The Mysterious Vietnam MIA of Verdugo Hills Hospital

When you turn off Verdugo Road to enter the lower parking lot of Verdugo Hills Hospital, you probably won’t notice a small, planted area marking off one end of the parking lot. In among the low bushes is a directional sign and a flagpole. If you park and walk over to the planter you will find a small plaque mounted about a foot off the ground. The plaque commemorates a Freedom Tree planted in 1973 in honor of Staff Sergeant David Demmon and all “prisoners of war and missing in action.”

The Freedom Tree project was an expression of the pain that thousands of American families felt when their missing sons and brothers were never accounted for at war’s end in the early 1970s. Nearly every city in the nation has a Freedom Tree and plaque to remember a loved one whose fate may never be known. But the story of Sgt. Demmon is particularly troubling.

In June 1965, Lt. Dale and Sgt. Demmon (a native of Santa Monica) flew a surveillance mission out of an airbase in South Vietnam. They were shot down over a heavily forested area. A search and rescue team in the area spotted two men near the crash site being captured by the Viet Cong, but bad weather made their identification impossible. Since it was the only plane shot down that day, it was assumed that it was Demmon and Dale, and that they were now POWs.

The two men were continually reported as being alive by Viet Cong defectors and intelligence sources. It gave hope to the families of the two men. In 1971 a credible source reported seeing Demmon being held prisoner at a camp in Cambodia. The source was so credible in fact that a rescue mission was launched to that Cambodian camp, but no prisoners were found. They had been moved.

But in 1973, when the 591 American POWs returned home, Demmon and Dale weren’t among them nor were their names included in lists of POWs who had died in captivity. This was anguish for the Demmon family. Demmon’s mother launched an all-out effort to find out the truth about her son – writing letters, talking to military leaders in Washington D.C. and later, after the war, even traveling to Vietnam and chartering a plane to fly the route her son had flown in 1965. One has to realize that at this point there was growing mistrust in the U.S. government’s handling of the issue and for the families of MIAs and unresolved POWs, rumors and theories continued to circulate about their loved ones. A big rumor circulating had to do with Vietnamese officials fleeing Vietnam to China and taking American POWs with them. Demmon in particular was reported to be a “houseboy” to an official in China. As late as 1989 intelligence sources gathered documents from Hanoi stating both Demmon and Dale had died in captivity. No one knew for sure. Even today, rumors continue and the black POW/MIA flags still fly.

But back in 1973, David Demmon’s sister Carol, now living in La Crescenta, had a Freedom Tree planted at the new Verdugo Hills Hospital and a ground-level plaque installed for her brother David. Over the years, the plaque was covered by plants and largely forgotten.

In 2009, a veteran coming back to his car after a doctor appointment stumbled across the hidden plaque. He reached out to a local Boy Scout troop for help. Scout Adam Fletcher took on the plaque as an Eagle Project. He re-landscaped and raised the plaque up on a masonry mount. When a rededication was planned, Demmon’s sister Carol heard about it and connected with Adam. As is typical of our community, the dedication ceremony was hugely attended. Carol read some of her brother’s letters aloud and presented Adam with her brother’s medals.

Next time you are in the lower parking lot of Verdugo Hills Hospital, park and look for this monument. The Freedom Tree is now gone, but the plaque is still there as is the memory of an unresolved and painful part of American history.