On his second tour in Vietnam in 1965, assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, Thorne was involved in the secret war in Laos. On October 18, 1965, he was on a covert mission into Laos, riding in a South Vietnamese Air Force H-34 helicopter. In thick clouds near the Laotian border, the helicopter crashed into a mountaintop. Also on board were three South Vietnamese crew members: Lieutenant Bao Tung Nguyen, First Lieutenant The Long Phan and Sergeant Vam Lanh Bui.
Searches of the rugged terrain found nothing. Thorne was declared killed in action by the Army in 1966. In America, posthumous fame arrived when he was portrayed by Wayne in the 1968 film "The Green Berets."
A joint U.S.-Socialist Republic of Vietnam team found the wreckage in 1997, and the site was excavated in 1999. The remains were subsequently identified by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.
The three Vietnamese service members were eligible for burial at Arlington because their remains were commingled with those of an American serviceman, according to a spokeswoman for Arlington Cemetery.
Now the three lie together with Thorne in America's most hallowed ground, a unique ending to a unique story.
