Former Air Force para-rescueman enlisted to help find remains

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Former Air Force para-rescueman enlisted to help find remains
Idaho State Journal/AP
By Michael O'Donnell
Published: February 22, 2014

POCATELLO, Idaho — It's been 45 years since Aberdeen's Leland Sorensen clung to a thin steel cable as he was lowered into the jungle canopy of Southeast Asia. As a member of the elite U.S. Air Force para-rescue jump team, it was his job to drop from a helicopter into hostile territory to rescue downed pilots during the Vietnam War.

Sorensen's successful rescue efforts in 1968-69 earned him the Silver Star, four Distinguished Flying Crosses — and a return trip to the rugged jungles of Laos later this month.

A surprise email from the Army's Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office last December asked for Sorensen's help in finding the remains of F-105 fighter pilot David T. Dinan, who was shot down on a Laotian mountainside March 17, 1969. Sorensen was key because he was the last American to ever see Dinan's lifeless body.

"I was the one who went to the ground," Sorensen said about that fateful day nearly 45 years ago. "I was happy to tell what I recalled."

Sorensen will fly to Laos on Feb. 27 and become part of a mission to find the remains of Lt. Dinan. People are counting on his memory of the location and the events of that fateful day
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