Veterans' Groups Challenging Carthage Man's POW Account

Joplin Globe - Joplin, MO, USA

By Melissa Dunson and Andy Ostmeyer

news@joplinglobe.com

Some national veterans’ groups are challenging a central aspect of a Carthage Korean War veteran’s account of his military duty, as featured in Tuesday’s edition of the Globe.

But the veteran, John S. Graham, 79, stands by his prisoner-of-war status, and says he doesn’t care whether people believe him.

The question comes from the absence of Graham’s name on a number of national lists of POWs. The POW Network, a 20-year-old, not-for-profit project, goes as far as listing Graham in the section of its Web site that names “phonies.”

Mary Schantag, archivist with the POW Network, said the group confronted Graham in 2001 regarding his claim that he was a POW for 23 months in Manpojin prison camp in North Korea after fighting at the Chosin Reservoir.

Graham says that he and several other prisoners escaped and traveled for weeks in freezing weather to reach U.S. forces.

Graham’s POW story has been featured in a book, “Faces of War,” by Norm Strickbine and Art Wilson.

“We are saying he was not a POW,” Schantag said. But she said she could not speak on the matter of Graham’s medals or his military service in Korea.

Graham’s name also is not on the Korean War Ex-POW Association’s list, according to the group’s vice president, Lloyd Pate. Pate, who was a Korean War POW himself, said any American who was a POW during the Korean War is automatically a member of the group. He said Graham would have been listed as a POW as soon as he was debriefed by his commanders immediately after returning.

“I have what I consider the most up-to-date list of all the men who were POWs in Korea for three hours to over three years,” Pate said. “I don’t show a John Graham at all. None whatsoever.”

Pate said there were about 7,000 POWs in the Korean War, and 3,450 survived their captivity.

Graham’s name is not on the official U.S. government database of POW-MIA veterans. Larry Greer, spokesman for the Defense Department’s POW-MIA office, said commanders were required to account for their troops daily.

“When a person goes missing, is captured or killed, the commander is required to report it on what is called a morning report,” Greer said. “He’s (Graham) not on it.”

In a phone interview Tuesday with the Globe, Graham said he has never been accused of being a fraud and has never been confronted by the POW Network. He said the mix-up is with his paperwork that lists him as being in the Army, not the Marine Corps.