Lt Cmdr Roderick L. Mayer

Hal Hollister – Lewiston Morning Tribune  (date unknown)

The evidence that Lt. Cmdr Roderick L. Mayer will never return from Vietnam is almost overpowering, but his parents – Mr. And Mrs. Joe Mayer of 546 Riverview Blvd, Clarkston – haven’t abandoned hope.

“We haven’t given up ,”said Mayer Friday, 10 years to the day from the time his son was shot down over Hanoi. “He could be a prisoner – maybe in China. The hardest thing is not knowing whether Rod is dead or alive, but we haven’t given up hope.”

The evidence of that is ever-present in the Mayer’s home at 546 Riverview Blvd on a table in a large front room is a candle that has burned since that moment on Oct. 17, 1965 when two navel officers knocked on the door with the sad news. “ We lit the flame then we’ve never let it go out,’ Mayer ads. “And we never will let it go our – not as long as there’s hope.”

Under the roof of the carport is a small foreign automobile – well kept, shining. Mayer inclined his head at it as he led the way down the stairs. “That’s Rod’s car,” he said. “I’ve kept it up for him and it’ll still run good if he ever wants it.”

Down in the daylight basement he uncovered a pile of boxes and a large case filled with naval uniforms and other gear. “This is all Rod’s stuff,” he says; “We’ve kept it stored away, just in case. And over there“ - this with a jerk of his thumb at shelves piled with packages carefully tied with rope – “over there’s the packages we sent to Rod in care of the North Vietnamese in Hanoi. Every one we sent is there – every one came back.”

But why did they ever assume that their son was a prisoner?

“We didn’t, for a while,” Mrs. Mayer said. At first, he was listed as missing in action. But a year or so later, the Navy reclassified him as a prisoner of war- and we’ve been hoping ever since.”

Another cause for hope is that some of the letters that his parents sent were returned. “Not a one, “Mayer says, “the packages came back, but not the letters. It made us hope he was getting them.”

Mayer led the way back upstairs and seated himself at a large window overlooking the glassy surface of Lower Granite Lake. “He was a brilliant young man, he said of his son. “They called him a genius in science and mathematics up at the university, and if he’d come back from Vietnam he might have been with the first astronauts on the moon. No, really. He was selected in 1964 as a candidate for the first moon flight, and if he’d come back he might have gone all the way.”

Across the lake, the lights of traffic on Snake River Ave. splashed long streaks of flame on the water, and Mayer asked himself a question he clearly had asked before. “What were we doing over there in the first place? Why did any of those young men have to lose their lives?”

And then, with a faint, un-convincing smile: “The worst of it’s not knowing. God knows we don’t want to hear that Rod’s dead- but the worst thing is not knowing.”

Searching - 2000

Flying Partner survives 2000

Searching ends - 2002