Mark S. BERES
Beachville, Ontario
We were asked to have a look at this individual who wears a substantial group of medals detailing his service in South East Asia as a combat infantryman in the 101st Airborne Division.
In the group, there are two medals which are readily researchable. The first, the Silver Star, the United States’ 3rd highest award for heroism in combat and, the Prisoner of War Medal.
Our team could find no open source record of these two medals ever being awarded to Beres so, we contacted our US counterparts for their advice and assistance. They initiated a FOIA request for his military records on our behalf.
The documents received from the National Personnel Records Center are quite interesting as there’s absolutely no mention of the Silver Star nor the POW Medal…
We’ll draw your attention to the Decorations and Awards block.
The accounting for US Army Vietnam Prisoners of War (returnees / escapees) is 100% accurate, Beres isn’t listed!
https://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_acc_p_usa_20191227.pdf
Interestingly, the three other Vietnam POW claimants we are currently tracking are not listed as returnees / escapees either!
https://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_returnee.pdf
https://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_escapee.pdf
You decide…
Beres can contact us if he has independently verifiable evidence of the awards. We aren’t hard to find…
In fact, we encourage him to do so.