Mattawan war hero finally coming home: James Dennany, shot down over Laos in 1969, to be buried Friday

Cached:  http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/01/mattawan_war_hero_finally_comi.html

By Dave Person | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette

Published: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 8:30 AM     Updated: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 12:28 PM

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Col. James Eugene Dennany, a Mattawan native and graduate and Vietnam veteran listed as MIA in 1969 (later changed to killed in action in 1978) will at long last have a funeral ceremony on Friday, Jan. 14, in Texas.

DALLAS — A graduate of Mattawan High School whose fighter plane was shot down over Laos in 1969 during the Vietnam War will be laid to rest on Friday.

Col. James E. Dennany Sr., who graduated from Mattawan High School in 1953, was a decorated Air Force major serving as a navigator on a Phantom F-4D fighter jet that was downed by anti-aircraft fire during a night-time attack on an enemy truck convoy.

Dennany, 34, a married father of seven children whose family was living in Brownsville, Texas, and the plane’s pilot, Capt. Robert L. Tucci, were listed as missing in action after their plane went down on Nov. 11, 1969.

Their status was changed to killed in action nine years later, but it wasn’t until 1999 that a joint team of United States and Laotian investigators found a crash site that was believed to be that of Dennany’s and Tucci’s plane.

Excavations of the site that took place during 2008 and 2009 turned up human remains, life-support items and aircraft pieces that continued to point toward the site of where the Americans’ plane went down.

Although positive identification couldn’t be made, the Air Force concluded largely through circumstantial evidence last August that the remains were those of Dennany and Tucci and that they had died on impact.

The remains were scheduled to be flown from Hawaii to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport early today and then be taken to the Laurel Oaks Funeral Home in Mesquite, Texas, to lie in state throughout the day.

A funeral procession was slated to go from the funeral home to Dallas/Fort Worth National Cemetery on Friday morning for a service that was to include a fly over, weather permitting, and a flag ceremony honoring both Dennany and Tucci.

Dennany’s son, James E. Dennany Jr., of Humble, Texas, near Houston, said he and at least three of his four sisters, all of whom still live in Texas, where Dennany met and married his wife, Emily, would be in attendance at Friday’s ceremony.

Dennany’s two other sons, Brian and Sean, died in 1983 and 1985, respectively, and Emily Dennany died of cancer in 2002.

Dennany, who also now has 12 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, still has cousins in the Kalamazoo area and elsewhere in Michigan, James Dennany Jr. said.

The senior Dennany was among 32 members of the class of 1953 at Mattawan High School, where he played varsity football and was a member of the student council.

F-4B in Udorn, Thailand over 41 years ago

He joined the military out of high school and qualified for officer’s training and to become a pilot, said Marie Lara, one of Dennany’s daughters.

While taking classes in Harlingen, Texas, Dennany met Emily Hon. They were married in August 1956 and began their family of seven children. Meanwhile, Dennany was being transferred to Riverside, Calif., K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base in Michigan, Laramie, Wyo., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1968 from the University of Wyoming, and Florida.

Dennany was then promoted to major and sent to Vietnam, Lara said. His promotion to colonel, and Tucci’s promotion from captain to major, occurred posthumously.

Just weeks before his fateful mission, Dennany had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery during earlier missions.

In 1986, several of Dennany’s former Mattawan classmates presented a plaque in his memory to the school board, which displayed it in the central hallway, alongside his senior class picture, of what was then the high school.

Current Mattawan High School Principal Colin Ripmaster said the plaque and picture are still on display there in what is now known as the district’s Center Building.

Related News:

Video: Mich pilots identified after 41 years Wood TV8

• Texas funeral Friday for 2 Michigan airman shot down over Laos in 1969 after … Los Angeles Times
• Vietnam air crew to be buried 41 years after crash Dallas Morning News

Gooooood Morning…Laos?

Cached:  http://randomroger.blogspot.com/2011/01/gooooood-morninglaos.html

Random Roger

The other day the Wall Street Journal had a writeup on the new stock exchange in Laos. Laos as an investment destination? While I’m sure it will be a while before Laos Telecom lists and ADR on the NYSE the opening of an exchange is a start.

To read the article, apparently the thing here is excess hydroelectric power that they can sell to its neighbors in South East Asia. For now there are only two stocks on the exchange, a bank and a hydroelectric company. Presumably there will be more companies, I mean look at that building, there’s got to be room for a few more stocks in all that office space–a little humor.

There are other countries that are also in the earliest stages of capital market formation. As another example Mongolia is a resource rich nation that is drawing a lot of FDI and there are a couple of Mongolian stocks listed elsewhere, mostly Hong Kong I believe, but the actual market is only open one hour a day.

While a Laotian stock may never list on the NYSE it could list in Hong Kong and for all we know exporting hydroelectricity could turn out to be a gold mine for any related companies and should they list in Hong Kong they would be accessible.

The other day a reader at Seeking Alpha left a comment saying that country selection is a crap shoot. If you believe that then these sorts of posts are not for you obviously but I think the numbers are compelling and the mindset of what is being sought needs to be correct.

In terms of managing an investment portfolio with a longer time horizon foreign exposure is intended to offer diversification. My premise here has been that better diversification comes by selecting countries with as little in common with the US as possible; different economic cycles leading to different stock market cycles.

Isolating what countries are least like the US is a matter of simple research; Wikipedia can work here along with a visit to the central bank of web site of the country. From there I would look under the hood of any ETF that might exist and learn a little about some of the bigger companies in the market. Here I am not necessarily talking about analysis to buy the stock just some basics like how many customers a phone company has or how many manufacturing facilities a company have, number of stores for a retailer; that sort of thing. The above also needs to include some understanding of the politics in the country as well.

From that point there needs to be some way of keeping tabs on the country presumably with the intention of getting in at some point.

Looking back at the last decade, I’ve referenced data from Bespoke Investment Group countless times on this point, there were plenty of countries that had normal or better than normal results and isolating some of them was far from a crap shoot. If a country has a manageable debt situation, prospects for growth, prospects for social improvements or has something the world needs (doesn’t just have to be commodities, it could be labor, innovation or other demographic attributes) then at the very least you have a tailwind to the country.

What this will not do is offer shelter during a worldwide panic. As I said before the crisis, some countries can go down at different times or by different amounts thus smoothing out the ride. Of the countries I write about most frequently the best examples here were Norway, Brazil and Chile. To be clear country selection is no substitute for defensive action taken objectively.

From where I sit country selection contributed mightily to whether people had anything close to a normal decade and I believe will do so again in this decade and this means being willing to learn a little about countries you’ve never thought about before, maybe even Laos.

Related reading:

• Even Mobius hearts Laos, Financial Times (blog)
• Laos stocks soar on debut – yes, both of them, beyondbrics
• Laos: contemplating capitalism, beyondbrics
• Laos stock exchange signals opportunities in frontier markets, Mindful Money

Laotian remains ID’ d as missing Michigan airmen

Cached:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-vietnamremains-mi,0,111767.story

Associated Press

3:35 p.m. CST, January 12, 2011

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The Pentagon says it’s identified the remains of two U.S. airmen who’d been declared missing in the Vietnam War 40 years ago.

The Defense Department’s POW/Missing Personnel Office said Wednesday that the remains are those of 34-year-old Col. James E. Dennany of Kalamazoo and 27-year-old Maj. Robert L. Tucci of Detroit.

The Pentagon says Dennany and Tucci will be buried Friday at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.

The Pentagon says the airmen disappeared Nov. 12, 1969 while escorting an AC-130 ground attack aircraft on a mission over Laos. It says anti-aircraft fire struck Tucci and Dennany’s plane.

A U.S.-Laotian search crew found crash debris and remains in the area in 1999 and more material was found over the next decade. Authorities used a variety of tools to identify the remains.

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Michigan soldiers killed in Vietnam to be buried with honors

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20110112/METRO01/101120428/1361/Michigan-soldiers-killed-in-Vietnam-to-be-buried-with-honors

Nathan Hurst / Detroit News Washington Bureau

Washington— The remains of two Michiganian soldiers killed in the Vietnam War have been identified and will be buried with full military honors at the Dallas-Ft. Worth National Cemetery in Texas on Thursday, the Defense Department announced today.

The two soldiers are Maj. Robert L. Tucci, 27, of Detroit and Air Force Col. James E. Dennany, 34, of Kalamazoo.

The two were flying an F-4D jet — one of three in their formation — during a night strike in Laos. It’s believed their plane was hit by anti-aircraft artillery as the pair made no radio transmission after the attack and no parachutes were seen deployed.

Military researchers began collecting evidence on the disappearance in the 1990s, and in 1999, U.S. officials were given remains and soldier paraphernalia found near the sight at Ban Soppeng, a village close to the sight of the attack. More than 10 years of research was conducted to conclude the remains were indeed that of Tucci and Dennany.

Defense officials say 1,702 soldiers and officers remain missing from the Vietnam conflict.

nhurst@detnews.com

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110112/METRO01/101120428/Michigan-soldiers-killed-in-Vietnam-to-be-buried-with-honors#ixzz1As9aVvxO

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Mich pilots identified after 41years

Col. James Dennany, Maj. Robert Tucci

Cached:  http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/michigan/Mich-pilots-identified-after-41-years

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Updated: Wednesday, 12 Jan 2011, 6:46 PM EST
Published : Wednesday, 12 Jan 2011, 6:46 PM EST

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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) – More than 41 years after they were shot down over Laos, two Air Force pilots from Michigan were identified and returned to their families.

Air Force Col. James Dennany from Kalamazoo and Major Robert Tucci of Detroit were flying an F-4D escorting an AC-130 gunship on a night mission on November 12, 1969.

The gunship attacked six trucks and requested the pilots to attack other trucks. But anti-aircraft gunfire shot their plane down, and they were not found.

Starting in the mid-1990s, the US and Laos began working to recover the remains of servicemen lost in the southeast Asia war. Over the years, joint teams from the US and Laos, now known as Lao People’s Democratic Republic , recovered aircraft wreckage personal effects and human remains.

Forensic examinations confirmed the remains are Dennany and Tucci.

They will be buried together January 14 in the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.

The return of Dennany and Tucci leave 1,702 service members still unaccounted.

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For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/