JONES, LOUIS FARR

Name: Louis Farr Jones
Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force
Unit:				
Date of Birth: 29 December 1925
Home City of Record: San Angelo TX (family in Fairfax Co. VA)
Date of Loss: 29 November 1967
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 163700N 1060800E (XD220269)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4C

Other Personnel In Incident: (pilot recovered)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 October 1990 from one or more of
the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with
POW/MIA families, published sources: Washington Star and Salina (KS) Journal,
interviews.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: Radicalization can be an instant process. For Mrs. Mitch Jones, it
came the minute President Nixon said he would keep a small force of American
troops in South Vietnam as long as the communists held American prisoners of
war. Mrs. Jones quit her job, sent out hundreds of letters to enlist support and
became a full time, unpaid lobbyist for peace and helped form a group called
"Families for Immediate Release." Mrs. Jones was convinced Nixon's policy would
continue the war forever - and that the prisoner problem would then be solved -
they would die waiting for the war to end.

Mitch Jones' husband, Louis, a 22-year veteran of the military, was shot down
over Laos on November 29, 1967. He was the bombardier/navigator onboard an F4C
Phantom fighter/bomber whose pilot was apparently rescued. The aircraft was
downed in Savannakhet Province about 5 miles southwest of the city of Sepone,
Laos. Mrs. Jones had not received any word of her husband since that day,
although she traveled to Laos to inquire in 1969.

Mitch Jones had been through this before. Her brother, Lt. Frank N. Mitchell, a
Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, had been declared Missing In Action in
Korea. Her family struggled for years against a growing tide of indifference to
her brother and the other men missing in Korea. She watched helplessly as the
war ended, and the men were written off one by one. She had lived her years as a
military wife knowing her husband could also be captured or become missing, but
not fully realizing that the handling of the American POWs in Korea was not to
be unique. Final recognition came when she realized Nixon would continue the war
with no seeming regard for her husband or the other POWs.

When the war ended, not a single man held in Laos was released, although many
were known to have survived. Over 18 years has passed since Mitch Jones began to
realize her country was not going to bring her husband home. Still, no word of
Louis Farr has been received, and the U.S. engages in publicity campaigns to
renew relationships with the countries of Southeast Asia, while ignoring and
debunking mounting evidence that Americans are still alive in Laos and Vietnam.

Mrs. Jones no longer walks the halls of Congress, and since an 18-year-old
clipping described her activities, she has disappeared from public view. Louis
Jones, if he is alive, must also have decided, in disappointment, that the
country he proudly served would not bring him home.