Lincoln soldier’s remains identified from Vietnam War
Larry Zich disappeared while co-piloting a helicopter in 1972
LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – The remains of a Lincoln soldier have been identified a half-century after he went missing during the Vietnam War.
Larry Zich was co-piloting a helicopter in South Vietnam on a combat support mission. During the flight, the pilot communicated that they were lost.
The helicopter could not be found on radar and was never heard from again. That was April 3, 1972, Zich’s 24th birthday.
The Joint Casualty Resolution Center conducted 12 investigations into his disappearance between 1993 and 2014, all with negative results.
Meanwhile, the Defense Intelligence Agency received human remains from a Vietnamese refugee.
Reportedly, the remains belonged to nine different people who died in an aircraft crash and were buried in Quang Nam province.
Larry Zich
Courtesy: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Zich’s remains were positively identified in October 2022, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. But the agency did not announce the identification until Friday.
The other three soldiers on the helicopter with Zich remain unaccounted for.
Zich was born in Sturgis, South Dakota, and moved to Lincoln. That’s where he joined the United States Army.
He will be buried in Lincoln on a date yet to be determined.
Zich is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
