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DIA Patriots' Memorial

Introduction: The Patriots' Memorial honors Defense Intelligence Agency employees who died in the service of the United States. The memorial occupies a prominent position in the lobby of the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center (DIAC), at Bolling Air Force Base. For Agency employees and visitors to the DIAC, this memorial acts as a daily reminder of these brave individuals and their ultimate sacrifice.

Dedication: On 14 December 1988, then DIA Director Lieutenant General Leonard Perroots dedicated the memorial, and Deputy Secretary of Defense William H. Taft, III, spoke at the ceremony and noted the service of those being honored. General Perroots presented the families with a replica of the plaque in memory of their lost loved one. Unfortunately, a number of Agency employees have died in the line of duty since 1988, and their names have been enshrined as well.

Individuals: Any list of those who have given their lives for their country is too long, especially for their families. The willingness of individuals and their families to consider the cost of preserving America's freedom and pay that price helps make this Nation great. The DIA honor roll represents a true cross-section of our population, people who came from diverse places throughout the land and gave their lives in peacetime and in war. They include both women and men, civilian and military, enlisted and officer. They were intelligence professionals, patriots who lost their lives contributing to our national security.

Among those listed are five civilian women who served in the Defense Attaché Office in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War: Celeste Brown, Vivienne Clark, Dorothy Curtiss, Joan Prey, and Doris Watkins. During the evacuation of the city in the spring of 1975, a U.S. Air Force C-5 took off carrying 250 Vietnamese orphans and 50 workers or dependents from the U.S. Embassy in the besieged capital. The C-5 crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 11 of the 29 crew members and 144 passengers, including most of the all-female Mission secretarial staff. A sixth woman, Judith Goldenberg, and intelligence analyst at the DIAC, was killed in Egypt while on temporary duty with the Defense Attaché Office in Cairo.

Of the eight men who died overseas, three served as defense or assistant defense attaches, and five were assigned to defense attaché offices as operations coordinators or operations sergeants. Terrorist actions killed six of these men. Palestinian guerrillas gunned down Major Perry in his home. A Lebanese terrorist shot Colonel Ray outside his Paris apartment. A car bomb killed Captain Nordeen. The bombing of the U.S. Embassy Annex in Beirut killed Chief Warrant Officer Welch and Petty Officer Wagner. The truck bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya killed Staff Sergeant Hobson. Accidents and acts of crime resulted in the death of the others. The crash of a Guatemalan Air Force plane on a routine mission caused the death of Chief Warrant Officer Prescott. A random carjacking resulted in the death of William Bultmeier.

The terrorist attack on the Nation's capital with a commercial airliner marked the first deaths of DIA employees in the United States and the largest single loss of Agency lives. Rosa Chapa, Sandra Foster, Robert Hymel, Shelley Marshall, Patricia Mickley, Charles Sabin, and Karl Teepe, all for the Office of the Comptroller, died when the hijacked aircraft crashed into the outer ring of the Pentagon.

The sacrifice of these women and men brings honor to their country, to their colleagues, and to themselves. Their names will be forever listed with those of our nation's greatest patriots.

No greater sacrifice can be made for one's country.