First Name: Dar
Last Name: Neese
Middle Initial:
Year of Birth: 1947
Sex: Male
Martial Status: Never Married
Number of Children: 0
Home Town: Seattle, WA
Education Completed: High School
Other Occupations:
Branch of Service: Army
Highest Rank: N/A
Serial Number: N/A
Platoon: N/A
Age at Start of Service: Not Sure
Years of Service: Not Sure
Combat Veteran: Yes
Time in Combat: Not Sure
Place of Combat: Vietnam
Awards:
Date of Suicide: N/A
Suicide Method: shotgun to mouth
Veteran’s Story: Dar was a highly decorated helicopter doorgunner, with his pic in Life magazine as the doorgunner with the most combat missions. When he returned he told me how he’d been ordered to kill anything that moved in “free-fire zones.” One time his chopper popped up over a treeline and saw a man fleeing across a rice paddy with a pack-laden water buffalo. Dar opened up on him and blew man and beast apart. They landed, inspected the packs and found rice and kids toys. This was the only incident he told me about, but he intimated there were many such occurences, and that these actions troubled him greatly. He lived fast and hard and I couldn’t keep up with him. A couple years later I heard that he’d been waving a shotgun around at a family birthday party, when his sister confronted him saying “Can’t you see all the pain you’re causing people?” Dar’s response was “I’ll show you what real pain is,” stuck the shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I wasn’t there and only heard this second hand from a mutual friend. I do know with certainty that he is dead because cowardly men who never went to war, like Richard Nixon and George Bush, send young men to do the dirty work of the elite who never get blood on their hands.
Submitted By: Rik Reynolds
Relationship to Veteran: Friend
