WEAU-TV 13 - Eau Claire, WI, USA
Posted: 5:28 PM Mar 25, 2009
Last Updated: 9:45 PM Mar 25, 2009
Reporter: Meghan Kulig
Email Address: meghan.kulig@weau.com
You could call this month’s Unsung Hero an inspiration. He’s a man who gave up years of his life for his country.
Ladysmith-native Dan Doughty served with the Air Force and went to Vietnam in the mid-1960’s. The now 75-year-old flew about 170 missions – before spending nearly 7 years as a prisoner of war.
During that time, he says his wife and four children were left wondering when they’d see him again.
He recounts his experience as a POW:
"I had always wanted to be a pilot from when I was a little kid during World War II. I went to Vietnam as a technical recon pilot flying the RF 101,” he said.
"I was shot down April 2nd of 1966. I was going quite fast and quite low to the ground when I was hit. The aircraft exploded and I had to eject. I was captured almost immediately after I hit the ground. I was in North Vietnam and captured by a local militia group. It was several days then before I was turned over to the regular Army. It was over a month after I was captured before I finally made it to Hanoi, the main prison system."
"Some of it was just downright miserable,” he said. “Once they started formal interrogations then it turned to brutal torture that lasted for days on end. Spent the first 13 months in solitary confinement. I guess I weighed 185 lbs. when I got captured and I got down to around 115 or 20 lbs."
"I didn't see that I was doing anything heroic, I was trying to keep myself alive and defend my country even though in captivity. We still had a job to do. I never lost hope. I was born an optimist and I always knew we were gonna' get out of there quite soon. The quite soon just kept getting longer and longer. I had a guy tell me one time, Dan, we're gonna' go home soon. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but we're gonna go home soon."
In 1973 – nearly 7 years after his capture – Doughty did go home to a hero’s welcome in Ladysmith.
He says he was in the same prisoner camp as John McCain. But, he never met him until a couple weeks before he went home.
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
25 March 2009
23 March 2009
N.J. Man 'Choked Up' Over POW Bracelet
The Northwest Florida Daily News - Fort Walton Beach, FL, USA
He had kept Bud Day's bracelet for 40 years
March 23, 2009 - 8:12 PM
Wendy Victora
For nearly 40 years, Fred Myers has kept the silver POW bracelet within sight. Most recently, he's had it clipped to his truck visor.
Myers, like countless other Americans, bought the bracelet during the Vietnam War. Instructions were to keep it until the prisoner of war whose name you wore came home.
Last week, looking for closure, the Farmingdale, N.J., man got on the Internet and typed in "Col. George Day" - the name engraved on the silver cuff. He learned that Day was very much alive in Northwest Florida.
Col. George "Bud" Day, who spent six years in captivity, is a Shalimar attorney and outspoken advocate for veterans.
"I was choked up," said Myers of learning that "his" POW was still alive. "I was shocked that after all these years I could talk to him."
He added that the bracelet has been all over the world with him.
The two men spoke and Myers agreed to mail the bracelet back to Day.
It won't be the first one the octogenarian has received. Day has trouble estimating how many bracelets have been returned over the years, but he guesses the number to be in the hundreds.
He has donated some to museums and hangs others on his Christmas tree. One is in a plastic paper weight. Others have been straightened and mounted on a plaque.
Day said that it was fascinating to him and other POWs to learn that Americans were wearing bracelets with their names on them.
"There were not many indications that we were getting supported," he said. "When we learned of that, it was a great morale booster."
Day said he was glad to hear from Myers.
"I told him I was very proud of him for wearing the bracelet," he said. "It was personally very rewarding to me and he gave me a good feeling to know that he, like so many other Americans, (was) supporting us."
He had kept Bud Day's bracelet for 40 years
March 23, 2009 - 8:12 PM
Wendy Victora
For nearly 40 years, Fred Myers has kept the silver POW bracelet within sight. Most recently, he's had it clipped to his truck visor.
Myers, like countless other Americans, bought the bracelet during the Vietnam War. Instructions were to keep it until the prisoner of war whose name you wore came home.
Last week, looking for closure, the Farmingdale, N.J., man got on the Internet and typed in "Col. George Day" - the name engraved on the silver cuff. He learned that Day was very much alive in Northwest Florida.
Col. George "Bud" Day, who spent six years in captivity, is a Shalimar attorney and outspoken advocate for veterans.
"I was choked up," said Myers of learning that "his" POW was still alive. "I was shocked that after all these years I could talk to him."
He added that the bracelet has been all over the world with him.
The two men spoke and Myers agreed to mail the bracelet back to Day.
It won't be the first one the octogenarian has received. Day has trouble estimating how many bracelets have been returned over the years, but he guesses the number to be in the hundreds.
He has donated some to museums and hangs others on his Christmas tree. One is in a plastic paper weight. Others have been straightened and mounted on a plaque.
Day said that it was fascinating to him and other POWs to learn that Americans were wearing bracelets with their names on them.
"There were not many indications that we were getting supported," he said. "When we learned of that, it was a great morale booster."
Day said he was glad to hear from Myers.
"I told him I was very proud of him for wearing the bracelet," he said. "It was personally very rewarding to me and he gave me a good feeling to know that he, like so many other Americans, (was) supporting us."
14 March 2009
Family Unearths Clues To Missing Texas Soldier's Fate In Cambodia
Dallas Morning News - Dallas, TX, USA
11:29 PM CDT on Saturday, March 14, 2009
By GREGG JONES / The Dallas Morning News
gjones@dallasnews.com
McKinley Nolan's letters from South Vietnam to his wife in Texas hinted at his anguish. He wrote of playing dead to survive on the battlefield and the suffering of Vietnamese civilians.
"He was just telling me how bad it was over there, all the fighting, all the killing," said Mary Nolan.
There was no clue of what was to come.
On Nov. 9, 1967, weeks from completing a two-year hitch in the Army, McKinley Nolan disappeared from his First Infantry Division unit. Communist Viet Cong propaganda broadcasts and leaflets later featured Nolan urging fellow black soldiers to lay down their weapons. The Army branded the missing Texan as one of the war's two confirmed defectors, but offered no explanation as to why Nolan deserted or what happened to him.
Now, McKinley's younger brother, Michael, has joined forces with a New Jersey journalist, a Vietnam War veteran, a New York City filmmaker, a Hollywood star and a Houston congresswoman in hopes of finally unraveling the mystery.
Their combined efforts last month pushed the Pentagon's MIA search unit, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, to act on an eyewitness account and dig for McKinley Nolan's remains in a Cambodian village.
Michael Nolan, an Austin wood pallet manufacturer, flew to Cambodia to watch the U.S. team chip away at the hard Cambodian clay. It was the latest stop in a long journey to find his missing brother and understand who he was: a deserter who turned his back on his country and his family, or a hero who stood up to the Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge and paid with his life.
•
The Nolan case has long fascinated POW-MIA aficionados. It has spawned such varied tales as Nolan quietly slipping back home to the Brazos River bottomlands of Washington County, Texas, to him living the high life in Cuba as a guest of Fidel Castro.
"In the world of the conspiratorial POW-MIA guys, McKinley Nolan is like Bigfoot," said journalist Richard Linnett, who has spent years tracking missing Americans in Cambodia. "He's spotted everywhere."
As a rifleman in the Army's 16th Infantry Regiment, Nolan was based in Tay Ninh province, near the border with Cambodia. His veiled references to haunting battlefield experiences are supported by a Pentagon document that shows Nolan earned a Purple Heart and a Combat Infantry Badge. Linnett made the document available to The Dallas Morning News.
The Army didn't respond to questions submitted by The News.
By November 1967, Nolan was one of about 500,000 U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. A poll that autumn found that 46 percent of Americans believed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was a mistake. Black GIs openly questioned why they should die for South Vietnamese freedom when they were denied equal rights at home.
If McKinley Nolan shared those sentiments, he didn't tell his wife.
"If he had a job, he did it," she said.
But Nolan's commitment to the Army was flagging. He was AWOL – absent without leave – from Sept. 7 to Nov. 6, 1967, according to the Pentagon document.
He was jailed for two days. And then, on Nov. 9, the 22-year-old disappeared.
•
Mary Nolan said the Army revealed little about her husband's disappearance. Months passed before she received a letter stating that Nolan had defected to communist Viet Cong forces, she said. In January 1975, three months before the war ended, the Army notified her that her husband had been seen alive in Cambodia.
In 1992, a U.S. military team thought they had found McKinley Nolan's remains in Cambodia. DNA tests, however, proved negative.
Eight years later, Linnett, a journalist in Newark, N.J., stumbled onto Nolan's trail. Linnett was working on a book about a 1970 mutiny carried out by two crew members of an American freighter transporting napalm to U.S. forces in Thailand. One of the mutineers, Clyde McKay, sought refuge with Khmer Rouge guerrillas and was later executed by the communist group.
Linnett was searching for McKay's grave site in eastern Cambodia when a local resident pulled him aside. "Are you talking about the black man?" the villager asked. He told Linnett an intriguing story about an American GI who supposedly lived in the area during the time of the Khmer Rouge.
Back in the United States, a Pentagon investigator revealed to Linnett that the Cambodian man was talking about a missing soldier named McKinley Nolan.
"I thought this story was truly amazing," Linnett said. "This guy had lived with the Viet Cong and the Khmer Rouge."
Working sources in the U.S. and Cambodia, Linnett pried loose U.S. military intelligence documents and began sharing information with Michael and Mary Nolan.
•
In 2006, Michael Nolan phoned Linnett with incredible news.
"He said, 'Richard, someone saw McKinley in Vietnam,' " Linnett recalled.
That someone was a Vietnam veteran named Dan Smith, and he had contacted the Washington County sheriff in search of Nolan's family.
Linnett was skeptical. He phoned Smith.
A retired 911 operator in the Pacific Northwest, Smith said he had lost a leg serving with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam. In 2005, he made one of his periodic trips to Vietnam to deliver medical supplies.
In the city of Tay Ninh, near the Cambodian border, Smith encountered a black man, about 60 years of age, with rotted teeth and jaundiced eyes. The man told Smith that he had served with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1967.
When Smith mentioned that he was going home soon, the stranger sighed.
"Man, I wish I could go home," he said.
"Where's home?" Smith asked.
"Washington, Texas," the man replied.
Smith reported the encounter to U.S. officials in Vietnam. After he returned home, the Pentagon MIA search unit sent an investigator to his home. Smith said he picked two photographs of McKinley Nolan out of a mugshot book.
Afterward, Smith said the investigator refused to take his calls. So did the MIA unit.
But Linnett heard him out, and he arranged for Smith to tell his story in person to the Nolans.
In the meantime, Linnett had piqued the curiosity of New York City documentary filmmaker Henry Corra. When Smith arrived in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, to meet the Nolans, Corra's camera was rolling.
After a tearful meeting with the Nolan family, Smith vowed to return to Southeast Asia to find the missing GI.
A series of trips to Cambodia followed, first Smith alone, and then together with Michael Nolan, Linnett and Corra. What they learned convinced Smith that the man he encountered in Tay Ninh was another U.S. deserter who had assumed Nolan's identity.
But the search continued, financed in part by actor Danny Glover, who agreed to produce Corra's documentary on the search for McKinley Nolan after seeing footage from Texas and Cambodia.
The group tracked the missing GI to a village outside the town of Memot, in eastern Cambodia, where a man named Cham Son recalled Nolan's life during the tumult of war and Khmer Rouge genocide.
McKinley Nolan's missing years emerged from the mists.
•
When he arrived in Vietnam in 1966, Nolan was happily married, the proud father of a 2-year-old son. He was a friendly, muscular guy who loved baseball and horses.
By the time he disappeared in 1967, he had grown disillusioned with the war, said Linnett, citing interviews with Nolan's friends in Vietnam and Cambodia.
A Vietnamese girlfriend "convinced him to go with her," said Linnett.
It's unclear whether Nolan willingly worked with the Viet Cong, Linnett said. In any event, Nolan grew disenchanted with the group and in 1973 slipped into Cambodia with his Vietnamese wife and their baby, Linnett said.
In eastern Cambodia, Nolan drove a truck and farmed, local residents told Linnett and Smith. When the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975 and emptied cities to return Cambodia to "Year Zero," Nolan was forced to move to a village deeper in the jungle.
"Because of his size and strength, they made him pull an oxcart loaded with people being taken to an interrogation center," Smith said. "Villagers said he would beg for their forgiveness."
Nolan told jokes and sang songs in pidgin Cambodian to lift people's spirits.
"He would literally step in front of guards to keep them from beating people," Smith said. "McKinley was a hero. Everybody there loved him."
In 1977, the villager Cham Son recounted, Khmer Rouge soldiers took Nolan away.
"He saw McKinley being marched off," said Linnett, "and knew when the soldiers came back without him that he had been killed."
•
In April 2008, after hearing Cham Son's account, Linnett and his comrades gave the Pentagon's MIA search unit precise information on the suspected grave site. The agency still didn't seem interested, Linnett said.
Last month, after the Nolans enlisted the help of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, a JPAC team began excavating the site identified by Cham Son.
The team completed two weeks of digging in late February without finding any remains, said Air Force Lt. Col. Wayne Perry, JPAC spokesman. Cham Son told the team as it was wrapping up that the terrain had changed, and he wasn't sure of the precise burial spot, Perry said.
The Nolan family and Linnett, with Lee's help, are trying to force the Pentagon to release McKinley Nolan's personnel file and classified documents on the case. Linnett and Corra are tracking leads that they believe will lead to Nolan's remains in eastern Cambodia.
Mary Nolan, now 62, has never remarried. She believes the government should compensate her for her husband's loss, regardless of the circumstances.
"I should have been given a good explanation as to what happened, when, why," she said.
After years of anger at "the system" for taking his brother away, Michael Nolan said he found peace retracing McKinley's footsteps and seeing him through the eyes of Cambodian villagers who revered him.
"Whether he's dead or alive," said Nolan, "I feel he would be happy that we're bringing the truth to light."
11:29 PM CDT on Saturday, March 14, 2009
By GREGG JONES / The Dallas Morning News
gjones@dallasnews.com
McKinley Nolan's letters from South Vietnam to his wife in Texas hinted at his anguish. He wrote of playing dead to survive on the battlefield and the suffering of Vietnamese civilians.
"He was just telling me how bad it was over there, all the fighting, all the killing," said Mary Nolan.
There was no clue of what was to come.
On Nov. 9, 1967, weeks from completing a two-year hitch in the Army, McKinley Nolan disappeared from his First Infantry Division unit. Communist Viet Cong propaganda broadcasts and leaflets later featured Nolan urging fellow black soldiers to lay down their weapons. The Army branded the missing Texan as one of the war's two confirmed defectors, but offered no explanation as to why Nolan deserted or what happened to him.
Now, McKinley's younger brother, Michael, has joined forces with a New Jersey journalist, a Vietnam War veteran, a New York City filmmaker, a Hollywood star and a Houston congresswoman in hopes of finally unraveling the mystery.
Their combined efforts last month pushed the Pentagon's MIA search unit, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, to act on an eyewitness account and dig for McKinley Nolan's remains in a Cambodian village.
Michael Nolan, an Austin wood pallet manufacturer, flew to Cambodia to watch the U.S. team chip away at the hard Cambodian clay. It was the latest stop in a long journey to find his missing brother and understand who he was: a deserter who turned his back on his country and his family, or a hero who stood up to the Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge and paid with his life.
•
The Nolan case has long fascinated POW-MIA aficionados. It has spawned such varied tales as Nolan quietly slipping back home to the Brazos River bottomlands of Washington County, Texas, to him living the high life in Cuba as a guest of Fidel Castro.
"In the world of the conspiratorial POW-MIA guys, McKinley Nolan is like Bigfoot," said journalist Richard Linnett, who has spent years tracking missing Americans in Cambodia. "He's spotted everywhere."
As a rifleman in the Army's 16th Infantry Regiment, Nolan was based in Tay Ninh province, near the border with Cambodia. His veiled references to haunting battlefield experiences are supported by a Pentagon document that shows Nolan earned a Purple Heart and a Combat Infantry Badge. Linnett made the document available to The Dallas Morning News.
The Army didn't respond to questions submitted by The News.
By November 1967, Nolan was one of about 500,000 U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. A poll that autumn found that 46 percent of Americans believed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was a mistake. Black GIs openly questioned why they should die for South Vietnamese freedom when they were denied equal rights at home.
If McKinley Nolan shared those sentiments, he didn't tell his wife.
"If he had a job, he did it," she said.
But Nolan's commitment to the Army was flagging. He was AWOL – absent without leave – from Sept. 7 to Nov. 6, 1967, according to the Pentagon document.
He was jailed for two days. And then, on Nov. 9, the 22-year-old disappeared.
•
Mary Nolan said the Army revealed little about her husband's disappearance. Months passed before she received a letter stating that Nolan had defected to communist Viet Cong forces, she said. In January 1975, three months before the war ended, the Army notified her that her husband had been seen alive in Cambodia.
In 1992, a U.S. military team thought they had found McKinley Nolan's remains in Cambodia. DNA tests, however, proved negative.
Eight years later, Linnett, a journalist in Newark, N.J., stumbled onto Nolan's trail. Linnett was working on a book about a 1970 mutiny carried out by two crew members of an American freighter transporting napalm to U.S. forces in Thailand. One of the mutineers, Clyde McKay, sought refuge with Khmer Rouge guerrillas and was later executed by the communist group.
Linnett was searching for McKay's grave site in eastern Cambodia when a local resident pulled him aside. "Are you talking about the black man?" the villager asked. He told Linnett an intriguing story about an American GI who supposedly lived in the area during the time of the Khmer Rouge.
Back in the United States, a Pentagon investigator revealed to Linnett that the Cambodian man was talking about a missing soldier named McKinley Nolan.
"I thought this story was truly amazing," Linnett said. "This guy had lived with the Viet Cong and the Khmer Rouge."
Working sources in the U.S. and Cambodia, Linnett pried loose U.S. military intelligence documents and began sharing information with Michael and Mary Nolan.
•
In 2006, Michael Nolan phoned Linnett with incredible news.
"He said, 'Richard, someone saw McKinley in Vietnam,' " Linnett recalled.
That someone was a Vietnam veteran named Dan Smith, and he had contacted the Washington County sheriff in search of Nolan's family.
Linnett was skeptical. He phoned Smith.
A retired 911 operator in the Pacific Northwest, Smith said he had lost a leg serving with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam. In 2005, he made one of his periodic trips to Vietnam to deliver medical supplies.
In the city of Tay Ninh, near the Cambodian border, Smith encountered a black man, about 60 years of age, with rotted teeth and jaundiced eyes. The man told Smith that he had served with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1967.
When Smith mentioned that he was going home soon, the stranger sighed.
"Man, I wish I could go home," he said.
"Where's home?" Smith asked.
"Washington, Texas," the man replied.
Smith reported the encounter to U.S. officials in Vietnam. After he returned home, the Pentagon MIA search unit sent an investigator to his home. Smith said he picked two photographs of McKinley Nolan out of a mugshot book.
Afterward, Smith said the investigator refused to take his calls. So did the MIA unit.
But Linnett heard him out, and he arranged for Smith to tell his story in person to the Nolans.
In the meantime, Linnett had piqued the curiosity of New York City documentary filmmaker Henry Corra. When Smith arrived in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, to meet the Nolans, Corra's camera was rolling.
After a tearful meeting with the Nolan family, Smith vowed to return to Southeast Asia to find the missing GI.
A series of trips to Cambodia followed, first Smith alone, and then together with Michael Nolan, Linnett and Corra. What they learned convinced Smith that the man he encountered in Tay Ninh was another U.S. deserter who had assumed Nolan's identity.
But the search continued, financed in part by actor Danny Glover, who agreed to produce Corra's documentary on the search for McKinley Nolan after seeing footage from Texas and Cambodia.
The group tracked the missing GI to a village outside the town of Memot, in eastern Cambodia, where a man named Cham Son recalled Nolan's life during the tumult of war and Khmer Rouge genocide.
McKinley Nolan's missing years emerged from the mists.
•
When he arrived in Vietnam in 1966, Nolan was happily married, the proud father of a 2-year-old son. He was a friendly, muscular guy who loved baseball and horses.
By the time he disappeared in 1967, he had grown disillusioned with the war, said Linnett, citing interviews with Nolan's friends in Vietnam and Cambodia.
A Vietnamese girlfriend "convinced him to go with her," said Linnett.
It's unclear whether Nolan willingly worked with the Viet Cong, Linnett said. In any event, Nolan grew disenchanted with the group and in 1973 slipped into Cambodia with his Vietnamese wife and their baby, Linnett said.
In eastern Cambodia, Nolan drove a truck and farmed, local residents told Linnett and Smith. When the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975 and emptied cities to return Cambodia to "Year Zero," Nolan was forced to move to a village deeper in the jungle.
"Because of his size and strength, they made him pull an oxcart loaded with people being taken to an interrogation center," Smith said. "Villagers said he would beg for their forgiveness."
Nolan told jokes and sang songs in pidgin Cambodian to lift people's spirits.
"He would literally step in front of guards to keep them from beating people," Smith said. "McKinley was a hero. Everybody there loved him."
In 1977, the villager Cham Son recounted, Khmer Rouge soldiers took Nolan away.
"He saw McKinley being marched off," said Linnett, "and knew when the soldiers came back without him that he had been killed."
•
In April 2008, after hearing Cham Son's account, Linnett and his comrades gave the Pentagon's MIA search unit precise information on the suspected grave site. The agency still didn't seem interested, Linnett said.
Last month, after the Nolans enlisted the help of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, a JPAC team began excavating the site identified by Cham Son.
The team completed two weeks of digging in late February without finding any remains, said Air Force Lt. Col. Wayne Perry, JPAC spokesman. Cham Son told the team as it was wrapping up that the terrain had changed, and he wasn't sure of the precise burial spot, Perry said.
The Nolan family and Linnett, with Lee's help, are trying to force the Pentagon to release McKinley Nolan's personnel file and classified documents on the case. Linnett and Corra are tracking leads that they believe will lead to Nolan's remains in eastern Cambodia.
Mary Nolan, now 62, has never remarried. She believes the government should compensate her for her husband's loss, regardless of the circumstances.
"I should have been given a good explanation as to what happened, when, why," she said.
After years of anger at "the system" for taking his brother away, Michael Nolan said he found peace retracing McKinley's footsteps and seeing him through the eyes of Cambodian villagers who revered him.
"Whether he's dead or alive," said Nolan, "I feel he would be happy that we're bringing the truth to light."
12 March 2009
Checking Into And Checking Out Of The Hanoi Hilton
Jacksonville Daily Record - Jacksonville, FL, USA
Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Byron Fuller and retired Air Force Col. Carl Crumpler were held prisoner in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. They recounted some of their experiences Tuesday for the Rotary Club of South Jacksonville.
03/12/2009
by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
The memories are more than four decades old, but a pair of former prisoners of war who served in Southeast Asia brought their history to life Tuesday for the Rotary Club of South Jacksonville.
Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Byron Fuller, who is a member of the club, and retired Air Force Col. Carl Crumpler shared stories of how their friendship began and what it was like to be inmates at the notorious Hanoi Hilton POW camp in North Vietnam.
Fuller said at 4:40 p.m. on July 14, 1967, his life changed forever. He was on his 110th mission and leading an attack group of 35 aircraft that were in the sky over North Vietnam with intentions to bomb a bridge near Hanoi.
“The SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) were up and ready for us that day,” said Fuller.
His aircraft was hit and as soon as Fuller ejected, gunners on the ground began firing tracer rounds at him and through his parachute. Fuller said by the time he hit the ground “like a ton of bricks” the parachute was not only badly perforated but also smoldering.
He was taken prisoner immediately and by midnight, Fuller was being tortured in what he called the “meat hook room” at the prison.
“They knew the Navy was dropping the first ‘smart bombs’ in the world,” said Fuller. “That’s all they wanted to know about, but I couldn’t give them any information because I didn’t know anything. They worked on me pretty good for 10 days.”
After his interrogators gave up on learning anything from him, they carried Fuller on a stretcher to a cell where he laid on the floor for two days, he said. Then another prisoner was also put in the cell and nursed Fuller back to health, including setting his broken arm and knee.
“I’ll never forget him – Wayne Waddell,” said Fuller. “After 100 days they took Wayne out of the cell and then I was in solitary confinement for 25 months.”
Crumpler recalled how in October 1968, President Lyndon Johnson had become “disenchanted” with the air war and called it off.
“But that didn’t help me because on 5 July, I had become a guest at the Hanoi Hilton,” he said.
The two were put in the same cell on Nov. 27, 1969, said Fuller.
“It took about a nanosecond to find out we were both from Jacksonville,” he added. “Carl went to Lee High School and I attended Landon. We decided to have a reunion but no other class members would join us in Hanoi.”
Both men recalled what happened after U.S. Special Forces attempted an ill-fated rescue mission to free the aviators in the Hanoi prison. It caused their captors to evacuate all the men to another location where hundreds of POWs were divided into groups and placed in seven large cells.
“We had 47 guys in our room and we were there for 87 days until we had a riot and they moved us back into separate cells,” said Fuller, who added one of the Navy pilots he and Crumpler met during that experience eventually became a U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate, John McCain. He wasn’t the only POW to achieve notable accomplishments after he returned home however.
“Five of the guys made admiral, one became a general and 40 made colonel or captain,” said Fuller.
Crumpler also spoke of what was going on back home while he and Fuller were incarcerated.
“By October 1968, 400 air crewmen were being held prisoner around Hanoi. Stop and think about their families scattered all across the country,” he said. “(President Richard) Nixon tried to suppress their questions about their family members who were POWs or missing in action, so the wives and families started forming local organizations.”
The grass roots efforts in cities all over the country eventually led to the founding of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. Crumpler said in January, 1970, a pilot based at Cecil Field was shot down and his wife became active in the organization.
Crumpler described the pilot’s wife, Mary Hoff, as “Jacksonville’s Betsy Ross” because she was instrumental in the creation of the iconic POW-MIA flag that has become a part of American culture.
“You see it everywhere,” said Crumpler. “It has flown over the White House and over our embassies all over the world. You see it on the back of motorcycle jackets. It’s the only flag that’s been displayed in the rotunda at the U.S Capitol and it has become a symbol of every war, not just Vietnam.”
Both men agreed the best time they spent as POWs was the 11-day period around Christmas in 1972 when they and their fellow prisoners could hear ordnance dropped on Hanoi by American bombers exploding.
“We cheered and we cried,” said Crumpler. “When we heard the B-52s we knew the war was over because America was committed. It was the greatest day of our lives because we knew it was just a matter of time before we’d be going home.”
mmarbut@baileypub.com
03/12/2009
by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
The memories are more than four decades old, but a pair of former prisoners of war who served in Southeast Asia brought their history to life Tuesday for the Rotary Club of South Jacksonville.
Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Byron Fuller, who is a member of the club, and retired Air Force Col. Carl Crumpler shared stories of how their friendship began and what it was like to be inmates at the notorious Hanoi Hilton POW camp in North Vietnam.
Fuller said at 4:40 p.m. on July 14, 1967, his life changed forever. He was on his 110th mission and leading an attack group of 35 aircraft that were in the sky over North Vietnam with intentions to bomb a bridge near Hanoi.
“The SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) were up and ready for us that day,” said Fuller.
His aircraft was hit and as soon as Fuller ejected, gunners on the ground began firing tracer rounds at him and through his parachute. Fuller said by the time he hit the ground “like a ton of bricks” the parachute was not only badly perforated but also smoldering.
He was taken prisoner immediately and by midnight, Fuller was being tortured in what he called the “meat hook room” at the prison.
“They knew the Navy was dropping the first ‘smart bombs’ in the world,” said Fuller. “That’s all they wanted to know about, but I couldn’t give them any information because I didn’t know anything. They worked on me pretty good for 10 days.”
After his interrogators gave up on learning anything from him, they carried Fuller on a stretcher to a cell where he laid on the floor for two days, he said. Then another prisoner was also put in the cell and nursed Fuller back to health, including setting his broken arm and knee.
“I’ll never forget him – Wayne Waddell,” said Fuller. “After 100 days they took Wayne out of the cell and then I was in solitary confinement for 25 months.”
Crumpler recalled how in October 1968, President Lyndon Johnson had become “disenchanted” with the air war and called it off.
“But that didn’t help me because on 5 July, I had become a guest at the Hanoi Hilton,” he said.
The two were put in the same cell on Nov. 27, 1969, said Fuller.
“It took about a nanosecond to find out we were both from Jacksonville,” he added. “Carl went to Lee High School and I attended Landon. We decided to have a reunion but no other class members would join us in Hanoi.”
Both men recalled what happened after U.S. Special Forces attempted an ill-fated rescue mission to free the aviators in the Hanoi prison. It caused their captors to evacuate all the men to another location where hundreds of POWs were divided into groups and placed in seven large cells.
“We had 47 guys in our room and we were there for 87 days until we had a riot and they moved us back into separate cells,” said Fuller, who added one of the Navy pilots he and Crumpler met during that experience eventually became a U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate, John McCain. He wasn’t the only POW to achieve notable accomplishments after he returned home however.
“Five of the guys made admiral, one became a general and 40 made colonel or captain,” said Fuller.
Crumpler also spoke of what was going on back home while he and Fuller were incarcerated.
“By October 1968, 400 air crewmen were being held prisoner around Hanoi. Stop and think about their families scattered all across the country,” he said. “(President Richard) Nixon tried to suppress their questions about their family members who were POWs or missing in action, so the wives and families started forming local organizations.”
The grass roots efforts in cities all over the country eventually led to the founding of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. Crumpler said in January, 1970, a pilot based at Cecil Field was shot down and his wife became active in the organization.
Crumpler described the pilot’s wife, Mary Hoff, as “Jacksonville’s Betsy Ross” because she was instrumental in the creation of the iconic POW-MIA flag that has become a part of American culture.
“You see it everywhere,” said Crumpler. “It has flown over the White House and over our embassies all over the world. You see it on the back of motorcycle jackets. It’s the only flag that’s been displayed in the rotunda at the U.S Capitol and it has become a symbol of every war, not just Vietnam.”
Both men agreed the best time they spent as POWs was the 11-day period around Christmas in 1972 when they and their fellow prisoners could hear ordnance dropped on Hanoi by American bombers exploding.
“We cheered and we cried,” said Crumpler. “When we heard the B-52s we knew the war was over because America was committed. It was the greatest day of our lives because we knew it was just a matter of time before we’d be going home.”
mmarbut@baileypub.com
07 March 2009
Ray Hackett: Hope Dwindles For Recovery Of Vietnam Hero
Norwich Bulletin - Norwich, CT, USA
Site explored, but no answers were uncovered
By RAY HACKETT
Norwich Bulletin
Posted Mar 07, 2009 @ 10:53 PM
Last month, an investigative team from the Joint Personnel and Accounting Command in Hawaii returned to the northern provinces of Vietnam to the area where Waterford native, Army Capt. Arnold “Dusty” Holm’s, helicopter crashed in June 1972.
The purpose of the trip was to re-interview villagers in the area in the hopes that additional information regarding the crash might be recovered. It is likely the last hope in the effort to bring Dusty home.
I haven’t heard anything yet as to whether the effort was successful.
The Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office hosts regular meetings with family members of missing servicemen to brief them on the ongoing efforts to recover their loved ones. Dusty’s widow, Margarete, will attend such a meeting this month, when she will likely get an update on this latest effort.
But it’s not easy to feel optimistic.
Some evidence
There was optimism last summer, a reason for hope, when command recovery teams began the excavation of the crash site. They spent 30 days at the site, excavating approximately 444 square meters at an average depth of 17 centimeters. They found two dog tags, both belonging to SP4 Robin Yeakley, who along with PFC Wayne Bibbs were onboard the helicopter Dusty was flying.
Also uncovered were what appears to be life support clothing fragments, hardware from the craft, fabric, vest fragments and a survival kit container lid.
The big find, however, were several small, human bone fragments. Unfortunately, those bone fragments did not yield any DNA, or sufficient DNA, that could be used for positive identification.
The recovery leader closed the site and has recommended no further excavation there.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, met with officials from the personnel office in January, at which time they told him an investigative team would be returning to the area in early February to re-interview villagers. The hope is that maybe someone in the villages remembers the bodies being taken from the helicopter and buried somewhere else. It’s a longshot mostly because of reports from eyewitnesses to the crash — others involved in the battle at the time.
Multiple explosions
According to those reports, Holm’s helicopter was hit by enemy ground fire as it passed over the ridge at an altitude of about 25 feet. The aircraft exploded and started to burn. Smoke was coming from the craft and white phosphorous grenades onboard began exploding. Upon impact, the helicopter exploded again and was engulfed in flames. No one was seen exiting the craft and its emergency radio beepers were never activated.
The case will be kept open as long as family members want it. But the reality is, unless some new evidence is found, there’s little else that can be done.
There are more than 1,800 still unaccounted for from the war in Southeast Asia. Twenty-seven of them, including Dusty, are from Connecticut. It’s estimated that approximately 600 of the missing will never be recovered for a variety of reasons.
That includes Air Force Lt. Peter Hesford of Mystic, shot down over Laos on March 21, 1968. I talked with his brother several years ago. Hetold me the family, years earlier, requested that no further efforts be made to search for his remains. They had come to terms with his loss, and it was time for them to move on.
Ray Hackett is the Norwich Bulletin’s Community Conversations Editor and has covered Connecticut politics for more than 20 years. He can be reached at 860-425-4225 or rhackett@norwichbulletin.com
NC NOTE: The Joint Personnel Command as referred to in the first paragraph is actually called the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and is located at Hickam AFB, HI.
Site explored, but no answers were uncovered
By RAY HACKETT
Norwich Bulletin
Posted Mar 07, 2009 @ 10:53 PM
Last month, an investigative team from the Joint Personnel and Accounting Command in Hawaii returned to the northern provinces of Vietnam to the area where Waterford native, Army Capt. Arnold “Dusty” Holm’s, helicopter crashed in June 1972.
The purpose of the trip was to re-interview villagers in the area in the hopes that additional information regarding the crash might be recovered. It is likely the last hope in the effort to bring Dusty home.
I haven’t heard anything yet as to whether the effort was successful.
The Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office hosts regular meetings with family members of missing servicemen to brief them on the ongoing efforts to recover their loved ones. Dusty’s widow, Margarete, will attend such a meeting this month, when she will likely get an update on this latest effort.
But it’s not easy to feel optimistic.
Some evidence
There was optimism last summer, a reason for hope, when command recovery teams began the excavation of the crash site. They spent 30 days at the site, excavating approximately 444 square meters at an average depth of 17 centimeters. They found two dog tags, both belonging to SP4 Robin Yeakley, who along with PFC Wayne Bibbs were onboard the helicopter Dusty was flying.
Also uncovered were what appears to be life support clothing fragments, hardware from the craft, fabric, vest fragments and a survival kit container lid.
The big find, however, were several small, human bone fragments. Unfortunately, those bone fragments did not yield any DNA, or sufficient DNA, that could be used for positive identification.
The recovery leader closed the site and has recommended no further excavation there.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, met with officials from the personnel office in January, at which time they told him an investigative team would be returning to the area in early February to re-interview villagers. The hope is that maybe someone in the villages remembers the bodies being taken from the helicopter and buried somewhere else. It’s a longshot mostly because of reports from eyewitnesses to the crash — others involved in the battle at the time.
Multiple explosions
According to those reports, Holm’s helicopter was hit by enemy ground fire as it passed over the ridge at an altitude of about 25 feet. The aircraft exploded and started to burn. Smoke was coming from the craft and white phosphorous grenades onboard began exploding. Upon impact, the helicopter exploded again and was engulfed in flames. No one was seen exiting the craft and its emergency radio beepers were never activated.
The case will be kept open as long as family members want it. But the reality is, unless some new evidence is found, there’s little else that can be done.
There are more than 1,800 still unaccounted for from the war in Southeast Asia. Twenty-seven of them, including Dusty, are from Connecticut. It’s estimated that approximately 600 of the missing will never be recovered for a variety of reasons.
That includes Air Force Lt. Peter Hesford of Mystic, shot down over Laos on March 21, 1968. I talked with his brother several years ago. Hetold me the family, years earlier, requested that no further efforts be made to search for his remains. They had come to terms with his loss, and it was time for them to move on.
Ray Hackett is the Norwich Bulletin’s Community Conversations Editor and has covered Connecticut politics for more than 20 years. He can be reached at 860-425-4225 or rhackett@norwichbulletin.com
NC NOTE: The Joint Personnel Command as referred to in the first paragraph is actually called the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and is located at Hickam AFB, HI.
03 March 2009
Russian Government No Longer Supporting Search for MIAs in Afghanistan and Chechnya
Georgiandaily - New York, NY, USA
March 02, 2009
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 2 – Despite pledges to do everything in its power to find those missing in action in its Afghan and Chechen wars, the Russian authorities are no longer actively supporting that effort, a Moscow paper reports today.
And its failure is adding to growing anger in the Russian officers and forcing NGOs to take on what should be a government function.
The Soviet and then Russian governments never maintained a list of those missing in action in their Afghanistan and Chechen campaigns. As a result, the exact numbers are a matter of dispute, with most estimates centering around 300 MIAs in Afghanistan and 1,000 missing soldiers in Chechnya.
In the 1990s, President Boris Yeltsin created a special commission in his office to identify and where possible return MIAs. It was headed by Col. Gen. Dmitry Volkogonov and, after his death, Gen. Vladimir Zolotarev. And, as “Novaya gazeta” notes, “despite the poverty of the state [at that time], the commission was somehow financed.”
And the commission achieved a great deal. With the help of the United States, the 124th Forensic Medical Laboratory acquired the equipment needed to identify the remains of soldiers who had died in Afghanistan and in the first post-Soviet Chechen war. But with the coming to power of Vladimir Putin, all that changed.
Government financial support almost completely ceased and the commission’s status reduced as it was transferred from the office of the president to the defense ministry. And as an indication of just how far it has fallen since then, the Moscow paper notes that after the death of its most recent chief, the authorities have not even appointed a successor.
This downgrading in Russia of a function that in other countries like the United States, Israel and Serbia is considered to be one of the most important duties of the state to those who have sacrificed their lives for it has forced NGOs to try to fill the gap, an action that in itself is an indictment of Putin and his government.
One of the most important of these groups is the Committee for the Affairs of Internationalist Soldiers that is headed by retired general Ruslan Aushev. His group has made 12 trips to Afghanistan, found 22 MIAs still alive as well as the bodies of others, and helped restore them to their relatives in the Russian Federation.
Aleksandr Lavrentyev, who works as a deputy to Aushev in this effort, told “Novaya gazeta” that this group, which is now seeking public contributions for its 13th visit to Afghanistan, group will “continue to collect information” on the MIAs and return more of them. That is something the relatives of those missing boys need, and it is necessary for us as well.”
Aushev’s deputy added that the search for MIAs is also “necessary for our state.” But the journalist writing up this story added that whether that is in fact the case is something that he “if he is being honest, doesn’t know.” Nonetheless, he urges that Russians support this highly patriotic effort to “allow all [those still missing in action] to return home!”
March 02, 2009
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 2 – Despite pledges to do everything in its power to find those missing in action in its Afghan and Chechen wars, the Russian authorities are no longer actively supporting that effort, a Moscow paper reports today.
And its failure is adding to growing anger in the Russian officers and forcing NGOs to take on what should be a government function.
The Soviet and then Russian governments never maintained a list of those missing in action in their Afghanistan and Chechen campaigns. As a result, the exact numbers are a matter of dispute, with most estimates centering around 300 MIAs in Afghanistan and 1,000 missing soldiers in Chechnya.
In the 1990s, President Boris Yeltsin created a special commission in his office to identify and where possible return MIAs. It was headed by Col. Gen. Dmitry Volkogonov and, after his death, Gen. Vladimir Zolotarev. And, as “Novaya gazeta” notes, “despite the poverty of the state [at that time], the commission was somehow financed.”
And the commission achieved a great deal. With the help of the United States, the 124th Forensic Medical Laboratory acquired the equipment needed to identify the remains of soldiers who had died in Afghanistan and in the first post-Soviet Chechen war. But with the coming to power of Vladimir Putin, all that changed.
Government financial support almost completely ceased and the commission’s status reduced as it was transferred from the office of the president to the defense ministry. And as an indication of just how far it has fallen since then, the Moscow paper notes that after the death of its most recent chief, the authorities have not even appointed a successor.
This downgrading in Russia of a function that in other countries like the United States, Israel and Serbia is considered to be one of the most important duties of the state to those who have sacrificed their lives for it has forced NGOs to try to fill the gap, an action that in itself is an indictment of Putin and his government.
One of the most important of these groups is the Committee for the Affairs of Internationalist Soldiers that is headed by retired general Ruslan Aushev. His group has made 12 trips to Afghanistan, found 22 MIAs still alive as well as the bodies of others, and helped restore them to their relatives in the Russian Federation.
Aleksandr Lavrentyev, who works as a deputy to Aushev in this effort, told “Novaya gazeta” that this group, which is now seeking public contributions for its 13th visit to Afghanistan, group will “continue to collect information” on the MIAs and return more of them. That is something the relatives of those missing boys need, and it is necessary for us as well.”
Aushev’s deputy added that the search for MIAs is also “necessary for our state.” But the journalist writing up this story added that whether that is in fact the case is something that he “if he is being honest, doesn’t know.” Nonetheless, he urges that Russians support this highly patriotic effort to “allow all [those still missing in action] to return home!”
02 March 2009
POW/MIA Update: 1 MARCH 2009
National League of POW/MIA Families - Arlington, VA, USA
POW/MIA Update: 1 MARCH 2009
AMERICANS ACCOUNTED FOR: There are still 1,742 US personnel listed by the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) as missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. There have been no recent announcements of Vietnam War personnel identified since December 15th. The number of US personnel accounted for since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 is 841. 90% of the 1,742 still missing from the Vietnam War were lost in Vietnam or in areas of Laos and Cambodia under Vietnam’s wartime control.
LEAGUE DELEGATION GOING TO LAOS, CAMBODIA & VIETNAM: Executive Director Ann Mills Griffiths will again lead a small team to Southeast Asia for discussions with senior officials in each named country. Departing on March 15th, the executive director has taken many such trips since her first in 1982, including both League and US Government delegations. By vote of the Board of Directors, Senior Policy Advisor Richard Childress and Vice Chairman of the Board Mark Stephensen will complete the three-member delegation. Family members are asked to consider sending brief, thoughtfully-worded letters to relevant officials in the country where their loved one was lost, either thanking them for answers received (as is the case for Mark Stephensen and his family), or appealing for answers and greater cooperation, as is pertinent for over 1,700 families and countless friends. Please send all letters to the League office, in an envelope containing your letter to a Vietnamese, Lao or Cambodian official in a smaller, unsealed envelope. All appropriate letters will be taken to the respective country of loss. The Executive Director has been invited to testify at a hearing of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel and Readiness on April 2nd, the day after returning from Southeast Asia.
DEFENSE ATTACHE OFFICE OPENED IN LAOS: A Defense Attaché Office (DAO) was officially opened on December 5th at the US Embassy in Vientiane, Laos. The long-sought agreement to exchange military attaches between the US and Laos was first announced in 2007. The new US Defense Attaché, Army LTC James McAden, met with senior officials at the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of National Defense as part of the DAO opening. US Ambassador to Laos Ravic R. Huso hosted a reception that evening for Lao and US officials and counterpart attaches in the embassies of other countries with representation in Vientiane. LTC McAden is a Southeast Asia Foreign Area Officer (FAO) who most recently served as Deputy to the Foreign Policy Advisor at US Pacific Command (PACOM) in Hawaii and previously at the US Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. He holds a Masters in Asian Studies from Johns Hopkins University, an Advance Diploma in Strategic and Defense Studies from the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and is a graduate of the US Army’s Command and General Staff College and the Malaysian Armed Forces Staff College.
DEFENSE ATTACHE ACCEPTED BY VIETNAM: After months of awaiting approval from the Vietnamese Government, COL Patrick Reardon, USA, has assumed his position as Defense Attaché (DATT) in Hanoi. The first exchange of attaches between the US and Vietnam occurred fairly early in the bilateral relationship formally established in 1995. The resulting improvements in the military-to-military relationship have been useful and are beneficial to both countries, including the pursuit of answers on America’s POW/MIAs. Vietnam has repeatedly announced agreement that a USN ship could be used in the accounting process, most recently affirmed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung during his visit to Washington in June, 2008. The mission was planned for March, 2009; however, Hanoi recently postponed again. The League had hoped that the announcement by the Prime Minister would overcome any remaining obstacles, and it now looks as though the current target time frame is June/July of this year.
JPAC OPERATIONS: No operations took place during the last half of December to enable all personnel to spend holidays with family and friends; however, activities geared up quickly. The 107th Joint Field Activity (JFA) in Laos began January 25th and ended February 18th, a shorter period of time in the field to conduct operations than is routinely the case due to the 60th Anniversary Commemoration of the Lao Military. During the JFA, two investigation teams, including a DIA Stony Beach specialist, trilateral investigations and one recovery team conducted operations. POW/MIA consultations between US and Laos officials took place February 24-25th in Vientiane to review past operations and discuss future steps. US officials reported increased Lao Government flexibility and seriousness in consistently working to improve the accounting process. The 42nd JFA recently concluded in Cambodia, having focused for several weeks on recovery of reported burial sites. JPAC investigation teams also recently completed operations in South Korea and the Republic of Suriname, in South America, plus a recovery team is currently working on a WWII in India. A JPAC delegation also recently completed talks in the PRC aimed at working out acceptable terms to resume conducting joint field operations.
STATUS OF THE LEAGUE: Since the financial appeal was distributed in mid-October, funds received have enabled the League to continue for now; however, the outcome is by no means clear. The Board of Directors met February 6-7th to discuss where things stand and decided to send out a referendum to all League members – family and associate – to determine the level of interest in and commitment to the League’s continuation as an organization. That mailing will be distributed very soon and results tabulated before the next meeting of the Board of Directors, now scheduled for May 1-2nd. At that time, the board will decide whether an election will be held to seat a Board of Directors for 2009 – 2011. Every possibility is being exhausted to ensure the League’s continuation, despite the worldwide economic recession. In addition to family members and veterans, many former and current US officials have contributed generously, recognizing the importance of the League’s role to ensure continuing priority on accounting efforts. Members and supporters are urged to be imaginative in trying to raise funds and to contribute to the extent possible to sustain League efforts.
40TH ANNIVERSARY ANNUAL MEETING JULY 22-25, 2009: This year’s annual meeting promises to be special, including commemoration of over 35 years since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 and 40 years since the League was formed, then incorporated on May 28, 1970. Governmental transitions are taking place, and there will be much to discuss and decide in terms of the League’s and the issue’s future in this first year of the Obama Administration. Plan to attend, arriving early if you wish to call on Members of Congress and visit meaningful sites in our nation’s capital before Opening Session begins on Thursday, July 23rd, at 9:00 a.m. ADM Tim Keating, USN, Commander, US Pacific Command, has agreed to Keynote. The Secretary of Defense is again expected to authorize COIN Assist travel. Reservations can now be made at the Hilton Crystal City Hotel. Call 1-800-HILTONS (800-445-8667), noting affiliation with the League’s 40th Anniversary Annual Meeting, or go to www.hilton.com, and use Group Code “POW” to get the special rate of $149 per room night, single/double. Deadline to secure the special rate is June 19th.
COMBINED FEDERAL CAMPAIGN (CFC): The League (a 501 [c] 3 nonprofit) again met the stringent criteria for eligibility in the 2008 campaign, and has already applied for the 2009 campaign that doesn’t begin until next October. Our official number is the same, CFC #10218, assigned by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Washington, DC. The League is the ONLY nonprofit organization representing American POW/MIAs, KIA/BNRs and their families eligible for donations through CFC & United Way. Despite the reality of many competing charities and much need, especially in a time of war, the League is proud of our eligibility, due to tough requirements that must be met and is in urgent need of tax-deductible donations, FEIN #23-7071242.
CHECK THE LEAGUE’S UPDATED WEBSITE:
www.POWMIALeague.org
www.POWMIALeague.com
www.pow-miafamilies.org
AMERICANS ACCOUNTED FOR: There are still 1,742 US personnel listed by the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) as missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. There have been no recent announcements of Vietnam War personnel identified since December 15th. The number of US personnel accounted for since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 is 841. 90% of the 1,742 still missing from the Vietnam War were lost in Vietnam or in areas of Laos and Cambodia under Vietnam’s wartime control.
LEAGUE DELEGATION GOING TO LAOS, CAMBODIA & VIETNAM: Executive Director Ann Mills Griffiths will again lead a small team to Southeast Asia for discussions with senior officials in each named country. Departing on March 15th, the executive director has taken many such trips since her first in 1982, including both League and US Government delegations. By vote of the Board of Directors, Senior Policy Advisor Richard Childress and Vice Chairman of the Board Mark Stephensen will complete the three-member delegation. Family members are asked to consider sending brief, thoughtfully-worded letters to relevant officials in the country where their loved one was lost, either thanking them for answers received (as is the case for Mark Stephensen and his family), or appealing for answers and greater cooperation, as is pertinent for over 1,700 families and countless friends. Please send all letters to the League office, in an envelope containing your letter to a Vietnamese, Lao or Cambodian official in a smaller, unsealed envelope. All appropriate letters will be taken to the respective country of loss. The Executive Director has been invited to testify at a hearing of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel and Readiness on April 2nd, the day after returning from Southeast Asia.
DEFENSE ATTACHE OFFICE OPENED IN LAOS: A Defense Attaché Office (DAO) was officially opened on December 5th at the US Embassy in Vientiane, Laos. The long-sought agreement to exchange military attaches between the US and Laos was first announced in 2007. The new US Defense Attaché, Army LTC James McAden, met with senior officials at the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of National Defense as part of the DAO opening. US Ambassador to Laos Ravic R. Huso hosted a reception that evening for Lao and US officials and counterpart attaches in the embassies of other countries with representation in Vientiane. LTC McAden is a Southeast Asia Foreign Area Officer (FAO) who most recently served as Deputy to the Foreign Policy Advisor at US Pacific Command (PACOM) in Hawaii and previously at the US Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. He holds a Masters in Asian Studies from Johns Hopkins University, an Advance Diploma in Strategic and Defense Studies from the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and is a graduate of the US Army’s Command and General Staff College and the Malaysian Armed Forces Staff College.
DEFENSE ATTACHE ACCEPTED BY VIETNAM: After months of awaiting approval from the Vietnamese Government, COL Patrick Reardon, USA, has assumed his position as Defense Attaché (DATT) in Hanoi. The first exchange of attaches between the US and Vietnam occurred fairly early in the bilateral relationship formally established in 1995. The resulting improvements in the military-to-military relationship have been useful and are beneficial to both countries, including the pursuit of answers on America’s POW/MIAs. Vietnam has repeatedly announced agreement that a USN ship could be used in the accounting process, most recently affirmed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung during his visit to Washington in June, 2008. The mission was planned for March, 2009; however, Hanoi recently postponed again. The League had hoped that the announcement by the Prime Minister would overcome any remaining obstacles, and it now looks as though the current target time frame is June/July of this year.
JPAC OPERATIONS: No operations took place during the last half of December to enable all personnel to spend holidays with family and friends; however, activities geared up quickly. The 107th Joint Field Activity (JFA) in Laos began January 25th and ended February 18th, a shorter period of time in the field to conduct operations than is routinely the case due to the 60th Anniversary Commemoration of the Lao Military. During the JFA, two investigation teams, including a DIA Stony Beach specialist, trilateral investigations and one recovery team conducted operations. POW/MIA consultations between US and Laos officials took place February 24-25th in Vientiane to review past operations and discuss future steps. US officials reported increased Lao Government flexibility and seriousness in consistently working to improve the accounting process. The 42nd JFA recently concluded in Cambodia, having focused for several weeks on recovery of reported burial sites. JPAC investigation teams also recently completed operations in South Korea and the Republic of Suriname, in South America, plus a recovery team is currently working on a WWII in India. A JPAC delegation also recently completed talks in the PRC aimed at working out acceptable terms to resume conducting joint field operations.
STATUS OF THE LEAGUE: Since the financial appeal was distributed in mid-October, funds received have enabled the League to continue for now; however, the outcome is by no means clear. The Board of Directors met February 6-7th to discuss where things stand and decided to send out a referendum to all League members – family and associate – to determine the level of interest in and commitment to the League’s continuation as an organization. That mailing will be distributed very soon and results tabulated before the next meeting of the Board of Directors, now scheduled for May 1-2nd. At that time, the board will decide whether an election will be held to seat a Board of Directors for 2009 – 2011. Every possibility is being exhausted to ensure the League’s continuation, despite the worldwide economic recession. In addition to family members and veterans, many former and current US officials have contributed generously, recognizing the importance of the League’s role to ensure continuing priority on accounting efforts. Members and supporters are urged to be imaginative in trying to raise funds and to contribute to the extent possible to sustain League efforts.
40TH ANNIVERSARY ANNUAL MEETING JULY 22-25, 2009: This year’s annual meeting promises to be special, including commemoration of over 35 years since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 and 40 years since the League was formed, then incorporated on May 28, 1970. Governmental transitions are taking place, and there will be much to discuss and decide in terms of the League’s and the issue’s future in this first year of the Obama Administration. Plan to attend, arriving early if you wish to call on Members of Congress and visit meaningful sites in our nation’s capital before Opening Session begins on Thursday, July 23rd, at 9:00 a.m. ADM Tim Keating, USN, Commander, US Pacific Command, has agreed to Keynote. The Secretary of Defense is again expected to authorize COIN Assist travel. Reservations can now be made at the Hilton Crystal City Hotel. Call 1-800-HILTONS (800-445-8667), noting affiliation with the League’s 40th Anniversary Annual Meeting, or go to www.hilton.com, and use Group Code “POW” to get the special rate of $149 per room night, single/double. Deadline to secure the special rate is June 19th.
COMBINED FEDERAL CAMPAIGN (CFC): The League (a 501 [c] 3 nonprofit) again met the stringent criteria for eligibility in the 2008 campaign, and has already applied for the 2009 campaign that doesn’t begin until next October. Our official number is the same, CFC #10218, assigned by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Washington, DC. The League is the ONLY nonprofit organization representing American POW/MIAs, KIA/BNRs and their families eligible for donations through CFC & United Way. Despite the reality of many competing charities and much need, especially in a time of war, the League is proud of our eligibility, due to tough requirements that must be met and is in urgent need of tax-deductible donations, FEIN #23-7071242.
www.POWMIALeague.org
www.POWMIALeague.com
www.pow-miafamilies.org
16 February 2009
Air Force Official On MIA Mission To Vietnam
AirForceTimes.com - Springfield, VA, USA
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 16, 2009 19:02:23 EST
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — An Air Force Academy official is headed to Vietnam for a third time to try to locate airmen who went missing during the Vietnam War.
Master Sgt. Greg Meinert will work at suspected crash sites to look for remains of some 568 Air Force airmen who remain missing 34 years after the war’s end.
The Vietnam War was the bloodiest for the Air Force. Nearly 2,600 airmen were killed during a decade of fighting there.
Meinert says he’ll be sifting dirt with mesh sieves looking for remains.
“We excavate the ground,” he told The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. “The screen is really small so we don’t lose anything.”
The Air Force Academy instructor says he didn’t serve in Vietnam but now appreciates how difficult it must’ve been to fight in the hot jungles there.
“I don’t know how they fought a war over there in that heat,” he said.
But Meinert said the miserable conditions don’t slow the search.
“These kids died out there,” he said. “If I have to sweat a bit, that’s nothing.”
Meinert’s team of searchers from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command will start its work in Hanoi and will be in Vietnam for two months.
The Command is charged with finding missing military personnel from all wars. Meinert is trained to spot bits of parachute harness, fragments of flares or tattered oxygen masks, identifying a crash site.
On his last trip to Vietnam, Meinert’s team located some remains of one missing airman.
“The last time, when we found a tooth, everything just stopped,” Meinert said. “We were so excited we could bring somebody home.
“You forget about everything else.”
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 16, 2009 19:02:23 EST
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — An Air Force Academy official is headed to Vietnam for a third time to try to locate airmen who went missing during the Vietnam War.
Master Sgt. Greg Meinert will work at suspected crash sites to look for remains of some 568 Air Force airmen who remain missing 34 years after the war’s end.
The Vietnam War was the bloodiest for the Air Force. Nearly 2,600 airmen were killed during a decade of fighting there.
Meinert says he’ll be sifting dirt with mesh sieves looking for remains.
“We excavate the ground,” he told The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. “The screen is really small so we don’t lose anything.”
The Air Force Academy instructor says he didn’t serve in Vietnam but now appreciates how difficult it must’ve been to fight in the hot jungles there.
“I don’t know how they fought a war over there in that heat,” he said.
But Meinert said the miserable conditions don’t slow the search.
“These kids died out there,” he said. “If I have to sweat a bit, that’s nothing.”
Meinert’s team of searchers from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command will start its work in Hanoi and will be in Vietnam for two months.
The Command is charged with finding missing military personnel from all wars. Meinert is trained to spot bits of parachute harness, fragments of flares or tattered oxygen masks, identifying a crash site.
On his last trip to Vietnam, Meinert’s team located some remains of one missing airman.
“The last time, when we found a tooth, everything just stopped,” Meinert said. “We were so excited we could bring somebody home.
“You forget about everything else.”
15 February 2009
AFA Official Returning To Vietnam On MIA Mission
Colorado Springs Gazette - Colorado Springs, CO, USA
February 15, 2009 - 5:40 PM
TOM ROEDER
THE GAZETTE
Air Force Academy Master Sgt. Greg Meinert will return to Vietnam for the third time this week on a mission to bring some of his fellow airmen home.
An expert in flight crew gear, Meinert will be working with a team of Americans at suspected crash sites in a bid to find some of the 568 Air Force airmen who remain missing 34 years after the war in Vietnam ended.
"It's one of the most rewarding things I have done in the military," Meinert said before leaving Colorado Springs last week. "I feel when we're out there we're on hallowed ground."
The Vietnam War was the bloodiest in modern history for the Air Force, with more than 2,500 aircraft lost and nearly 2,600 airmen killed during a decade of fighting.
Although Air Force losses were small compared with the Army and Marine Corps, a disproportionate number of its airmen were left missing in action after jets crashed in enemy territory. Since Vietnam, the Air Force has worked to recover the remains of those flight crews.
Meinert's expertise on equipment used by flight crews makes him useful to teams from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which is charged with finding missing military personnel from all wars. His trained eye can spot bits of parachute harness, fragments of flares or tattered oxygen masks, identifying a crash site.
It's hot shovel work in a triple canopy jungle.
"We excavate the ground," he said, saying dirt is sifted for sign of remains. "The screen is really small so we don't lose anything."
In his past trips, Meinert has gained a deep respect for the people who fought in Vietnam.
"I don't know how they fought a war over there in that heat," he said.
But the miserable conditions don't slow the search.
"These kids died out there, if I have to sweat a bit, that's nothing."
Most of the hunts are exercises in frustration.
But sometimes the teams hit paydirt.
"The last time when we found a tooth everything just stopped," Meinert said. "We were so excited we could bring somebody home.
You forget about everything else."
Meinert's exposure to the relics of war also help him when he's working with cadets. A member of the academy's 306th Operations Support Squadron, he helps cadets learn about flight.
And he now talks about heroes in the jungle and how cadets can survive when the worst happens.
"I refer back to these missions," he said. "It keeps them on their toes."
He'll have more lessons for cadets soon, and he hopes he'll bring some brother airmen home.
Meinert's team will start its work in Hanoi and will be in Vietnam for two months.
February 15, 2009 - 5:40 PM
TOM ROEDER
THE GAZETTE
Air Force Academy Master Sgt. Greg Meinert will return to Vietnam for the third time this week on a mission to bring some of his fellow airmen home.
An expert in flight crew gear, Meinert will be working with a team of Americans at suspected crash sites in a bid to find some of the 568 Air Force airmen who remain missing 34 years after the war in Vietnam ended.
"It's one of the most rewarding things I have done in the military," Meinert said before leaving Colorado Springs last week. "I feel when we're out there we're on hallowed ground."
The Vietnam War was the bloodiest in modern history for the Air Force, with more than 2,500 aircraft lost and nearly 2,600 airmen killed during a decade of fighting.
Although Air Force losses were small compared with the Army and Marine Corps, a disproportionate number of its airmen were left missing in action after jets crashed in enemy territory. Since Vietnam, the Air Force has worked to recover the remains of those flight crews.
Meinert's expertise on equipment used by flight crews makes him useful to teams from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which is charged with finding missing military personnel from all wars. His trained eye can spot bits of parachute harness, fragments of flares or tattered oxygen masks, identifying a crash site.
It's hot shovel work in a triple canopy jungle.
"We excavate the ground," he said, saying dirt is sifted for sign of remains. "The screen is really small so we don't lose anything."
In his past trips, Meinert has gained a deep respect for the people who fought in Vietnam.
"I don't know how they fought a war over there in that heat," he said.
But the miserable conditions don't slow the search.
"These kids died out there, if I have to sweat a bit, that's nothing."
Most of the hunts are exercises in frustration.
But sometimes the teams hit paydirt.
"The last time when we found a tooth everything just stopped," Meinert said. "We were so excited we could bring somebody home.
You forget about everything else."
Meinert's exposure to the relics of war also help him when he's working with cadets. A member of the academy's 306th Operations Support Squadron, he helps cadets learn about flight.
And he now talks about heroes in the jungle and how cadets can survive when the worst happens.
"I refer back to these missions," he said. "It keeps them on their toes."
He'll have more lessons for cadets soon, and he hopes he'll bring some brother airmen home.
Meinert's team will start its work in Hanoi and will be in Vietnam for two months.
13 February 2009
Excerpts From The Paris Accords - 27 JAN 73
Article I
.... The United States and all other countries respect the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of Viet-Nam as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet-Nam . . .
Article 2
A cease fire shall be observed throughout South Viet-Nam as of 2400 hours G.M.T., on January 27, 1973. At the same hour, the United States will stop all its military activities against the territory of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam by ground, air and naval forces, wherever they may be based, and end the mining of the territorial waters, ports, harbors, and waterways of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam. The United States will remove, permanently deactivate or destroy all the mines in the territorial waters, ports, harbors, and waterways of North Viet-Nam as soon as this Agreement goes into effect. The complete cessation of hostilities mentioned in this Article shall be durable and without limit of time....
Article 4
The United States will not continue its military involvement or intervene in the internal affairs of South Viet-Nam.
Article 5
Within sixty days of the signing of this Agreement, there will be a total withdrawal from South Viet-Nam of troops, military advisers, and military personnel including technical military personnel and military personnel associated with the pacification program, armaments, munitions, and war material of the United States and those of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3(a). Advisers from the above-mentioned countries to all paramilitary organizations and the police force will also be withdrawn within the same period of time.
Article 6
The dismantlement of all military bases in South Viet-Nam of the United States and of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3(a) shall be completed within sixty days of the signing of this Agreement.
Article 7
From the enforcement of the cease-fire to the formation of the government provided for in Article 9(b) and 14 of this Agreement, the two South Vietnamese parties shall not accept the introduction of troops, military advisers, and military personnel including technical military personnel, armaments, munitions, and war material into South Viet-Nam....
Article 8
(a) The return of captured military personnel and foreign civilians of the parties shall be carried out simultaneously with and completed not later than the same day as the troop withdrawal mentioned in Article 5. The parties shall exchange complete lists of the above-mentioned captured military personnel and foreign civilians on the day of the signing of this Agreement.
(b) The Parties shall help each other to get information about those military personnel and foreign civilians of the parties missing in action, to determine the location and take care of the graves of the dead so as to facilitate the exhumation and repatriation of the remains, and to take any such other measures as may be required to get information about those still considered missing in action.
(c) The question of the return of Vietnamese civilian personnel captured and detained in South Viet-Nam will be resolved by the two South Vietnamese parties on the basis of the principles of Article 21(b) of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Viet-Nam of July 20, 1954. The two South Vietnamese parties will do so in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, with a view to ending hatred and enmity, in order to ease suffering and to reunite families. The two South Vietnamese parties will do their utmost to resolve this question within ninety days after the cease-fire comes into effect....
Article 11
Immediately after the cease-fire, the two South Vietnamese parties will: -achieve national reconciliation and concord, end hatred and enmity, prohibit all acts of reprisal and discrimination against individuals or organizations that have collaborated with one side or the other; -ensure the democratic liberties of the people: personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of meeting, freedom of organization, freedom of political activities, freedom of belief, freedom of movement, freedom of residence, freedom of work, right to property ownership, and right to free enterprise....
Chapter V The Reunification of Viet-Nam and The Relationship Between North and South Viet-Nam
Article 15
The reunification of Viet-Nam shall be carried out step by step through peaceful means on the basis of discussions and agreements between North and South Viet-Nam, without coercion or annexation by either party, and without foreign interference. The time for reunification will be agreed upon by North and South Viet-Nam. Pending reunification:
(a)The military demarcation line between the two zones at the 17th parallel is only provisional and not a political or territorial boundary, as provided for in paragraph 6 of the Final Declaration of the 1954 Geneva Conference.
(b)North and South Viet-Nam shall respect the Demilitarized Zone on either side of the Provisional Military Demarcation Line.
(c) North and South Viet-Nam shall promptly start negotiations with a view to reestablishing normal relations in various fields. Among the questions to be negotiated are the modalities of civilian movement across the Provisional Military Demarcation Line.
(d) North and South Viet-Nam shall not join any military alliance or military bloc and shall not allow foreign powers to maintain military bases, troops, military advisers, and military personnel on their respective territories, as stipulated in the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet-Nam....
Article 21
The United States anticipates that this Agreement will usher in an era of reconciliation with the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam as with all the peoples of Indochina. In pursuance of its traditional policy, the United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and throughout Indochina.
Article 22
The ending of the war, the restoration of peace in Viet-Nam, and the strict implementation of this Agreement will create conditions for establishing a new, equal and mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam on the basis of respect of each other's independence and sovereignty, and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. At the same time this will ensure stable peace in Viet-Nam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia....
The Return of Captured Military Personnel and Foreign Civilians
Article 1
The parties signatory to the Agreement shall return the captured military personnel of the parties mentioned in Article 8(a) of the Agreement as follows: -all captured military personnel of the United States and those of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3(a) of the Agreement shall be returned to United States authorities; -all captured Vietnamese military personnel, whether belonging to regular or irregular armed forces, shall be returned to the two South Vietnamese parties; they shall be returned to that South Vietnamese party under whose command they served.
Article 2
All captured civilians who are nationals of the United States or of any other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3(a) of the Agreement shall be returned to United States authorities. All other captured foreign civilians shall be returned to the authorities of their country of nationality by any one of the parties willing and able to do so.
Article 3
The parties shall today exchange complete lists of captured persons mentioned in Articles 1 and 2 of this Protocol.
Article 4
(a) The return of all captured persons mentioned in Articles 1 and 2 of this Protocol shall be completed within sixty days of the signing of the Agreement at a rate no slower than the rate of withdrawal from South Viet-Nam of United States forces and those of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 5 of the Agreement.
(b) Persons who are seriously ill, wounded or maimed, old persons and women shall be returned first. The remainder shall be returned either by returning all from one detention place after another or in order of their dates of capture, beginning with those who have been held the longest....
With Regard to Dead and Missing Persons
Article 10
(a) The Four-Party Joint Military Commission shall ensure joint action by the parties in implementing Article 8 (b) of the Agreement. When the Four-Party Joint Military Commission has ended its activities, a Four-Party Joint Military team shall be maintained to carry on this task.
(b) With regard to Vietnamese civilian personnel dead or missing in South Viet-Nam, the two South Vietnamese parties shall help each other to obtain information about missing persons, determine the location and take care of the graves of the dead, in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, in keeping with the people's aspirations....
SOURCE: U.S. Secretary of State (ed.) United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, 1974, passim.
.... The United States and all other countries respect the independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of Viet-Nam as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet-Nam . . .
Article 2
A cease fire shall be observed throughout South Viet-Nam as of 2400 hours G.M.T., on January 27, 1973. At the same hour, the United States will stop all its military activities against the territory of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam by ground, air and naval forces, wherever they may be based, and end the mining of the territorial waters, ports, harbors, and waterways of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam. The United States will remove, permanently deactivate or destroy all the mines in the territorial waters, ports, harbors, and waterways of North Viet-Nam as soon as this Agreement goes into effect. The complete cessation of hostilities mentioned in this Article shall be durable and without limit of time....
Article 4
The United States will not continue its military involvement or intervene in the internal affairs of South Viet-Nam.
Article 5
Within sixty days of the signing of this Agreement, there will be a total withdrawal from South Viet-Nam of troops, military advisers, and military personnel including technical military personnel and military personnel associated with the pacification program, armaments, munitions, and war material of the United States and those of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3(a). Advisers from the above-mentioned countries to all paramilitary organizations and the police force will also be withdrawn within the same period of time.
Article 6
The dismantlement of all military bases in South Viet-Nam of the United States and of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3(a) shall be completed within sixty days of the signing of this Agreement.
Article 7
From the enforcement of the cease-fire to the formation of the government provided for in Article 9(b) and 14 of this Agreement, the two South Vietnamese parties shall not accept the introduction of troops, military advisers, and military personnel including technical military personnel, armaments, munitions, and war material into South Viet-Nam....
Article 8
(a) The return of captured military personnel and foreign civilians of the parties shall be carried out simultaneously with and completed not later than the same day as the troop withdrawal mentioned in Article 5. The parties shall exchange complete lists of the above-mentioned captured military personnel and foreign civilians on the day of the signing of this Agreement.
(b) The Parties shall help each other to get information about those military personnel and foreign civilians of the parties missing in action, to determine the location and take care of the graves of the dead so as to facilitate the exhumation and repatriation of the remains, and to take any such other measures as may be required to get information about those still considered missing in action.
(c) The question of the return of Vietnamese civilian personnel captured and detained in South Viet-Nam will be resolved by the two South Vietnamese parties on the basis of the principles of Article 21(b) of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Viet-Nam of July 20, 1954. The two South Vietnamese parties will do so in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, with a view to ending hatred and enmity, in order to ease suffering and to reunite families. The two South Vietnamese parties will do their utmost to resolve this question within ninety days after the cease-fire comes into effect....
Article 11
Immediately after the cease-fire, the two South Vietnamese parties will: -achieve national reconciliation and concord, end hatred and enmity, prohibit all acts of reprisal and discrimination against individuals or organizations that have collaborated with one side or the other; -ensure the democratic liberties of the people: personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of meeting, freedom of organization, freedom of political activities, freedom of belief, freedom of movement, freedom of residence, freedom of work, right to property ownership, and right to free enterprise....
Chapter V The Reunification of Viet-Nam and The Relationship Between North and South Viet-Nam
Article 15
The reunification of Viet-Nam shall be carried out step by step through peaceful means on the basis of discussions and agreements between North and South Viet-Nam, without coercion or annexation by either party, and without foreign interference. The time for reunification will be agreed upon by North and South Viet-Nam. Pending reunification:
(a)The military demarcation line between the two zones at the 17th parallel is only provisional and not a political or territorial boundary, as provided for in paragraph 6 of the Final Declaration of the 1954 Geneva Conference.
(b)North and South Viet-Nam shall respect the Demilitarized Zone on either side of the Provisional Military Demarcation Line.
(c) North and South Viet-Nam shall promptly start negotiations with a view to reestablishing normal relations in various fields. Among the questions to be negotiated are the modalities of civilian movement across the Provisional Military Demarcation Line.
(d) North and South Viet-Nam shall not join any military alliance or military bloc and shall not allow foreign powers to maintain military bases, troops, military advisers, and military personnel on their respective territories, as stipulated in the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet-Nam....
Article 21
The United States anticipates that this Agreement will usher in an era of reconciliation with the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam as with all the peoples of Indochina. In pursuance of its traditional policy, the United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and throughout Indochina.
Article 22
The ending of the war, the restoration of peace in Viet-Nam, and the strict implementation of this Agreement will create conditions for establishing a new, equal and mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam on the basis of respect of each other's independence and sovereignty, and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. At the same time this will ensure stable peace in Viet-Nam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia....
The Return of Captured Military Personnel and Foreign Civilians
Article 1
The parties signatory to the Agreement shall return the captured military personnel of the parties mentioned in Article 8(a) of the Agreement as follows: -all captured military personnel of the United States and those of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3(a) of the Agreement shall be returned to United States authorities; -all captured Vietnamese military personnel, whether belonging to regular or irregular armed forces, shall be returned to the two South Vietnamese parties; they shall be returned to that South Vietnamese party under whose command they served.
Article 2
All captured civilians who are nationals of the United States or of any other foreign countries mentioned in Article 3(a) of the Agreement shall be returned to United States authorities. All other captured foreign civilians shall be returned to the authorities of their country of nationality by any one of the parties willing and able to do so.
Article 3
The parties shall today exchange complete lists of captured persons mentioned in Articles 1 and 2 of this Protocol.
Article 4
(a) The return of all captured persons mentioned in Articles 1 and 2 of this Protocol shall be completed within sixty days of the signing of the Agreement at a rate no slower than the rate of withdrawal from South Viet-Nam of United States forces and those of the other foreign countries mentioned in Article 5 of the Agreement.
(b) Persons who are seriously ill, wounded or maimed, old persons and women shall be returned first. The remainder shall be returned either by returning all from one detention place after another or in order of their dates of capture, beginning with those who have been held the longest....
With Regard to Dead and Missing Persons
Article 10
(a) The Four-Party Joint Military Commission shall ensure joint action by the parties in implementing Article 8 (b) of the Agreement. When the Four-Party Joint Military Commission has ended its activities, a Four-Party Joint Military team shall be maintained to carry on this task.
(b) With regard to Vietnamese civilian personnel dead or missing in South Viet-Nam, the two South Vietnamese parties shall help each other to obtain information about missing persons, determine the location and take care of the graves of the dead, in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, in keeping with the people's aspirations....
SOURCE: U.S. Secretary of State (ed.) United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, 1974, passim.
Operation Homecoming Anniversary Dates
Airman's Roll Call - United State Air Force
Week of Feb. 11 – Feb. 17, 2009
Operation Homecoming
Operation Homecoming is a highlight in the history of the Air Force. This week,
35 years ago, Air Force airlift began returning American servicemembers being
held as prisoners of war by North Vietnam back home to the United States.
Operation Homecoming facts:
- The signing of the Paris Peace Accords on Jan. 28, 1973, ended United
States involvement in the Vietnam War.
- On Feb. 12, 1973, Military Airlift Command, the predecessor of Air Mobility
Command, C-141 aircraft began flying POWs out of Hanoi, North Vietnam.
- Beginning on Feb. 12, 1973, Pacific Air Forces C-9 aircraft flew smaller
numbers of POWs out of locations in South Vietnam and Hong Kong.
- The operation lasted until April 4, 1973.
- The first group of POWs released had been imprisoned for between 6 to 8
and a half years. The POWs were released based on their length of time
as POWs, with the longest held being returned first.
- 597 servicemembers were repatriated during the operation.
- The first phase of the operation flew the returning servicemembers to
Clark Air Base in the Philippines. The second phase transported the
returnees to one of five continental United States bases -- Travis AFB,
California; Kelly AFB, Texas; Scott AFB, Illinois; Andrews AFB, Maryland;
and Maxwell AFB, Alabama.
Week of Feb. 11 – Feb. 17, 2009
Operation Homecoming
Operation Homecoming is a highlight in the history of the Air Force. This week,
35 years ago, Air Force airlift began returning American servicemembers being
held as prisoners of war by North Vietnam back home to the United States.
Operation Homecoming facts:
- The signing of the Paris Peace Accords on Jan. 28, 1973, ended United
States involvement in the Vietnam War.
- On Feb. 12, 1973, Military Airlift Command, the predecessor of Air Mobility
Command, C-141 aircraft began flying POWs out of Hanoi, North Vietnam.
- Beginning on Feb. 12, 1973, Pacific Air Forces C-9 aircraft flew smaller
numbers of POWs out of locations in South Vietnam and Hong Kong.
- The operation lasted until April 4, 1973.
- The first group of POWs released had been imprisoned for between 6 to 8
and a half years. The POWs were released based on their length of time
as POWs, with the longest held being returned first.
- 597 servicemembers were repatriated during the operation.
- The first phase of the operation flew the returning servicemembers to
Clark Air Base in the Philippines. The second phase transported the
returnees to one of five continental United States bases -- Travis AFB,
California; Kelly AFB, Texas; Scott AFB, Illinois; Andrews AFB, Maryland;
and Maxwell AFB, Alabama.
Grandpa In War
Marshall Independent - Marshall, MN, USA
By Cindy Votruba
POSTED: February 13, 2009
If the doorknob is on the inside, Leo Thorsness said he's having a good day.
Thorsness, a 1950 Walnut Grove High School graduate, had his first book "Surviving Hell" published last summer. It details the lessons he learned from serving in the Vietnam War and being a prisoner of war in Hanoi for six years.
Thorsness served in the Air Force for 23 years, retiring as a colonel in 1973 and received the Air Force Medal of Honor. He was also a Washington State senator.
Thorsness said the book started out as a letter to his granddaughters, ages 8 and 10, telling what "grandpa did in the war."
"And I couldn't stop," Thorsness said. "It went on and on."
Thorsness went into the Air Force in 1951 and earned his commission through the Aviation Cadet program.
"My motor skills were good, so flying came easy," Thorsness said. "They actually paid me to fly fighter airplanes."
Thorsness was 15 years into his military service when he went to serve in Vietnam.
"Vietnam became my war," Thorsness said.
He was captured when his plane was shot down and became a prisoner of war in Hanoi.
"I enjoyed my job a lot until I got shot down," Thorsness said.
Thorsness had a well-known bunkmate in POW camp, 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
"John and I lived together for a couple of years, same cell," Thorsness said.
Thorsness jokingly said that McCain "lived with him" in the POW camp.
"I got there first," Thorsness said. "When you raise your hand to go to the military, you never know where you're going to end up."
Thorsness said he was two years older than the average POW and got out when he was 41 years old.
"We were a mature group," Thorsness said.
When he decided to write a book, Thorsness was doing speaking engagements in the corporate world about his experiences as a fighter pilot in Vietnam.
"Enough years had gone by that I had a perspective on it," Thorsness said.
He said being a POW can relate to the business world, and the book is about how to get through tough times.
"People are stronger, more resilient physically and mentally than they think they are," Thorsness said. "If you learn about getting through those tough times, you are going to be stronger and more prepared."
And Thorsness has followed that advice since 1973, the year he got out of POW camp.
"Since I've been home, I've never had a bad day," Thorsness said. "If the doorknob is on the inside, it's a good day."
The book is only 132 pages long and written as short essays, Thorsness said.
"I wrote it tight enough, so 'hey, there's a lesson here,'" Thorsness said.
Thorsness had 10,000 copies of the book printed and is set to have a second printing.
By Cindy Votruba
POSTED: February 13, 2009
If the doorknob is on the inside, Leo Thorsness said he's having a good day.
Thorsness, a 1950 Walnut Grove High School graduate, had his first book "Surviving Hell" published last summer. It details the lessons he learned from serving in the Vietnam War and being a prisoner of war in Hanoi for six years.
Thorsness served in the Air Force for 23 years, retiring as a colonel in 1973 and received the Air Force Medal of Honor. He was also a Washington State senator.
Thorsness said the book started out as a letter to his granddaughters, ages 8 and 10, telling what "grandpa did in the war."
"And I couldn't stop," Thorsness said. "It went on and on."
Thorsness went into the Air Force in 1951 and earned his commission through the Aviation Cadet program.
"My motor skills were good, so flying came easy," Thorsness said. "They actually paid me to fly fighter airplanes."
Thorsness was 15 years into his military service when he went to serve in Vietnam.
"Vietnam became my war," Thorsness said.
He was captured when his plane was shot down and became a prisoner of war in Hanoi.
"I enjoyed my job a lot until I got shot down," Thorsness said.
Thorsness had a well-known bunkmate in POW camp, 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
"John and I lived together for a couple of years, same cell," Thorsness said.
Thorsness jokingly said that McCain "lived with him" in the POW camp.
"I got there first," Thorsness said. "When you raise your hand to go to the military, you never know where you're going to end up."
Thorsness said he was two years older than the average POW and got out when he was 41 years old.
"We were a mature group," Thorsness said.
When he decided to write a book, Thorsness was doing speaking engagements in the corporate world about his experiences as a fighter pilot in Vietnam.
"Enough years had gone by that I had a perspective on it," Thorsness said.
He said being a POW can relate to the business world, and the book is about how to get through tough times.
"People are stronger, more resilient physically and mentally than they think they are," Thorsness said. "If you learn about getting through those tough times, you are going to be stronger and more prepared."
And Thorsness has followed that advice since 1973, the year he got out of POW camp.
"Since I've been home, I've never had a bad day," Thorsness said. "If the doorknob is on the inside, it's a good day."
The book is only 132 pages long and written as short essays, Thorsness said.
"I wrote it tight enough, so 'hey, there's a lesson here,'" Thorsness said.
Thorsness had 10,000 copies of the book printed and is set to have a second printing.
27 January 2009
Ex-POW Shares Story In Book
Worthington Daily Globe - Worthington, MN, USA
Julie Buntjer Worthington Daily Globe
Published Tuesday, January 27, 2009
WORTHINGTON — When Col. Leo Thorsness returned home in 1973 after six years in captivity in Vietnam, several of his fellow prisoners of war signed on with book publishers to share their story of war and torture at the hands of the enemy.
Thorsness wasn’t one of them.
He went on to marry, have a family and even grandchildren before deciding to write his memoir of war. Intended to be letters to his young granddaughters, the words kept flowing and flowing and now are part of the southwest Minnesota native’s first book, “Surviving Hell,” which was released in December.
“I finally got old enough to write a book,” said Thorsness, 76, who not only survived six years in Vietnam prison camps and lived to tell about it, but earned the prestigious Medal of Honor for a mission he completed 11 days prior to being shot down and taken captive.
In his book, the Storden and Walnut Grove native describes his work as a fighter pilot in Vietnam and his fight to survive as a prisoner of war. Yet, he is quick to say the book is more than a mere history lesson for readers.
“The thrust of the book is how to get through tough times,” said Thorsness from his home in Madison, Ala. “Nearly everybody is stronger than they think they are. When they go through tough times, most people come out the back end whole. The next time, (they’re) better prepared — stronger, sharper, I think.
“My time in Vietnam made me better,” he continued. “The simplest, biggest lesson I learned in Vietnam — I’ve really never had a bad day since I’ve been home.”
Thorsness grew up the son of farmers in rural Storden, and graduated from Walnut Grove High School in 1950. He enrolled at South Dakota State University in Brookings, “majoring in baseball, basketball, football and girls,” he said. Realizing he wasn’t ready to hunker down into college studies, Thorsness enlisted in the Air Force in 1951.
“Everybody in that era pretty much joined the military anyway,” he said. He earned his commission three years later in the Aviation Cadet Program.
Thorsness was trained to be a career fighter pilot during the Korean War, but didn’t experience real-life battles until Vietnam.
“I was pretty experienced by the time Vietnam came along, that was the first war with surface-to-air missiles,” Thorsness said.
As head Weasel in the Air Force’s Wild Weasels, Thorsness flew missions from an airbase in Takhli, Thailand. Their mission: to seek and destroy surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
On April 19, 1967, Thorsness and his backseater, Capt. Harold Johnson of Iowa, “fought a wild, 50-minute duel with SAMs, anti-aircraft guns and MiGs,” according to a biography published about Thorsness on the Air Force military history Web site. It was that battle that earned Thorsness his Medal of Honor.
“It’s a real honor of course to receive it,” he said, adding that President Richard Nixon presented him with the medal upon his release from captivity.
“There’s a little bit of an obligation — maybe a little bit more is expected of you,” Thorsness said of the honor. “You feel an obligation to do something with your life.”
Thorsness completed 92.5 missions in Vietnam before he was shot down. He spent the next six years as a POW, enduring countless episodes of torture at the hands of his captors.
“In Hanoi, we were going through real difficult times,” said Thorsness. “The first three years were the worst — people died.
“My will to survive was strong,” he added. “When all else failed, to believe in some cause, some spirit, gave me strength that I absolutely had to have.”
While Thorsness had intended to leave out the details of his torture, his military comrades encouraged him to include them in the book.
“The current batch of readers, unless they read history … they really don’t know what old-fashioned, brutal torture is,” he said.
Thorsness began writing the book last spring, and has two other books — children’s stories — in the works.
“I’m waiting for my daughter to retire — she’s going to be my illustrator,” he said.
Thorsness remembers fondly his years growing up in southwest Minnesota.
“I was born into the Depression era,” he said. “We were all farmers, we were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor. It was just a wonderful environment to grow up in.”
Thorsness’ book is available at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum Gift Shop in Walnut Grove, online at www.walnutgrove.org, or at major book retailers.
Julie Buntjer Worthington Daily Globe
Published Tuesday, January 27, 2009
WORTHINGTON — When Col. Leo Thorsness returned home in 1973 after six years in captivity in Vietnam, several of his fellow prisoners of war signed on with book publishers to share their story of war and torture at the hands of the enemy.
Thorsness wasn’t one of them.
He went on to marry, have a family and even grandchildren before deciding to write his memoir of war. Intended to be letters to his young granddaughters, the words kept flowing and flowing and now are part of the southwest Minnesota native’s first book, “Surviving Hell,” which was released in December.
“I finally got old enough to write a book,” said Thorsness, 76, who not only survived six years in Vietnam prison camps and lived to tell about it, but earned the prestigious Medal of Honor for a mission he completed 11 days prior to being shot down and taken captive.
In his book, the Storden and Walnut Grove native describes his work as a fighter pilot in Vietnam and his fight to survive as a prisoner of war. Yet, he is quick to say the book is more than a mere history lesson for readers.
“The thrust of the book is how to get through tough times,” said Thorsness from his home in Madison, Ala. “Nearly everybody is stronger than they think they are. When they go through tough times, most people come out the back end whole. The next time, (they’re) better prepared — stronger, sharper, I think.
“My time in Vietnam made me better,” he continued. “The simplest, biggest lesson I learned in Vietnam — I’ve really never had a bad day since I’ve been home.”
Thorsness grew up the son of farmers in rural Storden, and graduated from Walnut Grove High School in 1950. He enrolled at South Dakota State University in Brookings, “majoring in baseball, basketball, football and girls,” he said. Realizing he wasn’t ready to hunker down into college studies, Thorsness enlisted in the Air Force in 1951.
“Everybody in that era pretty much joined the military anyway,” he said. He earned his commission three years later in the Aviation Cadet Program.
Thorsness was trained to be a career fighter pilot during the Korean War, but didn’t experience real-life battles until Vietnam.
“I was pretty experienced by the time Vietnam came along, that was the first war with surface-to-air missiles,” Thorsness said.
As head Weasel in the Air Force’s Wild Weasels, Thorsness flew missions from an airbase in Takhli, Thailand. Their mission: to seek and destroy surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
On April 19, 1967, Thorsness and his backseater, Capt. Harold Johnson of Iowa, “fought a wild, 50-minute duel with SAMs, anti-aircraft guns and MiGs,” according to a biography published about Thorsness on the Air Force military history Web site. It was that battle that earned Thorsness his Medal of Honor.
“It’s a real honor of course to receive it,” he said, adding that President Richard Nixon presented him with the medal upon his release from captivity.
“There’s a little bit of an obligation — maybe a little bit more is expected of you,” Thorsness said of the honor. “You feel an obligation to do something with your life.”
Thorsness completed 92.5 missions in Vietnam before he was shot down. He spent the next six years as a POW, enduring countless episodes of torture at the hands of his captors.
“In Hanoi, we were going through real difficult times,” said Thorsness. “The first three years were the worst — people died.
“My will to survive was strong,” he added. “When all else failed, to believe in some cause, some spirit, gave me strength that I absolutely had to have.”
While Thorsness had intended to leave out the details of his torture, his military comrades encouraged him to include them in the book.
“The current batch of readers, unless they read history … they really don’t know what old-fashioned, brutal torture is,” he said.
Thorsness began writing the book last spring, and has two other books — children’s stories — in the works.
“I’m waiting for my daughter to retire — she’s going to be my illustrator,” he said.
Thorsness remembers fondly his years growing up in southwest Minnesota.
“I was born into the Depression era,” he said. “We were all farmers, we were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor. It was just a wonderful environment to grow up in.”
Thorsness’ book is available at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum Gift Shop in Walnut Grove, online at www.walnutgrove.org, or at major book retailers.
Vietnam Wall Coming To County
Cherokee Scout - Murphy, NC, USA
Memorial Moving Wall will be at Konehete Park on Oct. 7-12
By DWIGHT OTWELL
dotwell@cherokeescout.com
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 8:05 PM CST
Murphy – The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Moving Wall is coming to Murphy in October.
The half-size replica of the Washington wall will be displayed in Konehete Park on Oct. 7-12, Tom Valenty told Cherokee County commissioners on Jan. 20.
Valenty, representing Cherokee Detachment 1011 of the Marine Corps League, said it is the goal of the organization to bring the moving wall to Murphy in 2009. There are two Vietnam Memorial replica walls touring the country. The Vietnam memorial was dedicated in Washington in 1982, but the moving wall has been touring the country for 20 years. Oct. 7-12 will be a great time for the wall to come to Cherokee County, as schools will be in session and visitors “from all over” will be in the county because of colorful, fall leaves. Many other activities also are scheduled for that time, Valenty said.
Cherokee County Schools has agreed to provide student bands for the event. It appears that grades 5-12 will participate, Valenty said.
“Everyone may not be able to go to Washington, D.C., and visit the wall,” he said.
Valenty asked commissioners for their support, whether it is money or labor.
Help will be needed to erect a foundation for the wall. A $2,000 deposit will be required for putting up the base of the wall, and another $2,500 will be needed for chaperones for the wall once it is here, Valenty said. The estimated total amount needed is $10,000, including 24-hour security and lighting.
Names of those killed in the Vietnam War, more than 50,000, are displayed on both sides of the wall, Valenty said.
The wall contains about 1,300 names of those still missing in action. Among the names are seven nurses, Valenty said.
Commission Chairman David Sumpter said the commission will help coordinate the financial aspects of the project.
The commissioners will consider providing financial help when it meets in a few months to consider the county’s budget for the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.
“We won’t say ‘no.’ We will say ‘maybe,’ ” Sumpter said.
“I look forward to our community participating,” Commissioner Jonathan Dickey said. “We will discuss [financial] help when we talk about the budget in April. I am sure that people in the community also will come forward.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) will come to Murphy for the opening ceremony for the wall, Valenty said.
Memorial Moving Wall will be at Konehete Park on Oct. 7-12
By DWIGHT OTWELL
dotwell@cherokeescout.com
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 8:05 PM CST
Murphy – The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Moving Wall is coming to Murphy in October.
The half-size replica of the Washington wall will be displayed in Konehete Park on Oct. 7-12, Tom Valenty told Cherokee County commissioners on Jan. 20.
Valenty, representing Cherokee Detachment 1011 of the Marine Corps League, said it is the goal of the organization to bring the moving wall to Murphy in 2009. There are two Vietnam Memorial replica walls touring the country. The Vietnam memorial was dedicated in Washington in 1982, but the moving wall has been touring the country for 20 years. Oct. 7-12 will be a great time for the wall to come to Cherokee County, as schools will be in session and visitors “from all over” will be in the county because of colorful, fall leaves. Many other activities also are scheduled for that time, Valenty said.
Cherokee County Schools has agreed to provide student bands for the event. It appears that grades 5-12 will participate, Valenty said.
“Everyone may not be able to go to Washington, D.C., and visit the wall,” he said.
Valenty asked commissioners for their support, whether it is money or labor.
Help will be needed to erect a foundation for the wall. A $2,000 deposit will be required for putting up the base of the wall, and another $2,500 will be needed for chaperones for the wall once it is here, Valenty said. The estimated total amount needed is $10,000, including 24-hour security and lighting.
Names of those killed in the Vietnam War, more than 50,000, are displayed on both sides of the wall, Valenty said.
The wall contains about 1,300 names of those still missing in action. Among the names are seven nurses, Valenty said.
Commission Chairman David Sumpter said the commission will help coordinate the financial aspects of the project.
The commissioners will consider providing financial help when it meets in a few months to consider the county’s budget for the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.
“We won’t say ‘no.’ We will say ‘maybe,’ ” Sumpter said.
“I look forward to our community participating,” Commissioner Jonathan Dickey said. “We will discuss [financial] help when we talk about the budget in April. I am sure that people in the community also will come forward.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) will come to Murphy for the opening ceremony for the wall, Valenty said.
24 January 2009
Bracelet Hasn't Left Woman's Wrist Since '70s
The State Journal-Register - Springfield, IL, USA
By Dave Bakke
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Jan 24, 2009 @ 11:46 PM
It was popular in the early 1970s for people to put on metal bracelets bearing the name of an American service members who was listed as a prisoner of war or missing in action during the Vietnam War.
Cindy Ponder was one of those people. She put a bracelet on and kept it on for 36 years. She wears it today. She wore it on her wedding day, during the birth of two children and for gall bladder surgery, even though the surgery staff said she had to remove it. She refused.
“People were wearing the bracelets, and then in six months or so their soldier would come home and they’d take the bracelets off,” Cindy says. “My guy never came home.”
Her guy is Air Force Maj. Henry P. Brauner of Franklin Park, N.J. Her bracelet bears his name, his rank and the date he disappeared — March 29, 1972.
That night, Brauner was on a secret mission into Laos to disrupt enemy supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh trail. He was navigator on an AC-130A Spectre. It was shot down over Laos by a surface-to-air missile.
The American government never acknowledged the military’s Laotian operations in those days, and that included the loss of the plane and its crew of 14.
A pilot flying backup for the Spectre’s crew reported later that it was too dark to see any signs of life around the wreckage, but there were reports that some of the homing transmitters the crew carried had gone off after the crash. The transmitters had to be activated manually, giving some indication that there were survivors.
Since March 29, 1972, Brauner’s fate has been a mystery. There have been varying stories over the decades. The plane burned, but then it didn’t. The crew was killed, but then it wasn’t. Some remains were found, but their identification and what proof they offer is unclear.
Last May, more than 36 years after the plane went down, word came from Laos that Brauner’s dog tags had been found in the wreckage. A news story in the Newark Star-Ledger, based on a Department of Defense statement, said the dog tags were found in 2005 or 2006, during excavations of the crash site in Laos.
Brauner’s family had mixed reactions to the news. It opened up old wounds and yet was still not conclusive evidence that Brauner had been killed.
Cindy doesn’t know if he is living or dead, but as long as there is a glimmer of hope she wears the bracelet.
She says it began with a few dollars sent to a company in 1973. She received in return the bracelet with Brauner’s name on it. She was in high school at the time.
Her bracelet gets comments.
“People have asked, ‘Did you know him?’ No. ‘Then why do you wear it?’ They think it’s weird,” says Cindy. “I would have taken it off if he had returned.”
But Brauner hasn’t returned, and it remains on her wrist always.
When Cindy went into the hospital for gall bladder surgery, the staff in the operating room said she could not wear any metal during the procedure. She took her wedding ring off, but not the bracelet. The staff made the best of it, putting tape around the bracelet during the operation.
Cindy has never had any contact with Brauner’s family. The major had two daughters before he left for the war. One of them, Kristin, posted a message on the Newark Star-Ledger’s Web site after last year’s story about the discovery of her father’s dog tags.
A woman who has worn Brauner’s POW-MIA bracelet for 20 years had posted a message on the newspaper’s Web site. Brauner’s daughter read it and responded with her thanks and more. She urged people not to give up hope that her father still is alive.
So Cindy will continue to wear the bracelet, especially tomorrow. Monday would be Brauner’s 73rd birthday.
Dave Bakke can be reached at 788-1541 or dave.bakke@sj-r.com. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
By Dave Bakke
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Jan 24, 2009 @ 11:46 PM
It was popular in the early 1970s for people to put on metal bracelets bearing the name of an American service members who was listed as a prisoner of war or missing in action during the Vietnam War.
Cindy Ponder was one of those people. She put a bracelet on and kept it on for 36 years. She wears it today. She wore it on her wedding day, during the birth of two children and for gall bladder surgery, even though the surgery staff said she had to remove it. She refused.
“People were wearing the bracelets, and then in six months or so their soldier would come home and they’d take the bracelets off,” Cindy says. “My guy never came home.”
Her guy is Air Force Maj. Henry P. Brauner of Franklin Park, N.J. Her bracelet bears his name, his rank and the date he disappeared — March 29, 1972.
That night, Brauner was on a secret mission into Laos to disrupt enemy supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh trail. He was navigator on an AC-130A Spectre. It was shot down over Laos by a surface-to-air missile.
The American government never acknowledged the military’s Laotian operations in those days, and that included the loss of the plane and its crew of 14.
A pilot flying backup for the Spectre’s crew reported later that it was too dark to see any signs of life around the wreckage, but there were reports that some of the homing transmitters the crew carried had gone off after the crash. The transmitters had to be activated manually, giving some indication that there were survivors.
Since March 29, 1972, Brauner’s fate has been a mystery. There have been varying stories over the decades. The plane burned, but then it didn’t. The crew was killed, but then it wasn’t. Some remains were found, but their identification and what proof they offer is unclear.
Last May, more than 36 years after the plane went down, word came from Laos that Brauner’s dog tags had been found in the wreckage. A news story in the Newark Star-Ledger, based on a Department of Defense statement, said the dog tags were found in 2005 or 2006, during excavations of the crash site in Laos.
Brauner’s family had mixed reactions to the news. It opened up old wounds and yet was still not conclusive evidence that Brauner had been killed.
Cindy doesn’t know if he is living or dead, but as long as there is a glimmer of hope she wears the bracelet.
She says it began with a few dollars sent to a company in 1973. She received in return the bracelet with Brauner’s name on it. She was in high school at the time.
Her bracelet gets comments.
“People have asked, ‘Did you know him?’ No. ‘Then why do you wear it?’ They think it’s weird,” says Cindy. “I would have taken it off if he had returned.”
But Brauner hasn’t returned, and it remains on her wrist always.
When Cindy went into the hospital for gall bladder surgery, the staff in the operating room said she could not wear any metal during the procedure. She took her wedding ring off, but not the bracelet. The staff made the best of it, putting tape around the bracelet during the operation.
Cindy has never had any contact with Brauner’s family. The major had two daughters before he left for the war. One of them, Kristin, posted a message on the Newark Star-Ledger’s Web site after last year’s story about the discovery of her father’s dog tags.
A woman who has worn Brauner’s POW-MIA bracelet for 20 years had posted a message on the newspaper’s Web site. Brauner’s daughter read it and responded with her thanks and more. She urged people not to give up hope that her father still is alive.
So Cindy will continue to wear the bracelet, especially tomorrow. Monday would be Brauner’s 73rd birthday.
Dave Bakke can be reached at 788-1541 or dave.bakke@sj-r.com. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Were POWs Left Behind?
The Free Lance-Star - Fredericksburg, VA, USA
"An Enormous Crime" raises the disturbing question of U.S. soldiers betrayed by their own country.
By Erik F. Nelson
Date published: 1/24/2009
"HOW DO you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?" In 1971, a former Navy lieutenant named John Kerry rhetorically asked this question during an anti-war protest in Washington. Twenty years later, the same John Kerry, serving as a U.S. senator and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee (co-chaired by Sen. John McCain) answered that question by suppressing evidence that American prisoners of war remained alive in Southeast Asia.
Is a story like this credible? Research by Bill Hendon, a former Republican Congressman from North Carolina, who served on the POW/MIA Task Force in the 1980s, was the intelligence investigator for the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in the early 1990s. He has spent 25 years researching this matter, and makes clear that, sadly, it is. Furthermore, John Kerry and John McCain are just bit players in a story that has yet to be concluded.
Hendon begins his analysis in Cuba, following the ill-fated Bay of Pigs fiasco. President Kennedy ultimately negotiated the release of the captured, CIA-trained invasion force (1,179 Cubans with families in Florida), by sending farm equipment and aid to Castro's regime. The U.S. government, inadvertently, had revealed that it would pay dearly for captured fighting men. The North Vietnamese, confronting American military advisers in Southeast Asia, were paying attention.
As that distant war escalated, hundreds of Americans became prisoners in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The CIA learned that North Vietnam intended to hold them as hostages, so they could negotiate for reparations. North Vietnamese troops might execute wounded Americans on the battlefield, but live Americans had value and were systematically moved north.
During the years that Henry Kissinger negotiated with Le Duc Tho to end the war, the North Vietnamese consistently insisted on reparations to rebuild their bombed country. Kissinger finally handed over a letter from President Nixon, which pledged nearly $5 billion, but the Vietnamese were asked to keep it a secret. The secrecy was thought to be necessary in a politically divided America, but the North Vietnamese astutely hedged their bets. Even as they released nearly 500 prisoners of war in 1973, intelligence sources suggested that the North Vietnamese government was holding back hundreds of others.
The evidence of live Americans in Southeast Asia continued to accumulate. Classified distress signals were picked up by satellite imagery in 1975, 1988 and 1992. Refugees fleeing South Vietnam reported sightings of Americans after the war, when they (the defeated South Vietnamese) had been sent north to re-education camps.
Radio intercepts made reference to Americans. Robert Garwood, captured in Vietnam in 1965 and released in 1979, reported live sightings of Americans long after the war ended. A Secret Service agent overheard discussions between President Reagan, Vice President George Bush and CIA Director William Casey about paying $4 billion to obtain the release of the prisoners.
The evidence is overwhelming, but has been kept obscure, despite the occasional story in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post. A KGB officer reported on Australian television that he had interviewed three U.S. prisoners in 1978. In 1993, a researcher in the newly opened Soviet archives found a copy of a speech by a North Vietnamese official describing that nation's policy of using captured prisoners to ensure postwar compensation, further noting that they (the North Vietnamese) held 1,097 prisoners (remember that not quite 500 were released in 1973).
It is apparently too embarrassing for any administration to both admit that the U.S. government knowingly left approximately 500 POWs behind in 1973 as well as to pay reparations to a small nation that won the war.
The Nixon letter promised aid for prisoners, but Watergate derailed his administration, and an unknowing Congress was in no mood to support any further effort in Vietnam. In 1975, however, a Congressional delegation in Hanoi was astonished to learn that the Nixon letter even existed. Each subsequent administration has faced this problem, but proved unable to effectively handle it.
Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.) noted in 1992, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that the POW issue had been mishandled since 1973. As the years passed, the problem compounded itself and became too embarrassing to pursue. Those who knew--including presidents, Cabinet members, national security advisers, the CIA--passed on the problem to the next administration. Even worse, the U.S. government began to discount live sightings in favor of very public efforts to recover remains.
The Vietnamese continue to raise the issue of reparations when U.S. delegations visit. Advocates for families of the POWs are still angry, but who cares anymore? This book makes clear that Americans in captivity are still waiting for their government to get them out.
The author presents the evidence systematically, year by year, in an analysis that builds its case carefully, but relentlessly. This is a disturbing book to read, though. Those who are unable to accept that their government would betray its fighting men will likely dismiss it all as a conspiracy theory. Those who follow the evidence will come away with a different conclusion.
Erik F. Nelson is a founding member of the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust and senior planner for the city of Fredericksburg. E-mail him in care of
Email: gwoolf@freelancestar.com.
"An Enormous Crime" raises the disturbing question of U.S. soldiers betrayed by their own country.
By Erik F. Nelson
Date published: 1/24/2009
"HOW DO you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?" In 1971, a former Navy lieutenant named John Kerry rhetorically asked this question during an anti-war protest in Washington. Twenty years later, the same John Kerry, serving as a U.S. senator and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee (co-chaired by Sen. John McCain) answered that question by suppressing evidence that American prisoners of war remained alive in Southeast Asia.
Is a story like this credible? Research by Bill Hendon, a former Republican Congressman from North Carolina, who served on the POW/MIA Task Force in the 1980s, was the intelligence investigator for the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in the early 1990s. He has spent 25 years researching this matter, and makes clear that, sadly, it is. Furthermore, John Kerry and John McCain are just bit players in a story that has yet to be concluded.
Hendon begins his analysis in Cuba, following the ill-fated Bay of Pigs fiasco. President Kennedy ultimately negotiated the release of the captured, CIA-trained invasion force (1,179 Cubans with families in Florida), by sending farm equipment and aid to Castro's regime. The U.S. government, inadvertently, had revealed that it would pay dearly for captured fighting men. The North Vietnamese, confronting American military advisers in Southeast Asia, were paying attention.
As that distant war escalated, hundreds of Americans became prisoners in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The CIA learned that North Vietnam intended to hold them as hostages, so they could negotiate for reparations. North Vietnamese troops might execute wounded Americans on the battlefield, but live Americans had value and were systematically moved north.
During the years that Henry Kissinger negotiated with Le Duc Tho to end the war, the North Vietnamese consistently insisted on reparations to rebuild their bombed country. Kissinger finally handed over a letter from President Nixon, which pledged nearly $5 billion, but the Vietnamese were asked to keep it a secret. The secrecy was thought to be necessary in a politically divided America, but the North Vietnamese astutely hedged their bets. Even as they released nearly 500 prisoners of war in 1973, intelligence sources suggested that the North Vietnamese government was holding back hundreds of others.
The evidence of live Americans in Southeast Asia continued to accumulate. Classified distress signals were picked up by satellite imagery in 1975, 1988 and 1992. Refugees fleeing South Vietnam reported sightings of Americans after the war, when they (the defeated South Vietnamese) had been sent north to re-education camps.
Radio intercepts made reference to Americans. Robert Garwood, captured in Vietnam in 1965 and released in 1979, reported live sightings of Americans long after the war ended. A Secret Service agent overheard discussions between President Reagan, Vice President George Bush and CIA Director William Casey about paying $4 billion to obtain the release of the prisoners.
The evidence is overwhelming, but has been kept obscure, despite the occasional story in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post. A KGB officer reported on Australian television that he had interviewed three U.S. prisoners in 1978. In 1993, a researcher in the newly opened Soviet archives found a copy of a speech by a North Vietnamese official describing that nation's policy of using captured prisoners to ensure postwar compensation, further noting that they (the North Vietnamese) held 1,097 prisoners (remember that not quite 500 were released in 1973).
It is apparently too embarrassing for any administration to both admit that the U.S. government knowingly left approximately 500 POWs behind in 1973 as well as to pay reparations to a small nation that won the war.
The Nixon letter promised aid for prisoners, but Watergate derailed his administration, and an unknowing Congress was in no mood to support any further effort in Vietnam. In 1975, however, a Congressional delegation in Hanoi was astonished to learn that the Nixon letter even existed. Each subsequent administration has faced this problem, but proved unable to effectively handle it.
Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.) noted in 1992, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that the POW issue had been mishandled since 1973. As the years passed, the problem compounded itself and became too embarrassing to pursue. Those who knew--including presidents, Cabinet members, national security advisers, the CIA--passed on the problem to the next administration. Even worse, the U.S. government began to discount live sightings in favor of very public efforts to recover remains.
The Vietnamese continue to raise the issue of reparations when U.S. delegations visit. Advocates for families of the POWs are still angry, but who cares anymore? This book makes clear that Americans in captivity are still waiting for their government to get them out.
The author presents the evidence systematically, year by year, in an analysis that builds its case carefully, but relentlessly. This is a disturbing book to read, though. Those who are unable to accept that their government would betray its fighting men will likely dismiss it all as a conspiracy theory. Those who follow the evidence will come away with a different conclusion.
Erik F. Nelson is a founding member of the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust and senior planner for the city of Fredericksburg. E-mail him in care of
Email: gwoolf@freelancestar.com.
Island Images
Honolulu Star-Bulletin - Honolulu, HI, USA
HONORING WAR DEAD: The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted an arrival ceremony yesterday at Hickam Air Force Base to honor fallen U.S. military personnel whose identities remain unknown. Above, an honor guard carried remains that arrived in four flag-draped transfer cases. Two sets of remains are associated with the Vietnam War era, one from Laos and one from Vietnam. The two others are associated with World War II, one from Germany, one from France.
The honor guard loaded the last casket onto a bus to be transported to the JPAC Central Identification Laboratory for identification.
HONORING WAR DEAD: The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted an arrival ceremony yesterday at Hickam Air Force Base to honor fallen U.S. military personnel whose identities remain unknown. Above, an honor guard carried remains that arrived in four flag-draped transfer cases. Two sets of remains are associated with the Vietnam War era, one from Laos and one from Vietnam. The two others are associated with World War II, one from Germany, one from France.
The honor guard loaded the last casket onto a bus to be transported to the JPAC Central Identification Laboratory for identification.
22 January 2009
Students Recognize Soldiers' Sacrifices
Millstone Examiner - Millstone, NJ, USA
Veterans group initiates new partnership with schools
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer
Millstone Township Middle School students are learning more about the sacrifices that military personnel and their families make during wartime.
The Veterans of the Vietnam War Inc. and the Veterans Coalition New Jersey Post 03, of Millstone, have partnered with the middle school to present students with an educational program about prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.
"Freedom is not free. It comes at a cost," Richard Brody, commander of New Jersey Post 03, told students during an assembly Jan. 15. "It comes at the sacrifice of soldiers all over the world and at the sacrifice of families who wait at home while their loved ones are gone."
There are currently 1.4 million United States military personnel serving in 40 countries around the world, according to Brody.
The assembly, presented by Brody and fellow veterans Bill Nurko, a Millstone resident who served as captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and Dewey Johnson, a Lumberton resident who served as a sergeant in Iraq from 2004 to 2005, was a follow-up session to a previous lesson taught by Barry Rosenzweig, a Freehold resident who served as sergeant first class in the U.S. Army.
When Rosenzweig, a former principal who worked in the Jackson Township School District, retired, he put together a lesson plan for teaching schoolchildren the meaning of the prisoners of war/ missing in action (POW/MIA) flags. He has been presenting the program in Jackson schools since 1999 and this year started the program in the Millstone school district.
The program teaches students that the wife of a soldier who went missing in action during the Vietnam War created the POW/MIA flag in 1971.
"A year went by and the soldier's wife hadn't heard about her husband," Brody said. "She wasn't getting answers from the U.S. military or the government, and wanted something to wave to get their attention."
Rosenzweig also teaches students that all of the symbols on the flag have meaning. The silhouette represents a U.S. soldier. The tower in the background is a watchtower with a Vietnamese soldier keeping a lookout. The barbed wire signifies that the soldier is being kept against his will. The half of the laurel wreath in the foreground pays homage to a tradition the ancient Greeks started by placing such wreaths on the heads of heroes who returned home from war.
In the follow-up session, Brody noted that the choice of black and white for the flag was intentional to depict that "there is no gray area" when it comes to the issue.
"We know there are prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action out there," he said.
Students also learned from Brody about Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC), which consists of teams of people who go out to various countries and look for prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.
During the first session of the educational program, students are asked to go home and speak to their parents about family members and friends who have served in the military. They are also asked to write letters to families with soldiers who are prisoners of war or missing in action. The follow-up program tests students' knowledge of the information presented in the earlier session, gives them the opportunity to listen to veterans, and allows them to hand in their letters.
Sixth-grader Christa Lebers wrote to the family of Bruce Edward Kane, a Marine missing in action.
"I hope that one day he will be properly rested so you, your family and Bruce will be at peace," Christa wrote.
Sixth-grader Douglas Jeffery wrote to the family of Frederic Woodrow Knapp, who went missing in action while serving in the Navy.
"If I was ever able to meet Frederic, I would be honored and say thank you for serving our country and making it a better place," Douglas wrote. "Frederic will never give up hope on coming home and you never have to give up hope. People are and always will be looking for him."
Sixth-grader Dean Apostolico wrote to the family of James B. Mills, who also went missing while on Navy duty. Dean told the family that his grandfather was a prisoner of war for a year during World War II. He said his grandfather died a couple of years after returning home from the war.
"You, James and all of the other prisoners of war and people who are MIA will never be forgotten," Dean wrote. "I know how hard it is to not know where somebody you love is. However, I never lose hope in seeing my loved one and you shouldn't either. I pray that one day you are reunited with your loved one. He is a true American hero."
During the assembly, Johnson spoke about the protective vest that he wore during combat that saved his life when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated, launching shrapnel at him.
"If I didn't have the vest on, I probably wouldn't be here," Johnson said. He allowed a group of students and sixthgrade social studies teacher Naura Sheehan to try his vest and helmet on. Sheehan said, "It's very heavy," as Johnson placed the helmet over her ponytail and Brody explained that all soldiers, even those in Iraq who face 140-degree temperatures in the desert during the day, have to wear the equipment for protection.
Overall, the program aims to get schoolchildren to better appreciate what men and women in the military do while serving the country and to respect veterans.
"If you see a veteran or a soldier, you should go up to them and thank them," Brody said before the veterans ended the program with a hand salute to the students and teachers who welcomed them into their school.
The Veterans of the Vietnam War Inc. and the Veterans Coalition New Jersey Post 03 is part of a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit founded in 1978 to seek help to further the cause of all veterans. The New Jersey post is dedicated to helping veterans in need and provides services and contacts for both able-bodied and disabled veterans. The group works to teach the public about both life in the military and life as a veteran. The group also works with other posts to build group homes for soldiers who need help transitioning back into society after military service.
The group welcomes members from all branches of service from all eras and war conflicts.
For more information or to help this organization, e-mail Richard Brody at rdbrody@aol.com.
Veterans group initiates new partnership with schools
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer
Millstone Township Middle School students are learning more about the sacrifices that military personnel and their families make during wartime.
The Veterans of the Vietnam War Inc. and the Veterans Coalition New Jersey Post 03, of Millstone, have partnered with the middle school to present students with an educational program about prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.
"Freedom is not free. It comes at a cost," Richard Brody, commander of New Jersey Post 03, told students during an assembly Jan. 15. "It comes at the sacrifice of soldiers all over the world and at the sacrifice of families who wait at home while their loved ones are gone."
There are currently 1.4 million United States military personnel serving in 40 countries around the world, according to Brody.
The assembly, presented by Brody and fellow veterans Bill Nurko, a Millstone resident who served as captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and Dewey Johnson, a Lumberton resident who served as a sergeant in Iraq from 2004 to 2005, was a follow-up session to a previous lesson taught by Barry Rosenzweig, a Freehold resident who served as sergeant first class in the U.S. Army.
When Rosenzweig, a former principal who worked in the Jackson Township School District, retired, he put together a lesson plan for teaching schoolchildren the meaning of the prisoners of war/ missing in action (POW/MIA) flags. He has been presenting the program in Jackson schools since 1999 and this year started the program in the Millstone school district.
The program teaches students that the wife of a soldier who went missing in action during the Vietnam War created the POW/MIA flag in 1971.
"A year went by and the soldier's wife hadn't heard about her husband," Brody said. "She wasn't getting answers from the U.S. military or the government, and wanted something to wave to get their attention."
Rosenzweig also teaches students that all of the symbols on the flag have meaning. The silhouette represents a U.S. soldier. The tower in the background is a watchtower with a Vietnamese soldier keeping a lookout. The barbed wire signifies that the soldier is being kept against his will. The half of the laurel wreath in the foreground pays homage to a tradition the ancient Greeks started by placing such wreaths on the heads of heroes who returned home from war.
In the follow-up session, Brody noted that the choice of black and white for the flag was intentional to depict that "there is no gray area" when it comes to the issue.
"We know there are prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action out there," he said.
Students also learned from Brody about Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC), which consists of teams of people who go out to various countries and look for prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.
During the first session of the educational program, students are asked to go home and speak to their parents about family members and friends who have served in the military. They are also asked to write letters to families with soldiers who are prisoners of war or missing in action. The follow-up program tests students' knowledge of the information presented in the earlier session, gives them the opportunity to listen to veterans, and allows them to hand in their letters.
Sixth-grader Christa Lebers wrote to the family of Bruce Edward Kane, a Marine missing in action.
"I hope that one day he will be properly rested so you, your family and Bruce will be at peace," Christa wrote.
Sixth-grader Douglas Jeffery wrote to the family of Frederic Woodrow Knapp, who went missing in action while serving in the Navy.
"If I was ever able to meet Frederic, I would be honored and say thank you for serving our country and making it a better place," Douglas wrote. "Frederic will never give up hope on coming home and you never have to give up hope. People are and always will be looking for him."
Sixth-grader Dean Apostolico wrote to the family of James B. Mills, who also went missing while on Navy duty. Dean told the family that his grandfather was a prisoner of war for a year during World War II. He said his grandfather died a couple of years after returning home from the war.
"You, James and all of the other prisoners of war and people who are MIA will never be forgotten," Dean wrote. "I know how hard it is to not know where somebody you love is. However, I never lose hope in seeing my loved one and you shouldn't either. I pray that one day you are reunited with your loved one. He is a true American hero."
During the assembly, Johnson spoke about the protective vest that he wore during combat that saved his life when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated, launching shrapnel at him.
"If I didn't have the vest on, I probably wouldn't be here," Johnson said. He allowed a group of students and sixthgrade social studies teacher Naura Sheehan to try his vest and helmet on. Sheehan said, "It's very heavy," as Johnson placed the helmet over her ponytail and Brody explained that all soldiers, even those in Iraq who face 140-degree temperatures in the desert during the day, have to wear the equipment for protection.
Overall, the program aims to get schoolchildren to better appreciate what men and women in the military do while serving the country and to respect veterans.
"If you see a veteran or a soldier, you should go up to them and thank them," Brody said before the veterans ended the program with a hand salute to the students and teachers who welcomed them into their school.
The Veterans of the Vietnam War Inc. and the Veterans Coalition New Jersey Post 03 is part of a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit founded in 1978 to seek help to further the cause of all veterans. The New Jersey post is dedicated to helping veterans in need and provides services and contacts for both able-bodied and disabled veterans. The group works to teach the public about both life in the military and life as a veteran. The group also works with other posts to build group homes for soldiers who need help transitioning back into society after military service.
The group welcomes members from all branches of service from all eras and war conflicts.
For more information or to help this organization, e-mail Richard Brody at rdbrody@aol.com.
04 January 2009
Veterans Memorial Wall Honors MIAs and POWs
The Desert Sun - Palm Springs, CA, USA
Honoring the missing
Aldrich M. Tan • The Desert Sun • January 4, 2009
Janene Milis never met her uncle, Ralph L. Wallace.
But that didn't stop the 56-year-old Palm Desert woman from honoring him Saturday as part of a ceremony held by the Indio-based East Valley Memorials Foundation.
The group, which seeks to honor military personnel classified as missing in action or prisoners of war, erected a wall in Coachella where relatives of those lost placed plaques in their honor Saturday.
Stationed in the Coachella Valley Cemetery, 82-925 Avenue 52, the memorial wall already contains more than 300 names. It was erected about a year ago.
“It feels like he is home,” Milis said of her uncle, a native of Bellfountain, Ore. “He is home with family that can come and see him.”
Killed Dec. 7, 1941, Wallace, a member of the U.S. Navy who worked as a fireman, was among thousands of military personnel aboard the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
His body was never recovered.
On Saturday, Milis quietly walked to the wall with her uncle's black plaque in her hands and placed it on the wall.
“I felt that these people should be picked up and accounted for like everyone else,” said Joe Zelazny, president of the East Valley Memorials Foundation.
Zelazny, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, said he understands the importance of honoring those who served their country.
He was a prisoner of war during the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 21, 1944.
“We're like an endangered species,” he said. “When we are gone, we are gone.”
Zelazny, a part-time Indio resident, said he has had success with a similar wall of honor in Tacoma, Wash.
His search for MIA/POW troops, which started in April for that specific wall, led to 83 names within 60 days.
Wallace's plaque joins five others on the western wall of the tribute. That includes four prisoners of war, including Zelazny, and another missing-in-action soldier, U.S. Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Floyd Hoover, who disappeared on Jan. 13, 1943, in Kiel, Germany.
Relatives of those classified as missing or prisoners of war decide what will be said on the plaques, Zelazny said.
Wallace's plaque reads: “You honored us and now we honor you forever in our hearts. Love Harry, Treva, Mary, and Janene.”
At least 20 more names will join Wallace's plaque by next month, Zelazny said.
One of those will be U.S. Army Air Corps Pfc. Herman R. Granados of La Quinta, one of the first casualties from the Coachella Valley during World War II.
Granados went missing in action in the Philippines in 1941, said his nephew Herman Granados, adjunct for American Legion Post 739 in Indio.
“This is really great,” Granados said of the tribute to POW/MIA soldiers.
Milis said it is the worst feeling knowing that her uncle's body can never return from its watery grave at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
The memorial, however, will be something tangible that her family can see to remember his sacrifice. She plans to visit the memorial “often and especially on Memorial Day.”
Honoring the missing
Aldrich M. Tan • The Desert Sun • January 4, 2009
Janene Milis never met her uncle, Ralph L. Wallace.
But that didn't stop the 56-year-old Palm Desert woman from honoring him Saturday as part of a ceremony held by the Indio-based East Valley Memorials Foundation.
The group, which seeks to honor military personnel classified as missing in action or prisoners of war, erected a wall in Coachella where relatives of those lost placed plaques in their honor Saturday.
Stationed in the Coachella Valley Cemetery, 82-925 Avenue 52, the memorial wall already contains more than 300 names. It was erected about a year ago.
“It feels like he is home,” Milis said of her uncle, a native of Bellfountain, Ore. “He is home with family that can come and see him.”
Killed Dec. 7, 1941, Wallace, a member of the U.S. Navy who worked as a fireman, was among thousands of military personnel aboard the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
His body was never recovered.
On Saturday, Milis quietly walked to the wall with her uncle's black plaque in her hands and placed it on the wall.
“I felt that these people should be picked up and accounted for like everyone else,” said Joe Zelazny, president of the East Valley Memorials Foundation.
Zelazny, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, said he understands the importance of honoring those who served their country.
He was a prisoner of war during the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 21, 1944.
“We're like an endangered species,” he said. “When we are gone, we are gone.”
Zelazny, a part-time Indio resident, said he has had success with a similar wall of honor in Tacoma, Wash.
His search for MIA/POW troops, which started in April for that specific wall, led to 83 names within 60 days.
Wallace's plaque joins five others on the western wall of the tribute. That includes four prisoners of war, including Zelazny, and another missing-in-action soldier, U.S. Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Floyd Hoover, who disappeared on Jan. 13, 1943, in Kiel, Germany.
Relatives of those classified as missing or prisoners of war decide what will be said on the plaques, Zelazny said.
Wallace's plaque reads: “You honored us and now we honor you forever in our hearts. Love Harry, Treva, Mary, and Janene.”
At least 20 more names will join Wallace's plaque by next month, Zelazny said.
One of those will be U.S. Army Air Corps Pfc. Herman R. Granados of La Quinta, one of the first casualties from the Coachella Valley during World War II.
Granados went missing in action in the Philippines in 1941, said his nephew Herman Granados, adjunct for American Legion Post 739 in Indio.
“This is really great,” Granados said of the tribute to POW/MIA soldiers.
Milis said it is the worst feeling knowing that her uncle's body can never return from its watery grave at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
The memorial, however, will be something tangible that her family can see to remember his sacrifice. She plans to visit the memorial “often and especially on Memorial Day.”
Former Comrades Remember Missing Soldier
San Gabriel Valley Tribune - West Covina, CA, USA
By Bethania Palma Markus, Staff Writer
Posted: 01/04/2009 10:25:37 PM PST
HACIENDA HEIGHTS - The plaque dedicated to Army medic James Moreland has long been an enigma in Hacienda Heights.
Since it was put in place in 1973, it has been both lost and stolen, and replaced twice by the Hacienda Heights Improvement Association.
But few in Hacienda Heights seemed to know who the young man was. Only sketchy details about his service in Vietnam and missing-in-action status have come to light.
Members of the Green Beret unit who fought alongside him in Lang Vei, Vietnam, friends and family members came forward recently to shed light on Moreland.
While even family members are unsure how the plaque came to rest in Hacienda Heights, they were able to describe how the young man who loved football and the outdoors ended up missing far from home.
"He was a tough little guy," said Dennis Thompson, a fellow soldier who was captured by the North Vietnamese Army in the same battle. "He was a good troop and he deserved better."
Moreland lived with his family in Alabama before moving to Anaheim, where he grew up, those who knew him said.
He graduated from Western High School, where he was a football star, attaining the status of All-Orange County Linebacker in 1962, according to friend Marvin Hahn of Thousand Oaks.
He attended junior college briefly before enlisting in the Special Forces in 1965 at the age of 20.
Moreland's brothers were in the Air Force and Navy, and he followed in their foot steps by joining the Army, said his niece, Lisa Newlander.
"They all tried to talk him out of going into the Special Forces but he wouldn't hear it," said Newlander, now 40.
The Puyallup, Wash. resident's own 16-year-old son was so moved by his great uncle's heroism in combat that he is considering joining the Special Forces, she said.
Moreland went MIA only months after beginning his tour in Vietnam. He landed in October 1967 and was last seen in a bunker under heavy attack by the North Vietnam Army in February 1968, records show.
The NVA had slowly been closing in on the Green Beret unit based at Lang Vei just before the Tet Offensive, Thompson said.
On the night of Feb. 6, the soldiers were horrified to see tanks bearing down on them, Thompson said.
What followed was a perfect storm of bad weather, miscommunication and malfunctioning weapons. Back-up and air support did not come until it was too late, he added, and shoulder-held rockets intended to stop tanks were useless.
"We were screwed," Thompson said. "Some of us were outside (fighting the NVA) and eight guys were trapped in the bunker."
Even as NVA tanks tried to cave in the bunker the American soldiers wouldn't give up, he said.
At one point, Moreland and fellow soldier John Early climbed into an observation tower and began firing on the tanks, but the flash from their weapons gave their location away, Thompson said.
A shot from a tank made a direct hit, killing Early, he said.
Moreland was gravely injured, suffering a serious head wound and was left behind in the bunker when the North Vietnamese Army overran it, witnesses said.
"I don't know whether Les was dead when they left or very, very close to it," Thompson said. "They had a window of a couple minutes to get out of that bunker to a secure landing zone."
Moreland was last seen just before the North Vietnamese overtook the camp and bunker. Witnesses said he appeared to be dead. He was never found.
His friends and family still await his return. Thompson said he has returned to Vietnam several times in search of the men still missing from his unit, including Moreland.
Kathy Strong, of Walnut Creek, said she has been wearing an MIA bracelet with Moreland's name on it, has vowed to wear it until Moreland is found and returned home.
The 48-year-old said she received it in a Christmas stocking when she was a 12-year-old child.
"The day I put it on I made a promise to keep it on until he came home," she said. "Never forget, that's my slogan."
Moreland's parents passed away without ever getting any answers, Newlander said, but they never stopped waiting.
"It was really hard for my grandma because they never brought him home," Newlander said. "There's a spot with a picture of my uncle in between my grandparents in a cemetery back in Alabama, so when he is brought home he can be buried in between them."
bethania.palma@sgvn.com
(626) 962-8811, Ext. 2236
By Bethania Palma Markus, Staff Writer
Posted: 01/04/2009 10:25:37 PM PST
HACIENDA HEIGHTS - The plaque dedicated to Army medic James Moreland has long been an enigma in Hacienda Heights.
Since it was put in place in 1973, it has been both lost and stolen, and replaced twice by the Hacienda Heights Improvement Association.
But few in Hacienda Heights seemed to know who the young man was. Only sketchy details about his service in Vietnam and missing-in-action status have come to light.
Members of the Green Beret unit who fought alongside him in Lang Vei, Vietnam, friends and family members came forward recently to shed light on Moreland.
While even family members are unsure how the plaque came to rest in Hacienda Heights, they were able to describe how the young man who loved football and the outdoors ended up missing far from home.
"He was a tough little guy," said Dennis Thompson, a fellow soldier who was captured by the North Vietnamese Army in the same battle. "He was a good troop and he deserved better."
Moreland lived with his family in Alabama before moving to Anaheim, where he grew up, those who knew him said.
He graduated from Western High School, where he was a football star, attaining the status of All-Orange County Linebacker in 1962, according to friend Marvin Hahn of Thousand Oaks.
He attended junior college briefly before enlisting in the Special Forces in 1965 at the age of 20.
Moreland's brothers were in the Air Force and Navy, and he followed in their foot steps by joining the Army, said his niece, Lisa Newlander.
"They all tried to talk him out of going into the Special Forces but he wouldn't hear it," said Newlander, now 40.
The Puyallup, Wash. resident's own 16-year-old son was so moved by his great uncle's heroism in combat that he is considering joining the Special Forces, she said.
Moreland went MIA only months after beginning his tour in Vietnam. He landed in October 1967 and was last seen in a bunker under heavy attack by the North Vietnam Army in February 1968, records show.
The NVA had slowly been closing in on the Green Beret unit based at Lang Vei just before the Tet Offensive, Thompson said.
On the night of Feb. 6, the soldiers were horrified to see tanks bearing down on them, Thompson said.
What followed was a perfect storm of bad weather, miscommunication and malfunctioning weapons. Back-up and air support did not come until it was too late, he added, and shoulder-held rockets intended to stop tanks were useless.
"We were screwed," Thompson said. "Some of us were outside (fighting the NVA) and eight guys were trapped in the bunker."
Even as NVA tanks tried to cave in the bunker the American soldiers wouldn't give up, he said.
At one point, Moreland and fellow soldier John Early climbed into an observation tower and began firing on the tanks, but the flash from their weapons gave their location away, Thompson said.
A shot from a tank made a direct hit, killing Early, he said.
Moreland was gravely injured, suffering a serious head wound and was left behind in the bunker when the North Vietnamese Army overran it, witnesses said.
"I don't know whether Les was dead when they left or very, very close to it," Thompson said. "They had a window of a couple minutes to get out of that bunker to a secure landing zone."
Moreland was last seen just before the North Vietnamese overtook the camp and bunker. Witnesses said he appeared to be dead. He was never found.
His friends and family still await his return. Thompson said he has returned to Vietnam several times in search of the men still missing from his unit, including Moreland.
Kathy Strong, of Walnut Creek, said she has been wearing an MIA bracelet with Moreland's name on it, has vowed to wear it until Moreland is found and returned home.
The 48-year-old said she received it in a Christmas stocking when she was a 12-year-old child.
"The day I put it on I made a promise to keep it on until he came home," she said. "Never forget, that's my slogan."
Moreland's parents passed away without ever getting any answers, Newlander said, but they never stopped waiting.
"It was really hard for my grandma because they never brought him home," Newlander said. "There's a spot with a picture of my uncle in between my grandparents in a cemetery back in Alabama, so when he is brought home he can be buried in between them."
bethania.palma@sgvn.com
(626) 962-8811, Ext. 2236
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