44 years later, soldier buried

LAUREL, Neb. -- A 44-year-old story came to an end Saturday when the remains of a soldier who had been missing in action for more than four decades were finally laid to rest on a windy hill just outside of town.

For most of the those years, Spec. Donald Grella's body was buried in the tangled maze of trees, shrubs and vines that make up Vietnam's central highlands.

Last March, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command uncovered human remains at a helicopter crash site near An Khe. In June, the remains were identified as belonging to Grella and the three other members of A Company who left on a routine service mission on Dec. 28, 1965, and never returned.

"There is no one word to describe the emotion," said Shirley Haase of Omaha, Grella's only sibling, during her brother's funeral service.

"There's sadness to confirm his death . . . yet relief that the journey has come to an end," she added.

Before his remains were discovered, Haase and her husband, Ron, spent more than a decade attending meetings with representatives of the U.S. Department of Defense, interacting with fellow members of the National League of POW/MIA Families and searching for clues into Grella's disappearance.

"Dying for your country isn't the worst thing that can happen to a man. Being forgotten is," Haase told the approximately 500 veterans, military personnel, friends and relatives who gathered at Laurel High School to say hello and good-bye to the "red-haired boy" who, as a teenager, liked to hunt, fish, and impersonate Elvis.

"He even had the blue suede shoes," she said.

While sharing her childhood memories, Haase recalled the time her older brother wrote her a letter, signed it from the Easter Bunny and hid it in the haystacks on the farm near Laurel where they lived with their parents, Leo and Alberta.

Then there was the time she fell into the cattle tank and he made her hide in the grove until her clothes dried because "he was supposed to be watching me," she said.

School was primarily a place to go to arrange his social life, she said of her brother.

Grella, who would be 68 years old if still alive today, was drafted shortly after graduating from high school in 1958. He served two years, came home for a year, re-enlisted and asked to go to Vietnam.

In November 1965, Grella's company was involved in the battle of Ia Drang Valley in Pleiku Province, which later became the topic of the book "We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young."

In the early morning hours of Dec. 28, 1965, he and three other men -- pilot Jesse Phelps, co-pilot Kenneth Stancil and door gunner Thomas Rice -- left An Khe base camp on a routine supply mission. Ten minutes into the flight, the pilot of the UH1 Huey radioed back that the flight was difficult because of bad weather and darkness. The men were never heard from again.

"It's amazing that he survived that battle (Ira Drang Valley) and then died on a routine supply mission," said Col. Rodney A. Armon, a chaplain with the Nebraska National Guard who offered the sermon at the funeral.

"But today is the story about the love a sister had for a brother," Armon said. "It's about the need to get a final answer . . . to get her brother home to be laid to rest properly."

When the service ended, a military honor guard carried Grella's flag-draped coffin to the waiting hearse through a column of leather-shrouded Patriot Guard and Legion Riders.

Leading the procession to the cemetery were several school buses full of local and area veterans. Dressed in the caps and jackets from their VFW and American Legion organizations, they had come to say farewell to their brother.

The buses and other vehicles in the procession filed past more flag-waving motorcycle riders and spectators who lined the streets and highways leading to the cemetery where Grella was laid to rest between his father who died in 1953, and his mother, who died in 2006.

At the cemetery, Col. Philip G. Houser, also a chaplain with the Nebraska National Guard, committed Grella's body to the earth with the "sure and certain hope of the resurrection," he said.

Then, the sound of the wind whipping the flags gave way to the roar of helicopter blades chopping the air. Out of the eastern horizon, rose four military helicopters that flew over the scene, offering one last salute to the fallen hero.

As the roar of the choppers faded, the blast of 21 guns sounded, a trumpeter played taps, the flag covering the coffin was folded and handed to Shirley Haase by Naval Chief Petty Officer Troy Hanson of Norman, Oka., who was part of the team that recovered Grella's remains.

And there, on a cold, windy hill in Nebraska, far from the jungles of Vietnam, a 44-year-old story came to an end.

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