ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 8, 1996 TAG: 9603080087
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: C7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ROBERT BURNS ASSOCIATED PRESS
FORT BRAGG BRASS never missed him when he didn't show up from his Vietnam War tour, because of an administrative glitch.
The Army is investigating the bizarre case of a 73-year-old soldier who has turned up alive 26 years after he disappeared without a trace during the Vietnam War and 17 years after the Army declared him dead.
Three years ago, the man's name was added to the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, and last April the Pentagon informed his family that remains believed to be his, including teeth, had been turned over by Vietnam's government.
Master Sgt. Mateo Sabog, a native of the Philippines, originally was declared a deserter after his disappearance in Saigon. After an unsuccessful FBI search, the Army in September 1979 declared him legally dead, effective March 26, 1970.
``We're real interested in his story,'' Col. Don Maple, an Army spokesman, said Thursday.
Maple said the Army is attempting to reconstruct the administrative record on Sabog's Army service, which began Dec. 15, 1945, when he joined up in Hawaii.
Sabog was undergoing a full physical and mental examination at the Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon, Ga., Thursday, Maple said.
Maple said Sabog apparently was living alone in Rossville, Ga. He said the man was in ``frail'' physical condition.
``We are treating Master Sergeant Sabog like a long-lost soldier returned,'' Maple said.
Late last month, Sabog went to a Social Security Administration office in Rossville to apply for benefits, Maple said. Without any personal identification or other records to verify his eligibility, Sabog apparently referred the Social Security office to his brother, Kenneth, in Hawaii. Once told that Sabog was in Rossville, Kenneth contacted Army headquarters in Washington Feb. 26.
Army officials verified Sabog's identity through his fingerprints, Maple said.
The story of Sabog's reappearance first appeared in the Thursday editions of The Washington Times, which reported that Sabog, on his return flight to the United States from Vietnam in 1970, got off the plane in California although he was supposed to continue on to a new assignment at Fort Bragg, N.C.
The Times account said Sabog remained on the West Coast for a number of years before moving to Georgia.
Asked about the case, the Army released a chronology Thursday that indicated Sabog was last seen Feb. 25, 1970, when he was shipping out from headquarters of the 507th Transportation Group in Saigon.
He was not missed by authorities at Fort Bragg because of an administrative glitch: The post was never informed that Sabog had orders to report there, Maple said.
It was not until 1973, when Sabog's family in Hawaii asked the Army to help find him, that the Army realized he was missing, Maple said. In June 1974, the Army declared him a deserter, but that was changed to presumed dead in 1979.
While it tries to figure out what happened with Sabog over the past 26 years, the Army is bringing him back on active duty so that he can be discharged once the facts are learned, Maple said.
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