenly Terry's body arched as another bullet struck him, it was obvious this second bullet killed Terry.
Gray could not locate Hodgson and decided to move roughly 20 feet to a more defendable position and waited in ambush for the enemy. A little later Gray heard both enemy and Hodgson's weapons being discharged, then silence. Gray continued to evade the enemy and was recovered the next day by helicopter.
Charging Charlie was wounded on the fire support mission and left Project Delta the next week. Of the seventeen men who went into the An Lao Valley seven were killed and three wounded.
Ray Davidson
***********************************************
.
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