A Brother Last Seen

By Diane Turbyfill

Published: Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 10:26 AM.

Dennis Price remembers the last time he saw his brother.

“He told me he loved me and not to worry because nothing was going to happen to him, but he never came back,” Price said.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Bunyan Durant Price Jr. was in a helicopter that was shot down over Cambodia in May 1970.

He was listed as a prisoner of war for decades, but Price’s remains were recently identified as those found in a grave about a mile from where the chopper went down.

He will soon be given a burial ceremony locally and at Arlington National Cemetery.

DNA match

In the 1990s, Dennis Price and his three sisters gave DNA samples to the military in hopes their brother’s remains would eventually be identified.

More than 20 years passed. Then they got the call. Price’s remains had been found in a grave about a mile from where his helicopter went down.

The caller said the Department of Defense had found Sgt. Price’s remains, and they planned to have a face-to-face meeting soon.

Feb. 9, the day his sisters and brothers got the news, would have been Bunyan Price’s 65^thbirthday.

Life in the mill village

The Prices lived in Belmont in the Chronicle Mill village.

Dennis Price looked up to his big brother, who went to work at the mill at 16.

A couple of years later, the older brother, nicknamed Junior, was drafted.

Dennis Price recalls that his brother was proud to join the armed forces.

“He wanted to go fight for his country,” he said.

His brother did get occasional leave to come back to Belmont.

“Every time he came in on a furlough, he’d pick me up from school, and we’d go fishing,” Price said.

Missing in action

Price was in school when an announcement came over the intercom. He was told to report to the office, then sent home because of a family emergency.

He remembers turning the corner on his street and seeing military vehicles. He had a sinking feeling.

Price’s parents, Bunyan and Virginia Price, were devastated by the news that their son’s helicopter had gone down. They all were, Dennis Price said.

“It changed my life from then on. I never was the same,” he said.

Shot down

Bunyan Price Jr. joined the Army in 1969.

A year later, he was in a helicopter brought down by enemy fire. Everyone on board survived the crash but had only seconds to move, according to military accounts.

Several of the men were captured by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. Some died in captivity. Others were released years later.

At least one of the men on the helicopter reported he thought Price had been captured, though he never saw him in any of the prison camps.

Conflicting reports

For decades the Prices thought their brother lived at least some time as a POW. But the location of his remains makes that report confusing, Dennis Price said.

If his brother had been a prisoner of war, why was his body found in a grave a mile from the crash site?

Price wants to be happy that he finally has answers about his brother, but the inconsistencies bother him.

Price has a military document with his brother’s signature on it. It is dated 1971. How is that possible if he was missing in 1970, Dennis Price asked?

He fears the conflicting reports will keep him from ever finding peace.

“I still don’t think I’m going to have closure even though they say they have his remains,” Price said.

Military silence

Military websites still list Sgt. Bunyan Price Jr. as a POW.

Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan said she can’t confirm a soldier’s remains have been identified until the family officially accepts the report.

Dennis Price said that official meeting is scheduled for Wednesday.

Morgan would say that the military has been making similar announcements as more and more missing soldiers are found.

“We actively are researching MIAs all the way from World War II to current conflicts,” she said.

Proper burial

Dennis Price and his sisters plan to meet a military representative this week at a local funeral home.

The military has offered to bury some of Sgt. Price’s remains in a grave by his parents in Gastonia. A portion of the man’s remains were difficult to separate from two other soldiers who had been buried in the same grave.

Those remains will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Dennis Price said.

Price said the military has offered to fly the family to Virginia for the burial, and he plans to be there.

Not knowing whether his brother died the day of the crash or in the years that followed is still unsettling to Price, but part of him wants to accept that his brother didn’t meet a terrible end in a prison camp.

“I hope and pray that he didn’t have to suffer or go through any kind of torture,” Price said.

You can reach Diane Turbyfill at 704-869-1817 and Twitter.com/GazetteDiane.

Search for missing soldiers

The Department of Defense has developed a POW/MIA accounting agency.

Field teams investigate crash and burial sites, conduct interviews and check historical wartime records and archives to find missing American soldiers.

Today, more than 1,600 of those Americans remain unaccounted for.

More than 83,000 Americans remain missing