At rest after half a century
Jun. 18—After decades of searching and years of delays, a man who spent nearly twice the length of his life missing in action in Southeast Asia was returned Friday to his final resting place in Southern Oregon with full military honors.
Edward James Weissenback, who was among four souls shot down in Laos, Dec. 27, 1971, was buried at Eagle Point National Cemetery Friday in a ceremony that brought people from across the country to the Rogue Valley. These included Weissenback's family, as well as friends made over decades of searching and seeking answers to unanswered questions.
Weissenback, who served in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Army from 1964 to 1966 and had attended Southern Oregon University, was working as a civilian Air Freight Specialist with Air America Inc.
A supply and transport mission en route from Thailand went awry that fateful day in 1971 when the the plane caught enemy fire and was shot down near Sayaboury, Laos, a village in the Oudomxai Province of Laos, according to statements from Weissenback's friends and family and a 2019 news release from the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Weissenback, along with the plane's captain, George L. Ritter, and crewmen Roy F. Townley and Kamphanhn Saysongkham perished in the crash.
Weissenback's wife, Karen Weissenback Moen, remembered her husband as an outgoing and enthusiastic man who could be very calm and modest. The combination "made him very easy to be around."
Lee and Mary Gossett, now of Central Point, lived next to the Weissenbacks in the area of Vientiane, Laos, at the time. Lee Gossett remembered Weissenback as an outgoing man built like a linebacker. Weissenback Moen remembered how matter-of-factly her husband introduced Mary to her by saying, "I found you a best friend."
After Weissenback Moen lost her husband, however, the Gossetts did become very dear friends.
"We've been a big part of her life, and she's been a big part of ours," Mary Gossett said of Weissenback Moen.
Before his wife joined him in Laos, Weissenback was a smokejumper in Cave Junction, and she worked at the Oregon Caves. Weissenback Moen said she remembers how he arranged everything for her to come along — except for one major detail: a proposal.
"He'd just neglected to ever ask me to marry him," Weissenback Moen said.
The omission didn't stop her, however. Although a short honeymoon in Hong Kong after his probationary period was up at work sounded like a steep proposal, it also sounded like adventure for a girl from Grants Pass.
"He had a vitality for life that I don't think I've ever seen since," Weissenback Moen said. "He joyfully lived life."
His niece Laura Kaspar Wardwell, who was 12 years old when her uncle Eddie died, officiated the ceremony and remembered Weissenback's passion for the outdoors and living creatures. She described him as "just a larger-than-life person."
"My uncle was an enigma," Wardwell said. "It was just always really exciting when he'd come to visit."
Wardwell said she long held out hope that somehow he made it off the plane as the years went by.
Decades spanned before answers started coming to light. Witnesses helped lead American and Laotian searchers to some of the plane's wreckage in October 1997.
More witnesses were found between 2014 and 2017, and excavation teams recovered human remains in fall 2017 and summer 2018, according to the U.S. Defense Department.
Leading up to her husband's burial, Weissenback Moen scattered soil collected from all the places he loved in life. There was soil from Queens, New York, where he was born, soil from the Catskills where he summered, dirt from his Cave Junction smokejumper base, soil from the Redmond smokejumper base, and earth from Ashland.
Reach web editor Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or nmorgan@rosebudmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MTwebeditor.
