| Name: Edward Jay Rykoskey |
| Rank/Branch: E3/US Marine Corps |
| Unit: L/3rd Recon Battalion, 3rd Marine Division |
| Date of Birth: 11 May 1946 |
| Home City of Record: Carlisle PA |
| Date of Loss: 18 August 1966 |
| Country of Loss: South Vietnam |
| Loss Coordinates: 160338N 1081218E (AT819613) |
| Status in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered |
| Category: 3 |
| Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground |
| Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing) |
| Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 October 1990 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. |
| REMARKS: |
| SYNOPSIS: Edward Rykoskey graduated from Carlisle High School in 1964, and joined the Marine Corps rather than wait to be drafted. The second year of his enlistment was to be spent in Vietnam, where he was shipped early in 1966 |
|
On August 18, 1966, with four months of his tour left, Edward served as
the
radio man for a reconnaissance patrol consisting of four men which went
out in
the Da Nang area. Returning to Da Nang, the patrol was ambushed. Three
men
survived, and reported that Edward Rykoskey did not. Search parties were
sent
out to find Rykoskey's body, but after three or four days, they stopped
looking. Edward was originally classified Killed In Action, status changed to Missing In Action, and later back to Killed in Action. Whether Rykoskey lived or died that day in August 1966 will not be known for certain until there is proof positive of his death or survival. The U.S. and the Vietnamese have yet to determine the formula which would successfully resolve the questions that linger about the nearly 2500 Americans who did not return from the war in Vietnam. |
