By Beth Lipoff/The Daily News
It’s been 56 years since Melvin Holland disappeared in Laos during a North Vietnamese attack, but the wound is still fresh for his family. This Memorial Day weekend, they will share his memory by placing his name on a pace car at the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Debbie Holland-Burk contacted NASCAR after seeing other service members honored when she watched last year’s race. After corresponding with NASCAR staff for several months, she finally learned on May 1 that she had selected her father’s name to be on a car that takes drivers to the start of the race.
“At that moment I lost it emotionally, because I never thought it would happen. “My dad loved stock cars and NASCAR,” he said.
She and her husband, along with her younger brother, John, and his wife, will fly out to see the race in person.
“For us, it is a sign that they have not forgotten him or the other 11 men who were on that assignment. It’s just about keeping them in the spotlight so families know these men are not forgotten,” he said.
Missing since ’68
Melvin Holland grew up in Toledo and was a career Air Force man, entering the service in 1954. With his wife, Ann Holland, he had five young children when he left for his final assignment on October 7, 1967, the day after that his son Rick’s eighth birthday.
Rick and Debbie don’t have many memories of him, as he was often away for work and they were very young. Debbie remembered that he loved baseball as well as car racing. For Rick, the strongest memories are playing catch with a soccer ball and watching a baseball game together at the Astrodome.
The story of Melvin’s disappearance is complicated. He and a group of other men were working at a secret radar outpost in Laos, a neutral country during the Vietnam War, where the U.S. military was not supposed to be operating.
To prevent this, the Air Force quietly dismissed the men from the service and arranged for them to be employees of the American weapons manufacturing company Lockheed Martin while they were on the mission. After the attack that killed many of the men at the radar post on March 11, 1968, 12 men were reported missing by the military and considered missing.
Although Ann was authorized to know about the mission, she was not allowed to talk about it, even after that attack. Rick said the Air Force threatened to imprison her and take away her children if she said anything.
She has been trying to get answers for years, even filing a lawsuit against the government that resulted in some information being declassified. Since then, remains found at the scene have confirmed the deaths of two more men.
Rick has done his part to keep the story alive, maintaining a website, limasite85.com, with extensive information about the attack, the struggles for explanations, and related memorials. He has also been very active in the prisoner of war and missing in action communities.
In March, while representing families at Vietnam War Veterans Day in Washington, D.C., he visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, something he normally does not do due to the intense emotional experience.
“I was standing by the wall, having an emotional moment, and this group of tourists came up. …So I was standing in the back, watching, and he held up his phone and said, ‘This is Melvin Holland.’ He took out a photo of my dad and started telling his story. As soon as he took the photo, I blurted out, “That’s my dad.” I’m sure he was as surprised as I was,” Rick said.
It turned out that the tour guide had been telling Melvin’s story for 10 years on his tours. Like putting his father’s name on the pace car, it’s another way Rick sees his father’s story being kept alive.
How to watch
That: NASCAR Coca-Cola 600.
When: 3:00 p.m. on Sunday.
Where: FOX, PRN or Sirius XM. Watch after the race live at www.nascar.com/presspass.
MIA Vietnam airman from Toledo to be honored at NASCAR race on Sunday
Keynote USA
For the Latest Sports News, Follow @Keynote USA Sports on Twitter.