Missing in action, my 51-year search for my father

Karoni Forrester always felt very close to her father Ron, though she has little memory of him. She was just two years old when his plane left its base in Thailand bound for Vietnam and never returned. Just a month later the Vietnam war formally ended. US servicemen returned home, but Ron Forrester was not amongst them. Karoni, growing up in a small town in west Texas surrounded by her father’s relatives, his brothers and parents, asked everyone around her, ‘Where’s my dad?' But nobody had an answer.

As a teenager she was angry, seeing no official effort to look for her father. Then she found The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in South East Asia. Karoni took a very active part, becoming one of its national organisers.

The Department of Defence produced reports on the fate of servicemen in Vietnam, based on eyewitness accounts. Karoni was horrified to receive a report on her father, full of grim details, but also what she knew to be inaccuracies. Then some of her friends and colleagues in The League started to investigate, uncovering new evidence. The defence department had a team of investigators working in Vietnam, who took this evidence in their search for Ron Forrester.

Fifty-one years after her father disappeared Karoni finally got her answer. She says it is bittersweet, now knowing what happened does bring an inner peace, but she feels for all the relatives of other people missing in action, who still do not have their answers.

(Photo: Karoni as a small child under two, being held in her father Ron’s arms. Both smiling and comfortable with each other. Ron is wearing a khaki military uniform shirt with a small metal badge with wings. Karoni is wearing his hat also khaki with similar badges. Credit: Karoni Forrester)

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Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Julian Siddle