Incident at Kengkock:
Evelyn Anderson and Beatrice Kosin

By Ray Davidson, syndicated columnist. He can be reached at  rayd45@aol.com.

I want each of you to take a long look at this photograph. It is a photograph of Evelyn Anderson.

Now read the rest of the story.

Evelyn was from the small village of Quincy in Southern Michigan. I say village because it is 1.3 square miles and had a population of around a thousand people back in 1950 when she was born. A devout Christian, Evelyn, a nurse by profession, joined the Christian Missions of Many Lands and went to Kengkock (about 35 miles from Savannakhet) to help the indigenous people of Laos.

In the late hours of Saturday, October 27, 1972, a small group of North Vietnamese soldiers invaded their small South Laotian village and took Evelyn, Beatrice Kosin, and two other missionaries, Lloyd Oppel and Samuel Mattix, captive.

The next day, Sunday, at 9:04 in the morning an American helicopter arrived and evacuated nine Filipinos, five Lao and the Americans who had escaped capture and radioed for help. Learning of the captured, another helicopter returned within an hour to try to locate Evelyn and the other missing missionaries. Upon the helicopters return to base without the missing missionaries, the unit commander, LtCol. Norman Vaught, immediately set rescue plans into motion.

Not generally known to the public is that the Combatant Commander must always clear operations through the American Embassy. Unfortunately, in this case, the American Ambassador in Vientiane ordered that no attempt be made to rescue the women. His logic was that the peace negotiations were ongoing and he feared that a rescue attempt would compromise the sustained level of progress at the Paris “peace” talks. Rumors have persisted that on orders from Washington the American Embassy in Vientiane squelched the plan; which may very well be the truth.

This proved to be a death sentence for Evelyn and Beatrice.

Less than a week later, on November 2, 1972, a NVA radio message was intercepted ordering that the two women be executed. "A captured North Vietnamese soldier later told U.S. military intelligence that the women were captured, tied back to back and their wrists wired around a house pillar. The women remained in this position for five days. After receiving orders to execute the two, the Communists simply set fire to the house where they were being held and burned the women alive. A later search of the smoldering ruins revealed the corpse of Miss Anderson. Her wrist was severed, indicating the struggle she made to free herself."

The two men captured with Anderson and Kosin, were held captive and released in 1973. They were held in Hanoi from December 6, 1972 until January 16, 1973 at which time they were removed to a small country prison and interrogated for three weeks. They were then moved back to Hanoi and released on March 28.

Quoting from the POW network, "Anderson and Kosin were not in Laos to kill, but to help. Their deaths must be blamed not only on the Communists who set the fire that killed them, but also on the faceless, nameless Americans who decided they were expendable."

Why am I sharing this with you? Look back at Evelyn’s face or Beatrice’s, what do you see? Do you see a beautiful young girl? Do you see your own daughter? Is she your sister? She is all our sisters or daughters? What you see is a small town girl with God in her heart and love within her soul that chose to make life better for a people a world away and old men in padded office chairs deemed their lives worthless.

So on the next chilly November morning when the shrouded mist floats above our Georgia woodland. Reach down deep in that silent part of your soul and remember. Ask that the shadow of your soul not cast its darkness upon that memory of Evelyn.

Beatrice Kosin was a 34-year-old schoolteacher from Ft. Washakie, Wyoming.

Email:

lorrie@scally.com

Sign My Guestbook

View My Guestbook