Sunday, September 22, 2013

OFF THE WIRE



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20th WAS POW/MIA RECOGNITION AWARENESS DAY!
Bits and Pieces: from Bill Bell author of "Leave No Man Behind"
Based on information I received from staffers I mailed a total of 27 copies of “Leave No Man Behind: Bill Bell and the Search for American POWs and MIAs”. Counting the cost of the books, postage and bubble mailing envelopes I am now out a total of $661.15. I am retired on a fixed income, please try to distribute these books to the right people so I won’t be throwing my money away. According to the tracking record the books have all been delivered in Washington, DC. Each book is personalized with the name of the recipient inside the front cover. If you incur additional costs due to handling this donation please let me know and I will reimburse.
Sincerely,
Bill Bell
Armed Services Committee Staffers
228 Russell Senate office Building
Washington D.C. 20510-6050
The ten Staffers names are:
ERIN CONATON
PETER LEVINE
SUSAN NIEMEYER
CHRIS PAUL
BRIAN POTTS
ARUN SERAPHIN
JAMES SIMMONS
JOHN WASON.
JOHN CHAPLA
JANESSE SIMLER

Mismanagement of POW/MIA Accounting Hearing
Democrat Members
McCaskill, Claire (MO) (Chairman)
Carper, Thomas R. (DE)
Levin, Carl (MI)
Pryor, Mark L. (AR)
Landrieu, Mary L. (LA)
Tester, Jon (MT)
Begich, Mark (AK)
Baldwin, Tammy (WI)
Heitkamp, Heidi (ND)
Republican Members
Coburn, Tom (OK), Ranking Member
McCain, John (AZ)
Johnson, Ron (WI)
Portman, Rob (OH)
Paul, Rand (KY)
Enzi, Michael B. (WY)
Ayotte, Kelly (NH)
Chiesa, Jeff (NJ)


http://www.koamtv.com/story/23455240/mccaskill-demands-answers-on-powmia-fellowship-program
McCaskill Demands Answers on POW/MIA Fellowship Program
Updated: Sep 17, 2013 12:22 PM CDT
NEWS RELEASE ISSUED BY THE OFFICE OF U.S. SENATOR CLAIRE MCCASKILL (MO.)
Following reports that accounting efforts are deeply disorganized, Senator requests information on program costs, quality controls
WASHINGTON – After leading a recent Senate hearing showing POW/MIA accounting efforts in disarray, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today demanded answers concerning the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellowship program—a program that the Department of Defense heavily relies on to conduct those efforts.
“It’s clear that POW and MIA accounting efforts are disorganized and lacking oversight,” said McCaskill, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial & Contracting Oversight and daughter of a World War II veteran. “This fellowship program is taking up significant resources and we need some better information on where this money is going and how it’s aiding recovery efforts. That’s one step toward fixing this, and giving the families of our POW and MIA troops confidence again in these efforts.”
McCaskill is seeking information from both the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, and the President of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Andy Page. McCaskill’s letters seek detailed information on the funding of the program, its participants, as well as documents describing the relationship between the Oak Ridge and the Department of Defense.
“I (have) learned that the Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC)…relies heavily on ORISE fellows to accomplish its mission, and that a significant portion of what JPAC pays for fellows goes toward overhead,” McCaskill’s letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz reads.
A recent report from the Government Accountability Office showed that multiple groups had overlapping authority and control over POW/MIA searches, and lacked a cohesive mission. The report also says that the various operations would be more efficient and transparent if they were centralized under a single command structure.
McCaskill, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently demanded answers about an internal report that found that a Pentagon program aimed at finding, identifying, and returning the remains of American troops missing in action has been woefully mismanaged—and that senior officials may have suppressed the critical report.
A copy of McCaskill’s letters to Energy Secretary Moniz and Oak Ridge Associated University’s President Andy Page are available online HERE.
Read more about McCaskill’s fight for stronger accountability in Washington, HERE.
Archbishop Broglio Calls for Prayers on
National POW/MIA Recognition Day
Asks faithful to remember U.S. prisoners of war and those missing in action
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Each year on the third Friday of September, the United States officially honors all Americans ever held as prisoners of war and those still missing in action. This year, National POW/MIA Recognition Day falls on Friday, September 20. His Excellency, the Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio, J.C.D., Archbishop for the Military Services, invites the faithful to spend a few more moments in prayer on Friday to remember those brave men and women and their families who sacrificed their freedom for ours.
Archbishop Broglio said:
“Upon reflection we cannot help but realize that each casualty and every wounded warrior represents not one, but many lives affected. For those who are prisoners or missing in action, their fate is uncertain, cruel and, at least as far as their loved ones are concerned, without closure. Please pray on the 2013 National POW/MIA Recognition Day, and every day, for the service members whose whereabouts are still unknown. Pray for their families and those working hard to bring them closure. Pray that no more service members will face captivity or go “missing in action,” and that all our deployed servicemen and women will return safely home. Above all, pray for just and lasting peace.”
Vietnam POW Reunion, Nixon Whitehouse
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=LemllfcAY8A&sns=em
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130918/NEWS01/130918014/Remains-Clarksville-Vietnam-MIA-found-nearly-50-years-after-plane-shot-down-
Remains of Clarksville Vietnam MIA found nearly 50 years after plane shot down
CLARKSVILLE, TENN. — The family of a Vietnam-era 5th Special Forces Group soldier, Clarksville native Staff Sgt. Lawrence Woods, reported on Tuesday that his remains had been found, nearly 49 years after his plane was shot down over Cambodia in Oct. 1964.
Grandson Bobby Woods told The Leaf-Chronicle late Tuesday afternoon that his aunt, Lisa Szymanski of Fort Myers, Fla., had been contacted by representatives of the Past Conflicts Repatriation Branch in Fort Knox, Ky., and informed of the find.
“It’s overwhelming,” said Bobby Woods. “Today is my daughter’s 5th birthday and we get this news that they found my grandfather. I just can’t believe it.”
'All this time'
Szymanski confirmed the news by phone at approximately 7:15 p.m.
“I still can’t process this,” Szymanski said of the find. “It’s like, am I really hearing this after more than 48 years? They found my father?
“I still can’t comprehend that this is really happening. God, I really thought I would die not knowing.
“What really hurt me, when I hung up the phone after talking to the lady from the casualty morgue, was thinking, “Oh, my God, he’s been in that plane all this time.”
All but one
Staff Sgt. Lawrence Woods was one of a crew of eight – five Air Force crewmembers and three Army personnel – aboard a Fairchild C-123 “Provider,” which took off from Na Trang on Oct. 24, 1964 to conduct a resupply mission for ground forces operating near the border of then-South Vietnam and Cambodia.
The aircraft was hit by enemy fire and crashed near the resupply point, observed by soldiers on the ground. No parachutes were seen leaving the plane, which was completely destroyed by fire except for the tail section.
Subsequent searches located seven bodies, but Woods was not found.
Two telegrams
In Clarksville, Steve Woods, who was 7 years old the last time he saw his father, called Tuesday, “the happiest day of my entire life.”.
In his front yard on Circle Drive, there stands a memorial to his father with two flagpoles – one bearing the American flag and the other a black-and-white POW/MIA flag. It is a testament to the persistence of memory and the power of hope beyond hope.
We were living out on Dover Road with my mom and two sisters,” said Steve, recounting his last memory of his father in 1963. “The thing that I remember was I was playing on the front porch.
“My dad came out of the house with his uniform on and his duffel bag and that’s when he said he had to leave.”
“My mom got two telegrams. One in 1964 that said he was missing, and another one in 1965 that said he was dead.”
'I never gave up'
Steve Woods remembered the intervening years and the hard job his mother had in raising three children as the years slid by and no definitive word ever came, leaving the wound open and the questions unanswered.
“Mom passed away in 1994,” Steve said as the tears came.
“I would give anything in the world if my mom could be part of this.”
He gathered himself and said, “I know she is.”
Others in the family gave up thinking that his father would ever be found, Steve said, insisting he didn’t and telling how he begged Heaven for one thing.
“I got down on my knees,” said Steve, a deeply religious man. “I said, ‘Before I leave this old world, I want my dad’s remains to be brought back so I can lay him to rest.’
“I never gave up on that. I held onto that. After all these years, I can close the chapter on the book of his life. The precious Lord gave me a miracle”
Serendipity
The word the family received is that there is supposed to be a funeral at Arlington Cemetery in the springtime. Arlington is currently backlogged by months, but Steve says he doesn’t mind and considers it right that his father should be laid to rest with those he died with on that plane that went down so long ago, a half a world away.
Coincidentally, his father’s unit, 5th Special Forces Group, is having its reunion in nearby Oak Grove this weekend. Steve Woods wonders if there might be some among the 5th Group veterans who remember his dad, and he hopes to be able to meet someone who might be able to share a memory or two.
It would indeed add another layer of serendipity to a week that just happens to coincide with National POW/MIA Recognition Day on Friday, the third Friday in September, set aside to honor those who have yet to make the journey home.
With this latest find, there remains only one Clarksville Vietnam-era MIA left to be brought back – Sgt. Donald Peter Gervais, who has been missing since May 1968.
UPDATE: September 13, 2013
AMERICANS ACCOUNTED-FOR: There are now 1,644 personnel listed by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) as missing and unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War. This week, there was finally an ID made and DPMO posted. The remains of Colonel Francis J. McGouldrick, USAF, CT, listed as MIA in Laos on December 13, 1968, as now accounted-for, with remains repatriated May 22, 2012 and identified August 28, 2013. The number of Americans announced by DPMO as returned and identified since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 is now 939. Another 63 US personnel, recovered by the US and ID’d before the end of the war, bring the official total of remains repatriated from the Vietnam War to 1,002. Of the 1,644 unaccounted-for personnel, 90% were lost in Vietnam or in areas of Cambodia and Laos under Vietnam’s wartime control: Vietnam-1,276 (VN-469, VS-807); Laos-308; Cambodia-53; PRC territorial waters-7; over-water losses are on DPMO’s list as No Further Pursuit number well over 600.
OPERATIONS IN LAOS: US-Lao Bilateral POW/MIA Consultations, led by JPAC Commander Maj Gen Kelly McKeague, USAF, with Embassy-Vientiane and DPMO representatives participating, were held in Vientiane, Laos, on August 16th, the most productive such discussions in quite some time. At long last, the Lao Government agreed to allow the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Stony Beach POW/MIA specialist to pursue field investigations year-round, on an as-needed basis, obviously accompanied by a Lao counterpart. This important step, in keeping with the improved political, economic and military relationship, was long overdue and is most welcome. Also welcome was their earlier decision to renew a business license for Helicopters New Zealand, the company JPAC previously contracted to provide smaller, certified-safe helicopter support for remote site access, and agreement-in-principle to permit base-camping at/near incident sites. This agreement will be tested during the October 16 – November 29th JFA. If current plans hold and funds are available, use of the smaller helicopters is scheduled to occur after the first of the year. The League deeply appreciates Laos’ responsiveness to specific appeals for the favorable decisions on Stony Beach participation, helicopter contracting and on site base-camping and looks forward to a renewed pace of operations.
Ambassador-Designate to Laos Dan Clune (cited as “designate” until he presents his credentials in Vientiane) was recently confirmed by the US Senate. The League Chairman of the Board met with Ambassador-Designate Clune and attended his formal swearing-in ceremony at the State Department on August 27th. He is replacing Ambassador Karen Stewart, who is now serving in a new position. On her third assignment in Laos, Ambassador Stewart’s knowledge of and commitment to the POW/MIA accounting was most helpful and will be sorely missed.
VIETNAM OPERATIONS: Another month-long JPAC mission, involving six Recovery Teams (RTs) and two Investigation Teams (ITs), began August 5th and just concluded on September 7th. US-Vietnam POW/MIA Consultations will be held in late September, led by JPAC Commander Maj Gen McKeague, with DPMO, DIA’s Stony Beach and Embassy-Hanoi participation. A commemorative dinner will be held to celebrate recent years of steadily improving POW/MIA cooperation. Although invited to attend representing the League and all the families, the League Chairman declined and, instead, sent a letter to be read.
In an important development, Vietnamese President Sang recently led a large delegation to Washington, during which Presidents Sang and Obama met at the White House. Senior Vietnamese leaders met with counterpart officials at the Departments of Defense, State, Commerce and Veterans Affairs, and with Members of Congress. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a luncheon in honor of President Sang and his delegation at the State Department, and League Chairman of the Board Ann Mills-Griffiths attended that function, as well as a meeting of Vietnamese and US veterans.
CAMBODIA FIELD OPERATIONS POSTPONED: Unfortunately, JPAC postponed field operations scheduled in Cambodia last February that were to include two RTs and one Underwater Recovery Team (URT). Despite serious efforts by Commander JPAC, recently imposed US legal requirements were not met in time to proceed. Legal hurdles, never before obstacles to cooperation, are requirements under new regulations, but now appear to have been resolved. Thus, the long-delayed JFA is ongoing and expected to conclude on September 19th. US Ambassador to Cambodia William Todd visited JPAC Headquarters earlier this summer and held a “round-table” with senior JPAC staff. It is hoped the obstacles raised by the US bureaucracy will not recur to pose further difficulties for the JPAC teams and counterpart Cambodian officials who, though puzzled, have been most patient.
COMMISSION CHARTER: At long last, the White House approved the official charter of the US-Russia Joint Commission (USRJC) on POW/MIAs. Nothing further has been heard since the public announcement at the VFW National Convention in Louisville, KY, in July. Since Secretary of State John Kerry was confirmed months ago, his position on the USRJC as the Senate Democrat has been vacant, but the League is hopeful that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will name another Senate Democrat willing to be actively engaged. The other USRJC Congressional members are Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), and Representatives Sam Johnson (R-TX) and Tim Walz (D-MN). We appreciate the patience that these Commissioners and US Chairman General Robert “Doc” Foglesong, USAF (Ret) have shown throughout the unwarranted delay. We anticipate a meeting of the US side of the USRJC in which family member and veteran group representatives will participate.
GAO FINDS ACCOUNTING COMMUNITY TO BE DYSFUNCTIONAL: The congressionally mandated study by the General Accountability Office (GAO) completed its year-long investigation into all aspects of the accounting community. Though not as in-depth and penetrating as some might wish, the outcome was objective, with some recommendations that warrant attention and corrective action. Unfortunately, there was over-reaction at the highest levels in DoD, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, USA, who cited the accusations as “discouraging” and moving rapidly toward “disgraceful.” To complicate matters, an internal draft study by a temporary ORISE (Oak Ridge Institute for Science & Education) fellow, Dr. Paul Cole, hired by JPAC’s Lab leadership, was earlier leaked to House Armed Service Committee (HASC) staff, then to AP journalist Bob Burns, timed to coincide with release of the GAO report. The resulting clamor brought about hearings in the HASC Subcommittee on Military Personnel and the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Contracting and Oversight.
Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) heard testimony from DPMO Director/Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Montague Winfield, JPAC Commander Major General Kelly McKeague, USAF, and Chief of the Artifact Section, Life Science Equipment Laboratory (LSEL) John Goines. It was clear from both Senators that they are focused sharply on the GAO recommendations, chief among them the recommendation for reorganization that will ensure a streamlined chain of command, and with one commander at the top. It was also made clear that if the accounting community could not agree on how to proceed, the Senate would provide its own solution. There was clearly no patience for the infighting and dysfunction that has long plagued the POW/MIA issue and prevented a unified effort to develop the capability and capacity to increase the level of remains identifications to at least 200 per year, as called for in the 2010 Defense Authorization Bill. The dissension stems in large part from DPMO’s inability or unwillingness since formed in 1992 to fulfill its assigned role – policy control and oversight of the POW/MIA accounting mission, opting instead to become operational. As requested by Chairman McCaskill, League Chairman Ann Mills-Griffiths provided a Statement for the Record.
The HASC Subcommittee hearing called Dr. Cole and a GAO official to testify on the results of their respective assessments, though the Cole study, entitled “Information Value Chain,” was much earlier renounced in its entirety by former JPAC Commander MG Stephen Tom, USA. Just after the leak to AP, the League posted the following statement on our website: “Months ago, Chairman of the Board Ann Mills-Griffiths, and League Policy Advisor Richard Childress reviewed the report regarding JPAC that was authored by Paul Cole. The report and the assertions made in it reflect little more than a power-play within the organization. Recommendations made by Cole, if followed, would have set back efforts of the accounting community in a drastic way. The League continues to support the efforts to achieve the fullest possible accounting and the work being done by each of the agencies in support of that mission – including JPAC.”
ANOTHER HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE PROPOSED: Representative Michelle Bachman (R-MN), recently introduced H. Resolution 231, requiring ”a select committee to be known as the Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs” to be formed. This Select Committee would be charged to “conduct a full investigation of all unresolved matters relating to any United States personnel unaccounted for from the Vietnam era, the Korean conflict, World War II, Cold War Missions, Persian Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation Enduring Freedom, including MIAs and POWs missing and captured.” If formed, this select committee would be empowered to hold hearings, hire staff and conduct interviews for the remainder of the 113th Congress, i.e. for two years until the next election is held for the House of Representatives. Comment: The League strongly opposes H. Res. 231, due to past experience about the detrimental impact that would likely occur. In a worst-case scenario, the League would consider supporting such a proposal, but only as a last resort.
OTHER CONGRESSIONAL ACTIONS: Also introduced by Rep. Michelle Bachman, H.R. 2091 would “amend Title 36, United States Code, to require that the POW/MIA flag be displayed on all days that the flag of the United States is displayed on certain Federal property.” Introduction of this measure is appreciated, but chances of passage are almost nil due to the scope and financial impact of adoption.
Joe Oliver commented on a link Tara O'Grady shared.
Joe wrote: "O'GRADY, JOHN FRANCIS Name: John Francis O'Grady Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force Unit: Date of Birth: Home City of Record: New Hyde Park NY Date of Loss: 10 April 1967 Country of Loss: North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 175000N 1054600E (WE795662) Status (in 1973): Missing In Action Category: 2 Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing) REMARKS: EJECTED - NO RADIO CONTACT Source: Compiled from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 2013. SYNOPSIS: Between April 17, 1965 and December 31, 1971, 43 American airmen were lost and listed as MIA in a 33.3 mile square window of the world known as the MuGia Pass on the North Vietnam/Lao border. Yet, over 13 years after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords and almost 13 years after the Department of Defense announced that no American POWs remained in Southeast Asia, not one of these men has been officially accounted for by either the Vietnamese or Lao governments, or officially recovered through US/Vietnamese/Lao negotiations. John O'Grady is one of those men. On April 10, 1967, Maj. John F. O'Grady led his element of F105D fighter/bombers through the Mu Gia Pass on the border of Laos and North Vietnam. Upon reaching the Vietnam side of the Pass, they turned back to initiate bombing attacks on selected targets. Upon reaching his target, O'Grady began his bombing run without opposition with his wingman 20 seconds to his rear. Approaching the target, he did not like his alignment. Rather than "drop and run", he aborted his first run and rolled in behind his wingman for a second attack, and his third exposure to enemy gunners. This time, O'Grady's aircraft was hit and he radioed, "Losing control, got to get out." The wingman at first could not locate O'Grady's plane or parachute, but did witness his bombs land directly on target. Scanning the skies, the wingman finally saw O'Grady's parachute in the air southwest of the target. However, the wind was blowing O'Grady back to the area of the strike. According to the senior officer in the air, they could have rescued him except for the wind. O'Grady's parachute disappeared the instant it touched down. The exact spot was pinpointed but rescue planes found to trace of him when they searched the area minutes later while under intense ground fire. Later intelligence indicated that O'Grady's target had been a well-organized, heavily armed battalion of enemy troops moving south through the Pass. The next day, two radio broadcasts out of Hanoi and Peking detailed the capture of American pilots, identifying one of the provinces as the one where O'Grady went down. He was the only many shot down in that province that day, and the only pilot lost that week over all of North Vietnam. Although the Air Force concluded that O'Grady was "in all probability taken captive", he was listed Missing in Action, and his status was never changed to Prisoner of War. It seems improbable that in one of the most heavily traveled sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, all 43 men lost went unnoticed by the other side. Although there is ample evidence to show otherwise, the governments of Laos and Vietnam claim no knowledge of the fates of these men. [r0641.97] PROJECT X SUMMARY SELECTION RATIONALE NAME: O'GRADY, John F., Maj, USAF OFFICIAL STATUS: MISSING CASE SUMMARY: SEE ATTACHED RATIONALE FOR SELECTION: After ejection from his stricken aircraft, Major O'Grady's parachute was seen twice in the air and once on the ground by a wingman of his flight. However, search and rescue aircraft were unable to re-locate his position. There have been no reports of Major O'Grady's possible capture or death. REFNO: 0641 19 Apr 76 (U) CASE SUMMARY 1. On . 10 April 1967, Maj John, F. O'Grady was the pilot of an F105D aircraft, (#624357, call sign Newark 03), the number three aircraft in a flight of four on an armed reconnaissance mission over the Mu Gia Pass in North Vietnam. Upon reaching Maj O'Grady maneuvered for a bomb run the target area, however, it was aborted because he was not lined up properly. He told the pilot of the number four aircraft to make his pass and he would follow. Number four made his pass and called off the target. He did not observe Maj. O'Grady making his bomb run but he did observe Maj. O'Grady's ordnance impact. (Ref 1 & 2) 2. A short time later, the flight heard Maj O'Grady say he was pulling off target to the southwest and was receiving ground fire. Then Maj. O'Grady stated, " I think I'm hit., got an overheat light." He said his engine was running but he was losing control and would have to get out. He was asked if he were in the target area but received no reply. Number four circled in the area and twice spotted Maj O'Grady's parachute in the air and once on the ground in the vicinity of grid coordinates (GC) WE 819 719. The pilot of the number four aircraft was too high to actually observe if Maj. O'Grady was in the parachute. (Ref 1- & 2) 3. After his election, no beeper signals were heard and no radio contact was made. (His aircraft may have crashed in the vicinity of (GC) WE 795 662.) Search efforts were initiated, but Maj O'Grady was never seen. (Ref 1 & 2) 4. During the existence of JCRC, the hostile threat in the area precluded any visits to or ground inspections of the sites involved in this case. This individual's -name and identifying data were turned over to the Four-Party Joint Military Team with a request for any information available. No response was forthcoming. Maj. O'Grady is currently carried in -the status of missing. REFERENCES USED 1. MSG (U), 355th CSG, 101505Z Apr 67. 2. RPT (U), 355th CSG, (CBPO-PA) AF Form 484 w/stmts, 14 Apr 67. * National Alliance of Families Home Page"

Hi everyone.
I received the following encouraging email from Jason Frye today and thought it worth forwarding to each of you... in hopes everyone is doing all they can to convince those involved in gathering information in support of open Congressional POW/MIA hearings this year, or early next year: to create a new improved organization to replace the current dysfunctional DPMO/JPAC structural construct???
Best Regards,
Bob Miller
POW/MIA Program historian


> Subject: National POW/MIA Day
> Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 21:36:04 +0000
>
> All,
> I wanted to send along this dear colleague to you and let you know that
> on National POW/MIA Day, we’re thinking of all of you, and the 83,000
> American’s who’ve never made it back. On behalf of Congresswoman
> Bachmann, I want to thank you for your efforts thus far, and your
> dedication to the POW/MIA issue. We’re continuing to gather cosponsors
> and build support for H Res 231, while simultaneously seeking changes
> to the current system at JPAC and DPMO.
> I’ve included a letter sent out today to members of congress, and the
> congresswoman’s social media hits commemorating today.
>
> Dear Colleague,
>
> Since our nation’s founding, patriots from all walks of life have been
> willing to sacrifice everything for the freedom of others. Brave men
> and women in our military loyally defend the United States, and we have
> an obligation to support them, both those in harm’s way and those left
> behind.
>
> Today, September 20, is National POW/MIA Recognition Day. This serves
> as a reminder to each of us that more than 83,000 Americans are still
> unaccounted for from military conflicts overseas since World War II.
> This day reminds us our responsibility to them is not yet over.
>
> Here at the Capitol and back in your districts you will see the iconic
> black flags honoring those who never came home. We must uphold the
> solemn message of those flags, “You are not forgotten,” and we must
> never forget our duty to those who have paid the ultimate price for
> freedom.
>
> Today and every day, our POWs and MIAs weigh on our hearts and
> consciences. As a Congress, we must provide diligent oversight to
> improve how we investigate, locate, and recover our brave Americans.
> Please join me in honoring our commitment to the 83,000 unaccounted for
> service members who readily answered their nation’s call to service and
> become a CO-SPONSOR of H Res 231. For more information or to become a
> co-sponsor, please contact Jason Frye of my staff at 5-2331; or
> jason.frye@mail.house.gov<mailto:jason.frye@mail.house.gov>.
>
> https://www.facebook.com/RepMicheleBachmann/posts/10152252351154358 >
>
> https://twitter.com/MicheleBachmann/status/381136858669129728 >
>
> Thanks again for all you do. If you need anything from me, please let
> me know.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jason Jackson Frye
> Legislative Assistant
> Congresswoman Michele Bachmann MN06
> 2417 Rayburn House Office Building
> Washington DC 20515
> 202-225-2331
> 
Attached please find Flyer information on 24 Hour POW/MIA Vigil in Metuchen NJ Sept 20 /21.
Vigil will open and readings will begin.Dog Tags will be hung in Bamboo Cage candles will be lit.
Ceromies are most moving in the evening hours. Closing will begin around 10;30am on the 21 .American Ex-Prisoner of War National Commander Charles Susino will be at ceromonies plus a couple of other American Ex-Prisoners of War.
Sincerely
Walter Zjawin
Commander American Legion Post 65
Metuchen NJ

Wonder why Hollywood never touched this story?


Moe Berg:

A second-rate baseball player but a first-rate spy.

When baseball greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig went on tour in baseball-crazy Japan in 1934, some fans wondered why a third-string catcher named Moe Berg was included.

The answer was simple: Berg was a US spy. Speaking 15 languages—including Japanese—Moe Berg had two loves: baseball and spying.

In Tokyo, garbed in a kimono, Berg took flowers to the daughter of an American diplomat being treated in St. Luke’s Hospital--the tallest building in the Japanese capital. He never delivered the flowers.

The ball-player ascended to the hospital roof and filmed key features: the harbor, military installations, railway yards, etc.

Eight years later, General Jimmy Doolittle studied Berg’s films in planning his spectacular raid on Tokyo.

Catcher Moe Berg:

Berg’s father, Bernard Berg, a pharmacist in Newark, New Jersey, taught his son Hebrew and Yiddish. Moe, against his wishes, began playing baseball on the street aged four. His father disapproved and never once watched his son play. In Barringer High School, Moe learned Latin, Greek and French. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton—having added Spanish, Italian, German and Sanskrit to his linguistic quiver, During further studies at the Sorbonne, in Paris, and Columbia Law School he picked up Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Arabic, Portuguese and Hungarian—15 languages in all, plus some regional dialects.

While playing baseball for Princeton University, Moe Berg would describe plays in Latin or Sanskrit.

Tito’s partisans:

During World War II, he was parachuted into Yugoslavia to assess the value to the war effort of the two groups of partisans there. He reported back that Marshall Tito’s forces were widely supported by the people and Winston Churchill ordered all-out support for the Yugoslav underground fighter, rather than Mihajlovic’s Serbians.

The parachute jump at age 41 undoubtedly was a challenge. But there was more to come in that same year.

Berg penetrated German-held Norway, met with members of the underground and located a secret heavy water plant—part of the Nazis’ effort to build an atomic bomb. His information guided the Royal Air Force in a bombing raid to destroy the plant.

The R.A.F. destroys the Norwegian heavy water plant targeted by Moe Berg.

There still remained the question of how far had the Nazis progressed in the race to build the first Atomic bomb. If the Nazis were successful, they would win the war.

Berg (under the code name “Remus”) was sent to Switzerland to hear leading German physicist Werner Heisenberg, a Nobel Laureate, lecture and determine if the Nazis were close to building an A-bomb. Moe managed to slip past the SS guards at the auditorium., posing as a Swiss graduate student. The spy carried in his pocket a pistol and a cyanide pill. If the German indicated the Nazis were close to building a weapon, Berg was to shoot him—and then swallow the cyanide pill. Moe, sitting in the front row, determined that the Germans were nowhere near their goal, so he complimented Heisenberg on his speech and walked him back to his hotel.

Werner Heisenberg—he blocked the Nazis from acquiring an atomic bomb.

Moe Berg’s report was distributed to Britain’s Prime Minister,

Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and key figures in the team developing the Atomic Bomb.

Roosevelt responded:

“Give my regards to the catcher.”

(Most of Germany’s leading physicists had been Jewish and had fled the Nazis mainly to Britain and the United States.)

After the war, Moe Berg was awarded the Medal of Merit—America’s highest honor for a civilian in wartime. But Berg refused to accept, as he couldn’t tell people about his exploits. (After his death, his sister accepted the Medal and it hangs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, N.Y..)

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once described Moe Berg as a “most unusual fellow.”

When the war ended, Moe Berg found himself unemployed. He did receive occasional intelligence assignments, including a visit to the Soviet Union, where his ability to speak Russia was valuable. Traveling with other agents, when asked for credentials, by a Soviet border guard in Russian-dominated Czechoslovakia, he showed the soldier a letter from the Texaco Oil company, with its big red star. The illiterate soldier was satisfied.

He lived with his brother Samuel for seventeen years and, when evicted, spent his last final years with his sister, Ethel. A lifelong bachelor, he never owned a home or even rented an apartment. He never learned how to drive.

When someone criticized him for wasting his talent, Berg responded:

“I’d rather be a ballplayer than a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

A cartoon about Moe Berg:

He would often drop in, unannounced, at friends’ homes—expecting to be fed.

He always wore a black suit (he had eight), a white shirt and a black tie.

His interest in baseball continued throughout his life. Moments before he died (aged 70), Berg asked his nurse:

“How are the Mets doing today?”
http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/war-zones/pakistan-frees-7-afghan-taliban-prisoners-move-may-help-peace-process/2013/09/07/14ec5b0c-17cd-11e3-961c-f22d3aaf19ab_story.html?tid=HP_world
Pakistan frees 7 Afghan Taliban prisoners; move may help peace process
By Pamela Constable, Published: September 7
KABUL — In a goodwill gesture toward Afghanistan, Pakistani authorities announced Saturday that they had released seven Afghan Taliban prisoners, including the brother of a former senior insurgent commander who was killed in 2007.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry in Islamabad said the release of Mansoor Dadullah and six other insurgents was carried out “to further facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process” and that it had now freed a total of 26 Taliban detainees in the past year.
The gesture came more than two weeks after Afghan President Hamid Karzai traveled to Islamabad to ask the Pakistani government for help in restarting peace negotiations with the Islamist insurgents. There were expectations that Pakistan might turn over some prisoners to him then, but Karzai returned empty-handed.
Afghan officials played down the significance of Pakistan’s gesture Saturday, declining to comment publicly but privately calling it a small step toward reviving the peace talks. They have long accused next-door Pakistan of seeking to destabilize their government and of covertly supporting the Taliban.
Afghan officials also appeared to be annoyed that the men were released straight from Pakistani prisons and allowed to go free, rather than being delivered to Afghan authorities. While hoping such former prisoners can participate in negotiations, they also fear the men may take up arms again if not carefully monitored.
Dadullah, the most important prisoner to be freed, is the younger brother of Mullah Dadullah, a senior Taliban commander who was killed by British forces in southern Afghanistan in 2007. Mullah Dadullah had been known for his cruel tactics of suicide bombings and beheadings. The brother replaced him as commander in several southern provinces.
Afghan and U.S. officials view Pakistan as having a crucial role in bringing Taliban leaders to the negotiating table, although Taliban and Pakistani leaders have said that is an exaggerated perception of Pakistan’s influence. Many senior Taliban, including top leader Mohammed Omar, are believed to live in Pakistan.
Pakistani security forces have played a complicated role in the triangular relationship with Afghanistan and the United States. They have collaborated with U.S. agencies in tracking and arresting both Afghan and Pakistani militants, but they have also been said to detain them selectively for their own reasons.
One of the most important Taliban prisoners in Pakistan, Abdul Ghani Baradar, was not among those freed Saturday. Baradar was captured in Pakistan in 2010, and many Afghans believe this was done to stop him from promoting peace talks. Afghan officials Saturday said they expected “additional and more significant steps” by Pakistan, including the release of Baradar.
Afghan and U.S. officials hope that moderate leaders like Baradar can draw their fellow militants into peace talks and change the insurgency into a political group. Otherwise, there is growing concern that the Taliban will intensify its military campaign after most U.S. combat forces leave the country by the end of next year.
Special correspondent Hussain Shaiq reported from Islamabad
Leave No Man Behind, by Bill Bell
I received your book today, and , already, I can't put it down. Of course, that could be considered as good news, in some ways. Thank you for writing it. Dan.
“There is much more to the POW/MIA issue than riding around on a bike, wearing black leather and shouting “Bring ‘em home”! Bill Bell’s book “Leave No Man Behind” is the “first step” any American should take in fully understanding the nuances, the heretofore hidden incidents and complex situations of the long American War in Vietnam, and the plight of thousands of America’s still-unreturned veterans. There are many books available but this is the first priority for vets. Read it and pass it on to as many other vets as possible in order to lay bare the facts and let the facts speak for themselves. How we got there in the first place, why we stayed so long and whether or not we vets were able to accomplish our mission. Do yourself a favor, order this great book. You will soon agree that having done so is one of the wisest moves you ever made. For researchers, this book should be considered “PTSD 101”. Concerning research in compiling this great book you will be amazed when you visit the Vietnam Center Archives, Texas Tech University, Bill Bell Collection. (www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive). This is one of the nation’s premier collections on the American War in Vietnam and graciously donated by Bill”.
Mike DePaulo, Vietnam vet, USMC, National Service Officer, Rolling Thunder Inc
.
5.0 out of 5 stars Americans in Vietnam, February 7, 2007 
This review is from: Leave No Man Behind: Bill Bell and the Search for American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam 5.0 out of 5 stars absolutely necessary, April 27, 2013
By joefieldsalaskaThis review is from: Leave No Man Behind: Bill Bell and the Search for American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War (Semihardback)
Very simply, if you have not read this book, even if you spent years in Vietnam as I did, you don't know anything about the Vietnam War. Buy it, read it, give it to everyone you know who gives a damn about truth. Shoudl be required reading for every college and university.
JNFIII 
This book isn't just for the soldier, student, or history buff. It's also for the average American who should know more about the Vietnam War, how people in our CURRENT government felt and behaved then, and how the war in Afghanistan might have a similar outcome. 474 pages, semi-hardback: ISBN 096476634-5,




Signed copy available at billbell@pinncom.com for $20, or from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0964766345?ie=UTF8&seller=A11WQVNRY0EIDW&sn=traslin 

Vietnamese soldier, son turn up alive in jungle 40 years after they went 'missing'
August 9, 2013 4:00pm 
He was a war refugee who lived like Robinson Crusoe. Except he had a son to keep him company. 
Vietnamese soldier Ho Van Thanh, now 82, disappeared into the jungle with his one-year-old son at the height of the country’s war with the United States 40 years ago, and has just been discovered.
However, a man claiming to be another son has said he has known of his father and brother's jungle hideout for the past 20 years.
Provincial authorities described the father and son’s dwelling place as a house “that looks like a bird’s nest, built from sticks on a big tree around six meters from the ground.”
Thanh and his son, Ho Van Loan, now 41, were found by authorities in the province of Quang Ngai Wednesday at the heart of the forest after a 40 kilometer trek that took several hours, the Vietnamese daily Thanh Nien News reported.
The pair survived by cultivating vegetables and hunting animals using knives, axes and arrows that they made themselves. They also planted sugarcane near their house.
The two men’s rescue after 40 years reportedly shocked the whole village, who thought they were already dead.
However, a man claiming to be Thanh’s youngest son said in a report quoted by Thanh Nien News that he has known his father and brother were alive for 20 years.
According to the website VnExpress, Ho Van Tri, who was just a few months old when Thanh fled, said he already found the pair with the help of an uncle more than two decades ago but could not persuade them to return home or to their village.
Tri, who said he survived a bombing during the war because he was rescued by a relative, said he has not yet been accepted by his father and brother although he has been bringing them salt and oil every year.
The US was prompted to launch a war against Vietnam in 1955 due to the American government’s fear of letting communism spread across Asia. The 19-year war, which resulted in the death of more than 4 million Vietnamese civilians and 58,000 US soldiers, ended with the fall of Saigon to the Vietnam People's Army in April 1975.
Jungle rescue
Based on an account by the newspaper Dan Tri, the Bangkok Post reported that the pair was discovered after two people from a nearby village saw their tree house while looking for firewood in the forest.
The villagers alerted the local authorities about the men, who went to the jungle to rescue them.
Local officials found Thanh and Loan clad in pants fashioned from dried tree barks, and later discovered they also made shirts from the same material.
Inside the house, they discovered that Thanh kept his soldier’s trousers and his son’s little red coat neatly folded in a corner.
The Bangkok Post report quoted a local official as saying on the condition of anonymity that although Thanh can communicate a little in the Cor ethnic minority language, his son only knew a few words.
The 82-year old man has been brought to the hospital for medical care since he can barely walk while Loan is under the care of his nephew, Ho Ven Bien.
"My uncle doesn't understand much of what is said to him, and he doesn't want to eat or even drink water," Bien said.
- Xianne Arcangel, HS/VVP, GMA News



By THOMAS BRENNAN - Daily News Staff
Published: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at 14:03 PM.
One prisoner of war, says Guy Hunter, is too many
“We’ve got a lot more than one still missing,” Hunter, a former POW, said.
The local chapter of Rolling Thunder will present a POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremony at Lejeune Memorial Gardens at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20. Hunter, who was held captive during Operation Desert Storm after his aircraft was shot down in Kuwait, will be the guest speaker at the event, which is open to the public.
“This ceremony is a chance to get together and renew our efforts to account for those who are missing or will go missing,” said Hunter, 69, of Jacksonville. “This is a chance to renew in their minds that we won’t let this happen again.”
To Hunter, one abandoned POW represents all service members overseas. If we abandon one, he said, it’s just like abandoning all of them over there. In the case of Bowe Bergdahl, the only service member missing in action from Operation Enduring Freedom, not enough is being done, he said.
“I think the government should do more by using their intelligence assets to snatch him back,” Hunter said. “Somehow, after the ceremony, I hope everyone thinks that every American sent to war should come home and that we aren’t going to let them rot in hell over there.”
While he never went missing in action or became a prisoner of war, Rolling Thunder president, Paul Levesque says he feels as though it is every American’s duty to take time to reflect on the tens of thousands who are still missing, he said.
“I hope people in attendance can become aware that we do have Americans who are still missing from all wars,” Levesque said. “When they walk away from the ceremony, we hope they get the feeling that we can’t forget those who went into harm’s way, were captured or killed and are still missing. It’s very important to send that message to all of those who come.”
One of Rolling Thunder’s primary missions is to raise public awareness of not only POW/MIAs but also to advocate for the full accountability of all service members missing in action or who became prisoners of war, Levesque said.
“To me, this ceremony signifies a meaningful reflection of the fact that our government is not doing enough to bring home these Americans,” he said. “We focus on a lot of things, but this is one area we need to strive to do all we can to bring these Americans home.
“We owe it to them to bring them home.”
Contact Daily News Military Reporter Thomas Brennan at 910-219-8453 or thomas.brennan@jdnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ thomasjbrennan.
http://www.pnj.com/article/20130918/NEWS01/309180018/Former-POW-recalls-captivity-Vietnam
Former POW recalls captivity in Vietnam
A prisoner for five years, Howard Hill honored during luncheon
POWluncheon: Pensacola shared in nation's honoring of prisoners of war this week with a recognition luncheon sponsored by Navy League.
Written by
Rob Johnson
Nat Mack leads the Table of Remembrance ceremony for military service personnel Missing in Action during the 15th Annual POW Luncheon at Heritage Hall in Seville Quarter Tuesday afternoon.

Retired Air Force Col. Howard Hill speaks Tuesday during the POW Luncheon. / Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com
Readjusting to civilian life after a war zone deployment is never easy, and for Vietnam prisoner of war Howard Hill, the transition required seeing a counselor, something he didn’t tell the Air Force.
“Back in those days, I used to think if you went to a shrink that was the kiss of death to your career,” said the retired Air Force colonel and fighter pilot who spent five years in the notorious Hanoi Hilton after his Phantom was shot down in 1967.
Hill, now 70, was the guest speaker Tuesday at Pensacola’s annual POW Luncheon, sponsored by local chapters of the Navy League and Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.
A father of three who celebrated the 47th anniversary of marrying his wife, Libby, Hill told an audience of 190 gathered at Seville Quarter’s Heritage Hall that he survived captivity partly by keeping this motto in mind: “Where there’s faith, there’s hope.”
But after he returned home, Hill learned that his ordeal wasn’t over.
“I was in a manic state when I got back, going on three or four hours a sleep a night — watching TV and writing to friends at the same time. It got to be too much.”
So, seeking help with discretion, he and Libby sought out a counselor at a special POW program the Navy had set up at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
“As far as I know, they didn’t tell the Air Force about it,” he said.
The Navy’s program helped, Hill said, and he went on to fly again for years, climb through the ranks, raise a family and retire to 1989 to Niceville, where his volunteer activities include a 20-year stint coaching and helping run a youth soccer league of which he’s now president.
Still, he said, his story underscores the tough road back for POWs, who are being honored this week across the nation.
Friday is POW/MIA Recognition Day, when flags commemorating military members who have been prisoners or are missing in action will be flown at many venues. Rallies will take place in many cities, including Pensacola, and there will be other events on campuses, war memorials and museums.The Department of Defense still lists about 1,700 Americans as missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. Many of those were lost in Vietnam, or areas of Laos and Cambodia that were under North Vietnam’s wartime control.
Hill, a graduate of the Air Force Academy in Colorado, said the worst part of being a prisoner is not knowing when you’ll come home, if at all. Part of Hill’s torment was the uncertainty reinforced by his guards.
“They told me that at the end of the war I’d be tried for war crimes and my sentence was already decided: 20 years.”
His speech was attended by, among others, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan and Pensacola Naval Air Station’s commanding officer, Navy Capt. Keith Hoskins.
Betty Williams, president of the Freedoms Foundation’s Pensacola chapter, which has a membership of about 50, said the POW event is run on a nonprofit basis. Although some guests paid $20 a plate, active-duty personnel, among others, are admitted free.
The audience was treated to a display by Hill of the gray outfit he wore as a Vietnamese prisoner.
“They let me bring one home,” he said.
He has retained a quirky sense of humor about his experience, recalling that he wanted the Vietnamese-issued cotton underwear he wore in prison as a keepsake.
“But for some reason, they wouldn’t let me have it.”
http://www.phillyburbs.com/00redesign/opinion/letters/pow-mia-recognition-day-remembering-those-who-served/article_458cbb09-7799-5383-a94f-7ad46303f5a5.html
POW-MIA Recognition Day: remembering those who served
Posted: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 12:00 am
Each year, the third Friday of September is designated as POW-MIA Recognition Day. It is a day established by Congress to remember those Americans who were captured and held as prisoners of war or who are missing in action as a result of combat operations. Even though it is a designated day, the president will issue a proclamation commemorating the day.
Government accountability for POWs and MIAs is the responsibility of the Defense Prisoner Of War and Missing Personnel Office (DPMO). The official count of personnel unaccounted for, as tallied by DPMO as of Sept. 12, 2013 is as follows:
World War II -- 73,661 (not including 6,299 who were buried at sea); Korea -- 7,906; Cold War -- 126; Vietnam War -- 1,644; Global War on Terrorism -- 6.
Locally, there is not much attention paid to this day. Attention should be given to this day because as Bucks and Montgomery county residents, this day is personalized. Twenty-two men from Bucks and Montgomery counties are still listed as unaccounted for, according to the latest DPMO statistics. They are:
Bucks County – Korea
Air Force Lt. Austin Wescott Beetle Jr.; Marine Cpl. Donald James Clayton; Marine Pfc. Hans Walter Grahl; Army Cpl. Norbert George Hurt; Marine Pfc. Attilio Michele Lupacchini; Army Pfc. John James McDonnell; Army Cpl. Raymond Harvey Miller; Army Cpl. John M. Rozear Jr.; Army Sgt. 1st Class John Joseph Truan.
Montgomery County – Korea
Army Capt. Harold B. Bauer; Army Master Sgt. George T. Donovan; Army Pfc. Furman Keeley; Army Cpl. Clyde E. McElroy; Army Sgt. John M. McGinithen; Marine Pfc. Brooks Eugene Moorehead; Army Cpl. Raymond Joseph Romano; Army Sgt. 1st Class John F. Westfall; Army Cpl. Walter Ralph Young.
Bucks County – Vietnam
Air Force Capt. Donald Kemmerer; Air Force 1st Lt. Walter Harris Sigafoos III; Army Spec. 4th Class Clifford Dale VanArtsdalen.
Montgomery County – Vietnam
Navy Cmdr. Henry Hooker Strong Jr.
I ask everyone to remember these men, and all other POW-MIAs, sometime during the course of Sept. 20. Remember also their families. Though the families have accepted the fate of their loved ones, they will have no closure and peace until the missing are returned home.
Jim McComb
Senior vice commander
Doylestown Post 175 VFW
http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20130917/NEWS01/130917034/POW-MIA-Remembrance-Service-set-Friday-VA-Medical-Center-Pineville
POW/MIA Remembrance Service set for Friday at VA Medical Center in Pineville
The public is invited to attend a Prisoner of War/Missing In Action Remembrance Service at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, in the chapel of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Pineville.
The event, hosted by the Alexandria VA Health Care System, will feature retired Navy Col. Bruce Wilson as guest speaker, recognition of POWs and MIAs from Louisiana and personal remarks from former prisoners of war in attendance.
Light refreshments will be served immediately following the service.
For more information, contact Tyra Hoffman, voluntary services specialist, at (318) 466-2542 or tyra.hoffman1@va.gov.

Hello all,
We are going to release this montage tomorrow in honor of National POW/MIA Recognition Day on the 20th. If so inclined, please do share.
http://youtu.be/xB5h9kBExhA
Also wanted to let you know that beginning September 21st, the American Forces Network will begin airing our Keeping the Promise Alive documentary. Press release attached.
Sending best regards your way,
Hope
About the day:
On August 9, 2013, a memorial took place at Arlington National Cemetery for two airmen missing in action since the Korea War.
1st LT C.E. Boyle Jr. and SSGT George Soto were honored on this day by son Gary Boyle and nephew Robert Ochoa.
Gary Boyle said of the day... "No matter what happens to me in the future, these guys are honored, will be here forever and it's a good thing. It's an acknowledgement that they existed."
Filmed and edited by Kellie Allred.
"Hallelujah" by the late Jeff Buckley.

*******
HANOVER PARK ENTERTAINMENT
1420 West Powder Court
Eagle, Idaho 83616
(direct) 818-314-4116
hope@hanoverparkent.com
www.HanoverParkEnt.com
www.KeepingThePromiseAlive.com
* Proud member of the Producers Guild of America*

Former US hostage in Iran shares compelling tale of captivity
By Jennifer H. Svan
Published: September 18, 2013
View Photo Gallery »
Former Iran hostage Paul Needham talks about a mock execution by his captors at Ramstein's National POW-MIA Recognition Week luncheon, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013.
Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Paul Needham’s temporary assignment to Iran in 1979 ended 19 days after he arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where he worked as an Air Force logistics officer.
A 28-year-old captain at the time, Needham, now a retired lieutenant colonel, ended up spending more than a year in Iran, one of dozens of Americans taken prisoner and held for 444 days by Iranian militants.
Turns out, U.S. military personnel lose their temporary duty status when they’re considered a prisoner of war or missing in action, Needham lightheartedly told a captive crowd of more than 100 airmen and civilians who heard him speak Wednesday at a special luncheon at the Ramstein Officers’ Club.
" 'Let’s see, you received a cash advance; your TDY stopped on the fourth of November … you owe us,’ ” Needham related a conversation with Air Force finance after his ordeal ended, drawing loud laughs from attendees.
Needham was the guest speaker for one of three events organized this week by the 435th Air Ground Operations Wing at Ramstein to remember those who were prisoners of war and those who are missing in action, as well as their families. National POW/MIA Recognition Day is observed across the United States on Friday. The unit will host a wreath-laying ceremony Friday at 4 p.m. at the River Rats Memorial behind the officers club.
Needham is now a white-haired 62-year-old professor of logistics and director of the Supply Chain Management Program at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School of National Security and Resource Strategy in Washington, D.C. In 2011, he was one of six airmen taken hostage at the embassy to receive the Prisoner of War Medal.
Though Needham peppered his speech with much humor, his story conveyed the resiliency of the human spirit in overcoming days filled mostly with monotony, hunger and occasionally terror.
“One of the things that you learn is … you’re counting from one to infinity,” he said. “You don’t know” how many days captivity will last.
Needham was one of 65 Americans taken hostage on Nov. 4, 1970 when hundreds of Iranian militants overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Earlier that year, U.S.-Iranian relations first began to sour when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, an absolute monarch and American ally, was overthrown by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamic-dominated Revolutionary Council.
Needham arrived in Tehran in October of that year to help deliver spare military parts to Iran.
Soon after, relations between the two countries took a nose dive when the United States allowed the ailing shah to receive medical treatment at a New York hospital despite demands from Tehran that he be extradited to stand trial for crimes allegedly committed during his 37-year rule. Iran’s new Islamic government viewed the U.S. action as paving the way for a U.S.-backed attempt to restore the monarchy.
The Iranians were concerned because in 1953 the United States and Britain conducted a covert campaign to destabilize the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who opposed Britain’s control of Iran’s petroleum revenues. Mosaddegh was eventually overthrown in a military coup organized by the CIA.
“November 4th started out as a normal day,” Needham said, recalling that he was writing a letter that morning to a logistics officer in Los Angeles. “There were demonstrations outside; then it changed,” he said. “At 9 o’clock that morning, the Iranians came over the wall and the national police stood aside.”
Some hostages were later released, leaving 52 to endure the full 444 days in captivity, Needham said.
Needham lost 30 pounds during the ordeal. He and others combatted boredom by doing pushups in their tight cells and running in place. They became skilled at snaring cockroaches and racing them, the losing insect getting squashed.
Some days were terrifying, like the time he was targeted by a mock firing squad.
“I was shaking uncontrollably,” he said. “I said the 23rd Psalm to myself. I felt a calmness come over me. I’m sure it was the presence of Christ. I quit shaking.”
Needham saw the movie “Argo,” the Oscar-winning Ben Affleck flick that told the story of how the Canadian government and the CIA managed to rescue six American diplomats from Tehran after the embassy takeover.
Needham said the film is about 80 percent accurate in its portrayal of the hostage crisis.
“You just don’t chase a 747 down the runway in a car,” he joked, referring to one of the final scenes in the movie.
“What it really did for me,” he said in an interview after the luncheon, “it created a feeling for me of being back into the embassy, back in the streets.
“When I took my wife to see it, she said ‘Did this happen?’ ‘No, that didn’t happen that way.’ And my daughter said, ‘Shh, we’re listening.’ ”
Faith in God and faith in his family sustained him, he said, “and then faith in this country … the men and women who have served, sacrificed and suffered.”
Knowing the stories of other American POWs, from Air Force 1st Lt. Bill Mayall to Adm. James Stockdale — the highest-ranking naval officer held as a POW — and the hardships they endured, “you realize that you can survive,” Needham said in an interview. “You know that other people have survived things that are probably worse than what you are putting up with right now, so that helps with that resilience and steeling yourself for the next day.”
It’s a message that Col. Joseph McFall, 435th AGOW commander, hopes resonates with the airmen who heard Needham’s story.
“For everyone to see that he went through all the stuff that he talked about, and then you see him extremely successful, great attitude, great family,” he said. “It just reinforces what the code of conduct says, keep the faith and life moves on.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/13/jeon-wook-pyo-escapes-north-korea_n_3919186.html
Jeon Wook-Pyo, South Korean Fisherman, Escapes From North 41 Years After Abduction
Agence France Presse | By
Posted: 09/13/2013 9:43 am EDT

North Korean troops march past a portrait of the late leader Kim Jong Il during a military parade at Kim Il Sung Square to mark the 65th anniversary of the country's founding in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, Sept. 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin) 
A South Korean man has escaped four decades after he was kidnapped by North Korea while fishing near the disputed Yellow Sea border, officials said Friday.
The 68-year-old, identified as Jeon Wook-Pyo, made it to Seoul recently after escaping from North Korea in early August, a government official said.
"He is now under investigation by security authorities," the official said, declining to give details.
South Korean says more than 500 of its citizens -- most of them fishermen -- have been abducted by North Korea in the 60 years since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Those who manage to make it back to the South are often treated with initial suspicion, and subjected to a rigorous screening programme to ensure they are not operating as North Korean spies.
Jeon was among 25 fishermen aboard two boats that were seized by a North Korean navy ship on December 28, 1972.
The whereabouts of his fellow crewmen are currently unknown.
An activist group said earlier that Jeon had stayed in an undisclosed third country -- most likely China -- after fleeing the North on August 11.
He then sent a letter to South Korean President Park Geun-Hye seeking assistance, saying he wanted to spend his remaining days in his hometown, the group said.
South Korea has repeatedly urged North Korea to free remaining abductees, but Pyongyang insists it is holding no one against their wishes.
Since 2000, 28 former South Korean soldiers who were listed as killed in action have been confirmed alive in the North, with 13 of them showing up for reunions with their southern relatives.
The two nations have remained technically at war since 1953 because no peace treaty was ever signed. There are no mail, telephone or email exchanges between ordinary citizens across the heavily fortified border.
Many do not even know whether relatives are alive or dead.
Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.
http://www.rachi.go.jp/en/ratimondai/index.html
　Between about 1970 to 1980, there were a string of incidents involving the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea. The Government of Japan has currently identified 17 Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.
　In September 2002, North Korea acknowledged that Japanese citizens had been abducted, and five abductees returned to Japan in October of that year. North Korea has not, however, offered adequate explanations for the fate of the rest of the Japanese abductees. North Korea insists that the abduction issue has been resolved. The North Korean position, however, leaves many questions unanswered, and the GoJ considers it to be unacceptable.
　The abduction of Japanese citizens is a matter of grave concern that affects the national sovereignty of Japan and the lives and safety of the Japanese people. Until this issue is resolved, there can be no normalization of relations with North Korea. Among all the issues that remain unresolved between Japan and North Korea, the GoJ places the highest priority on the abduction issue, and is making every effort for its resolution.
Individuals Abducted from Other Countries
Concern in Japan and overseas has grown as testimony from abductees who have returned to Japan has indicated that there are people in North Korea from Thailand, Rumania, Lebanon, and other countries besides Japan who could also have been abducted.

Abduction of Republic of Korea Nationals
In April 2006, DNA analysis conducted by the Government of Japan revealed a high probability that Mr. Kim Young-Nam, a Republic of Korea citizen abducted by North Korea, was married to Ms. Megumi Yokota, an abducted Japanese citizen. This discovery prompted family members of Japan and Republic of Korea abductees to travel between Japan and the Republic of Korea to meet with each other, strengthen cooperative ties, and work together in both countries on this issue.
North Korean abductees are called nabbuk-ja (persons abducted by North Korea) in the Republic of Korea. As of November 2007, according to public statements by the Government of the Republic of Korea, more than 80,000 Republic of Korea citizens were abducted by North Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953), with another over 3,000 Republic of Korea citizens abducted since the armistice. Of these cases, the safety and whereabouts of 480 abductees has still not been confirmed.
This situation has mobilized several groups in the Republic of Korea made up of families of abductees. These groups are actively interacting and collaborating with the families of Japanese abductees.
Abduction of Thai, Romanian, and Other Nationals
In Thailand, there is information indicating that Ms. Anocha Panjoy was abducted by North Korea in 1978.
Romanian officials also have information that Ms. Doina Bumbea was abducted from Rome, Italy by North Korea in 1978.
Members of the families of these two individuals and of Japanese abductees have met with each other in both countries, agreed to collaborate, and are working together on abductee rescue campaigns.

More Bits and Pieces:

http://www.peninsulawarrior.com/news/special_events/article_f5906802-1bd7-11e3-a463-0019bb2963f4.html
Langley to host annual POW/MIA Recognition Day events
By Airman 1st Class Kimberly Nagle, 633rd Air Base Wing Public Affairs | Posted: Friday, September 13, 2013 6:00 am
Langley Air Force Base is hosting its fourth annual POW/MIA Recognition Day events Sept. 19 and 20 to honor Service members lost in battle.
The events will include a 24-hour run, which will begin at 10 a.m. Sept. 19 at the Shellbank Fitness Center outdoor track and conclude at the Langley POW/MIA memorial.
Directly after the run, a Recognition Ceremony will take place at 10 a.m., Sept. 20 at the memorial.
“The event is a moment where we can slow down and pay our respects to POW and MIAs,” said Master Sgt. Jeffrey A. Koenig, 633rd Air Base Wing noncommissioned officer in charge of wing protocol and Air Force Sergeant’s Association chapter 358 president.
Originally, Congress passed a resolution authorizing the observance of POW/MIA Recognition Day to take place July 18, 1979. Dates varied in the years following, until 1986 when it was designated as the third Friday in September.
According to the Defense Prisoner of War and Missing Personnel Office, more than 83,000 Service members are still unaccounted for from conflicts including World War ll, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Iraq and other conflicts.
The AFSA chapter 358 will be organizing the POW/MIA Recognition Day Ceremony where retired U.S. Army brigadier general and former POW, Dr. Rhonda Cornum, will be the guest speaker.
Cornum was commissioned into the U.S. Army in 1978, with a doctorate in nutrition and biochemistry from Cornell University.
Before retiring as the Director of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness in the Army, Cornum achieved much in her distinguished career, including senior flight surgeon wings and airborne, air assault, and expert medic badges. Her decorations include the Legion of Merit (with two oak leaf clusters), Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal (with four oak leaf clusters), Purple Heart, Air Medal and POW Medal.
In August 1990, Cornum was assigned as the flight surgeon to the 2/229 Attack Helicopter Battalion in Iraq.
Her world changed the last week of February 1991, when during a search and rescue mission for a downed Air Force F-16 and injured pilot, her Black Hawk helicopter was attacked and brought down. She was working with an eight-person crew; five of the eight didn’t make it. The survivors, including Cornum, were captured by Iraqi forces, and were released on March 6, 1991.
In an interview with Joellen Perry for a “heroes” issue of U.S. News and World Report, Cornum said she remembered thinking as the helicopter fell, “At least I’m dying doing something honorable.”
Koenig said that all Service members can benefit from learning about Cornum’s experiences and sense of duty during the POW/MIA Recognition Day Ceremony.
“The event is for us to pay respect to all of the POW/MIA,” said Koenig. “It shows everybody the Joint Base Langley-Eustis family has not forgotten about the prisoners of war and ones [Service members] still missing in action.”
For more information on the events, or to sign up for the run, register at tinyurl.com/POW-MIA-Run or contact Master Sgt. Alfredo Perez at 764-42510.
http://www.nwherald.com/2013/09/11/department-of-defense-specialists-to-meet-with-families-of-powmia/aepfxye/
Department of Defense specialists to meet with families of POW/MIA
Created: Thursday, September 12, 2013 11:23 p.m. CDT
ROSEMONT – On Saturday, the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office will travel to the area to meet with families of service members who are unaccounted for from past conflicts dating to World War II. 
Family members will be briefed on what the government is doing to bring their loved ones home. They also will have the opportunity to ask specific questions about their loved one’s case.
http://www.macombdaily.com/veterans/20130913/commemorating-national-pow-mia-recognition-day
Commemorating National POW-MIA Recognition Day
Submitted photo/DAVE SCHOENHERR The color guard from Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 154 holds an annual 24-hour vigil at the Michigan Remembers monument for all of America’s military members who are missing in action. Events begin at 5 p.m. Friday at Oakland Hills Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Novi and then conclude at 5 p.m. Sept. 21. For more information, call the Veterans Support Center in Roseville at 586-776-9810.
By LINDA MAY, For The Macomb Daily 
National POW-MIA Recognition Day — for U.S. military members who are missing in action and for those who are or were prisoners of war — is commemorated on the third Friday of September. POW-MIA flags fly at every veterans post in Macomb County.
This year is special for Mike “Flagman” Bowen, of Flushing, his friend Gary D. Moore said. Moore is a member of Mount Clemens Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 154.
Every time Bowen runs a race, he dedicates his miles to the people whose names are on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund that adds names to the memorial officially authenticated 58,272 names as of last Memorial Day, including those still missing.
Bowen, 65, has gone a little beyond that number to complete a sacred quest. He will run his final mile of 58,282 miles ending at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., at noon Friday. That’s where he began his mission 31 years ago carrying a POW-MIA flag for practically every mile he has run in scores of races.
“The only time he did not carry a flag is when he carried an Olympic torch,” Moore said.
Moore, a Smiths Creek resident, said Bowen volunteered for military service in 1968 and served two years in the U.S. Army.
“He is personally acquainted with several names etched on The Wall. They are fellow schoolmates, many of whom enlisted at the same time. Although Flagman has never sought recognition, he acknowledges that the POW-MIA flag is an attention-getter from those who know nothing about the meaning of POW-MIA,” Moore said.
Others are very aware. They are the ones who await word about family members and comrades who were taken prisoner or are still missing from various U.S. wars and conflicts, including Afghanistan where there is one person unaccounted for.
Bowen is a member of many organizations, including American Legion Post 283, VVA Chapter 175, and the Disabled American Veterans, but no one sponsors his runs.
Moore, who organized many motorcycle rides to Lansing for POW-MIA awareness, said he hopes members of the Michigan Patriot Guard will be able to escort “Flagman” for his final mile. Both men serve with the Patriot Guard.
Vigil for vets missing in action
“On Sept. 20 and 21, our chapter honor guard will be assembling at Oakland Hills Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Novi to conduct what we refer to as our vigil,” Brian Bobek said. He is president of Mount Clemens VVA Chapter 154 that has a Veterans Support Center in Roseville.
“This will make the 27th consecutive year that we have gathered to ensure that our veterans who are still missing in action from Vietnam will never be abandoned, and that our government understands that we will never accept anything less than total accountability of our brothers, from all wars.”
There is an opening ceremony at 5 p.m. Friday at the “Michigan Remembers” monument. The honor guard posts members there until 5 p.m. Sept. 21, weather notwithstanding.
“In addition to posting guards, each hour on the hour, we fire a single rifle shot and read the names of all the Michigan POW-MIAs that were left behind at the end of the Vietnam War,” Bobek said.
“At midnight, our bagpiper plays from the dark recesses of the cemetery. It is our way of hoping our MIAs will hear the sounds of our voices, and find their way home to their families, allowing them some closure. What makes this year so significant is that we will be adding the name of one more Michigan recovery to the memorial,” Bobek said.
The Department of Defense POW-Missing Personnel Office announced in June that a Michigan soldier was accounted for. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Army Spc. 5 John L. Burgess, of Sutton Bay, was the crew chief of a UH-1H Iroquois helicopter that crashed in Binh Phuoc Province, South Vietnam, in 1970. He was 21. Three others also died.
From 1992 to 2012, more than a dozen joint U.S.-Socialist Republic of Vietnam teams investigated the case in Binh Phuoc Province, recovering human remains, personal effects, military equipment, and aircraft wreckage. Burgess was identified using forensic and circumstantial evidence.
“The remains of John Lawrence Burgess have been found, identified and returned home to his family,” Bobek said. “There are presently 49 soldiers from Michigan that remain missing, and it’s understandable that recoveries are becoming fewer and further between, making this a bittersweet event. But our oath, taken many years ago, was to leave no brother behind.”
There are 1,645 American MIAs from Vietnam by count of the National League of POW-MIA Families. The Vietnamese people have 300,000 MIAs.
Jim Dudek and Dan Dobrzeniecki produced a 10-minute video about a past observance of POW/MIA Recognition Day in Novi. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9e9g6fN09k
The search for POW-MIAs
The VFW Washington Office joined the National League of POW-MIA Families for their 44th annual meeting recently in Arlington, Va.
The League was founded in 1970 by family members of missing Americans who were frustrated at the U.S. government’s unwillingness to confirm who was alive, captured, dead or missing in action. The League created the POW-MIA flag.
The American government eventually began formal recovery operations that expanded into a worldwide mission with more than 600 military and civilians assigned to the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, and the Defense POW-MIA Office.
VFW members have traveled annually into Southeast Asia since 1991, Russia since 2004, and now into the People’s Republic of China, to help U.S. government researchers gain deeper access into their military archives.
JPAC has about 83,000 MIA cases, and is based at Hawaii’s Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. It was established to investigate, search for and identify Americans missing from past wars as an extension of the soldier’s creed to leave no man behind.
A report in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser says that JPAC wants to exhume all of the Dec. 7, 1941, casualties, about 330, of the USS Oklahoma buried as “unknowns” at Hawaii’s National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific known as Punchbowl.
The U.S. Navy is opposed. The Navy wishes to take partial and commingled remains of more than 100 Oklahoma crew members who were disinterred in 2003 from a single casket at Punchbowl and re-bury them at Ford Island. JPAC also wants to disinter and try to identify crewmen from the battleships California and West Virginia. Some family members want the identifications to be done and some do not. The U.S. Army that has “next-of-kin” authority over unknowns at Punchbowl may step in to settle the issues.
“Like most of my fellow Vietnam War veterans, I passionately believe we must do what it takes to bring our missing and fallen comrades home, no matter the degree of difficulty,” American Legion National Commander James E. Koutz said.
Koutz was part of a recent research mission in Vietnam for clues about what happened to an A-4 Skyhawk and a U.S. Navy pilot 45 years ago in Vietnam. They found parachute fragments and shell casings.
“New crash sites are located all the time, usually after follow-up research into firsthand witness accounts,” Koutz said.
JPAC averages about 69 identifications per year and its operations are threatened by sequestration and geopolitical tensions.
“But every one of them matters,” Koutz said. “Every one deserves our nation’s best effort to get them home and bring honorable closure for their families, and for us.”
POW-MIA services to be held
VVA Chapter 175 holds its annual POW-MIA service and vigil at the Reflections Monument at Bluebell Beach, a Genesee County Park, at 7 p.m. Friday. It concludes at midnight. Bluebell Beach park is at 5500 Bray Road.
Chapter 175 and the Great Lakes National Cemetery Advisory Council’s POW-MIA service is at 1 p.m. Sept. 21 at the Great Lakes National Cemetery at 4200 Belford Road in Holly.
There is a Civil War Commemoration Service at the national cemetery today. Civil War displays open at 10 a.m.; service is at 1 p.m.; and a concert by the 5th Michigan Regimental Band is at 2 p.m. It is sponsored by the cemetery’s advisory council.
For information, contact Joe Mishler at 810-348-9960.
Volunteers clean the headstones at the national cemetery at 10 a.m. Sept. 28. Some of the same 865 volunteers who placed flags at the headstones for Memorial Day will sign up for cleaning duty and lunch. To volunteer, contact Carl Pardon by Sept. 22 at cpardon@co.livingston.mi.us or 248-318-2042. Pardon said his goal is to clean 1,000 headstones. There are about 18,400 vets and some of their dependents interred at the cemetery.
Veterans Stand Down Macomb
Veterans Stand Down Macomb, which provides government and community-based resources to veterans and their families, will take place 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at Macomb Sports & Expo Center, at 14500 E. 12 Mile Road, Building P, Warren. It is sponsored by University of Detroit Mercy School of Law Project SALUTE, in partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Macomb Community College. VVA Chapter 154’s Michigan Vietnam Traveling Memorial will be on display. There is a wide range of social service information available. For more information, contact Alesa Silver at silverag@udmercy.edu.
VA mental health services
In recognition of September as Suicide Prevention Month, the Department of Veterans Affairs is mobilizing people and organizations nationwide to support veterans in crisis and spread the word about VA mental health services. Veterans, or anyone concerned about a veteran, can call 1-800-273-8255 and press 1, or, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or, text to 838255 to receive support.
Send service club and veterans news to: Linda May c/o The Macomb Daily, 19176 Hall Road, Clinton Township MI 48038 or lindamay@ameritech.net. Phone 586-791-8116. Fax 586-469-2892.
http://www.wktv.com/news/local/Arlington-burial-for-WWII-airmen-from-NY-Calif-223706431.html
Arlington burial for WWII airmen Dominick Licari and a California pilot
Story Created: Sep 13, 2013 at 9:28 PM EDT
FRANKFORT, N.Y. (AP) - The recently identified remains of a World War II airman from upstate New York and a pilot from California will be buried as a group next week at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Pentagon's POW-Missing Personnel Office announced Thursday that the remains of Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Valorie Pollard of Monterey, Calif., and Sgt. Dominick Licari of Frankfort will be buried with full military honors in a single casket Thursday at Arlington, outside Washington, D.C.
The individually-identified remains of Licari were buried on Aug. 6 in his hometown of Frankfort, near Utica.
Pollard and Licari were listed as missing in action after their bomber failed to return from a mission over Papua New Guinea in March 1944. The mountainside crash site was excavated last year and their remains were identified earlier this summer.
http://www.newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/578091.html
Family hopes to return body home
Local soldier lost in Italy after WWII accident
September 14, 2013
By EVAN BEVINS , Marietta Times
BARLOW - Although they were notified of his death by the U.S. Army in World War II, Pfc. Xwell Yon Reynolds' family held out hope he was alive because his body was never found.
"For years, there's been talk in the family that they thought he was still alive," said Bob Reynolds, 58, of Barlow, born 10 years after his uncle died with 23 other soldiers when their amphibious vehicle sank on April 30, 1945, in a lake in Italy. "I think that's how some families try and deal with it."
Reynolds said he doesn't think his father, the late George Reynolds, believed as some of his sisters did there was a chance his younger brother, who went by Yon, was alive.
Brothers Dallas, left, and Bob Reynolds look at pictures of their uncle, Xwell Yon Reynolds, who died in 1945 while serving in the Army in Italy during World War II. (Photo by Evan Bevins)
Still, Reynold's thinks his father would take some comfort that his brother's body may finally have been located 68 years later n Lake Garda.
"I can see where it would be a nice resolution to things," he said.
All of Yon's seven brothers and sisters have passed away, but Bob's older brother, Dallas Reynolds, 78, of Vincent, still recalls his uncle, who he visited at the family farm in Dunham Township.
"He loved kids, 'cause me and my brother would be there and we (were) always hanging with him," Dallas said.
Dallas recalled Yon as someone who was very quiet but had a sense of humor that sometimes got him into trouble. Once, he set off a loud noisemaker or firecracker under the rocking chair in which his father, Addison K. Reynolds, was seated.
"He jumped out and took off outside," Dallas said. "Pretty soon he came back inside and said, 'You shouldn't do that to an old man like me.'"
Bob remembers stories told about Yon that described him as an athletic young man who enjoyed the outdoors.
"It always seemed like he would outdo his older brother," Bob said. "He could do (pull-ups and chin-ups) with just one hand."
Yon, who attended Barlow Rural High School, enlisted in the Army on Jan. 25, 1943, according to local historian Scott Britton. The May 18, 1945, edition of The Marietta Times, in reporting his death, says Yon went overseas in January of that year and was stationed with the 10th Mountain Division of the 5th Army.
In a May 8, 1945, letter, 1st Lt. Lee Snyder of the division's 605th Field Artillery, of which Yon was a member, wrote to Yon's father about his son's death. Bob Reynolds now has the letter.
"I can not find words to fully express my feelings nor the feelings of the men," Snyder writes. "Xwell was always most willing to aid in any duty, regardless of the danger involved. His loyalty and honesty won him the friendship and respect of all."
Snyder says he was in one of three of the DUKWs, or "ducks," crossing the lake. The motor on one of the ducks stalled and it had to be towed by another. That duck was damaged when it landed on the other side, unable to search for the vehicle carrying Yon and 24 other soldiers.
"When the wind calmed a little, a chief of the (section) and I went out in a small motor boat and searched all along both sides of the lake, but to no avail," Snyder writes. "We then formed two searching parties; the chief of section took one along the West shore and was unable to find anything. I took a party along the East shore and found evidence that one man might have made it to safety."
That was Cpl. Thomas E. Hough, whose address Snyder sent to Addison Reynolds in case he wanted to contact the last person who saw his son alive.
Although his body was never returned to Washington County, Bob Reynolds said there is a marker in his uncle's memory in the Gravel Bank Cemetery off Ohio 7 in Warren Township.
On the night of April 30, 1945, three DUKWs left the lake's east side carrying members of the division's 605th Field Artillery. One of the vehicles, jammed with 25 soldiers and a 75 mm cannon, stalled during the journey and soon began taking on water.
According to Cpl. Thomas Hough, the lone survivor, the soldiers desperately tossed their equipment and ammunition overboard in an attempt to keep the vessel from sinking. But the DUKW went down anyway, plunging the men into the frigid waters of the glacier-fed lake.
Soon all had drowned but Hough, a former lifeguard from Dayton, Ohio, who was rescued by two 10th Mountain soldiers on shore who heard the cries for help. Hough died in 2005.
Brett Phaneuf, a researcher from the Chester, Conn.-based nonprofit underwater archaeology organization ProMare, led an effort 10 years ago to find the sunken DUKW. Hampered by equipment issues, Phaneuf found no sign of the vehicle.
But in late 2011, a local Italian group of volunteer divers started their own search. Using sonar and a remotely operated vehicle equipped with a video camera, they announced last December the discovery of a WWII DUKW sitting upright on the lake bottom.
Gruppo Volontari del Garda said it hasn't been able to positively confirm that it's the same DUKW that sank, killing the 24 soldiers, or one of the other two known to have sunk in the same area of the lake. The group said it plans to resume efforts to locate remains and recover the DUKW, possibly later this year or in early 2014.
"Seems to us only right to do everything possible in order to restore at least someone to their land," the group's spokesman, Luca Turrini, said in an email to The Associated Press.
Officials at the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command, the Hawaii-based unit that searches for remains of Americans from foreign battlefields, said they're aware of the group's claims but don't plan to investigate unless there's firm evidence that remains have been located.
"If JPAC were to be provided with additional information, we would gladly look into it more," Lee Tucker, a spokesman at JPAC's Pearl Harbor headquarters, said in an email to the AP.
The family of Pvt. James Hilley would like to see his remains recovered and returned to his hometown of Calhoun Falls, S.C.
When his great-nephew, Matthew Hilley, learned of the Italian group's discovery in December, he showed his aging relatives the video of the DUKW on his smartphone. It was a particularly emotional moment for 86-year-old Jewell Scott, James Hilley's sister.
"She said, 'I prayed over and over and over again that we would find James before I passed away,'" Matthew Hilley said.
For Nash and the division's dwindling number of World War II veterans, the determination to recover the lost soldiers' remains hasn't diminished with the passage of time.
"It's the old story," he said. "You never leave any man behind."
http://wqad.com/2013/09/13/remains-of-2-airmen-missing-since-wwii-found/
Remains of 2 airmen missing since WWII found
Posted on: 9:11 am, September 13, 2013, by Shellie Nelson

(CNN) — Their bodies were missing for decades after they disappeared behind enemy lines.
Now the remains of two U.S. Army Air Force troops who died during World War II are set to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery next week after search crews found them in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, the U.S. Defense Department POW/Missing Personnel Office said Thursday.
The A-20G Havoc bomber in which U.S. Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Valorie L. Pollard and Sgt. Dominick J. Licari were flying crashed after attacking enemy targets on March 13, 1944, the Defense Department said.
Their remains were recovered when the crash site was excavated last year.
More than 400,000 U.S. troops were killed during World War II, and the remains of more than 73,000 were never recovered or identified, the Defense Department says.
Papua New Guinea, an island country in the western Pacific, is north of Australia and just south of the equator. Much of the nation is covered in rugged terrain and rain forests.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/20130912american-legion-post-hosting-symbolic-pow-mia-ceremony.html
American Legion post hosting symbolic POW/MIA ceremony

American Legion Post 39.
Catherine J. Jun/The Republic
By Srianthi PereraThe Republic | azcentral.comThu Sep 12, 2013 10:15 AM
If you have a few minutes to spare on Sunday, Sept. 15, drop in at the American Legion Post 39 in downtown Gilbert.
The legion is sponsoring a prisoner-of-war/missing-in-action remembrance ceremony starting at 1 p.m. on that day and the public is invited.
“While everyone was aware that each of our many wars has both POWs and MIAs, there was no official recognition of this fact until quite recently,” said Skip Erickson, post commander.
POW/MIA awareness was initiated in the United States during and after the Vietnam War, in the 1970s.
According to the U.S. Defense Department’s Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, more than 83,000 Americans are missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. Hundreds of men and women are working to bring the missing personnel home, the department said.
The official day was in April, but it was moved to the third Friday of September because of inclement weather in Washington, D.C.
“Here at Post 39 in Gilbert, we do our ceremony on the third Sunday in September to accommodate all those who can’t attend on a workday,” Erickson said.
The 20-30 minute ceremony involves a round table with six empty place settings, each representing and honoring members of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard and civilians. The place settings symbolize that the lost military personnel are here in spirit.
The moderator will ask visitors to stand and remain standing for a moment of silent prayer as the honor guard places the five service covers and a civilian cap on each empty plate.
The moderator then explains the meaning of the items on the table, which is round to show unending concern for the missing. The symbols include:
The tablecloth is white to symbolize the purity of their motives when answering the call to duty.
The single red rose, displayed in a vase, is to remind people of missing military members and how their relatives and friends keep the faith that they’ll one day learn what happened to their loved ones.
The vase is tied with a red ribbon, a symbol of Americans’ continued determination to account for the missing personnel.
A slice of lemon on the bread plate symbolizes the bitter fate of those captured and missing in a foreign land.
A pinch of salt symbolizes the tears endured by those missing and their families who seek answers.
The Bible represents the strength gained through faith to sustain those lost in battle.
The lighted candle reflects hope for their return to their families and the nation.
An inverted glass symbolizes the missing people’s inability to share this day’s toast.
Empty chairs symbolize the missing fighters.
The ceremony concludes with the playing of taps.
Sad News:
This message brings sad news concerning William J. “Obey” Obrien. Obey passed away on September 7, 2013. During the Vietnam War Obey was assigned to Detachment “K”, 500th Military Intelligence Group in Bangkok, Thailand. As you might recall, the 500th was one of several units responsible for collection and production of POW/MIA related information/intelligence in Vietnam. During the final years of the war Obey was assigned to the Defense Attache Office (DAO) in Saigon where he worked as a Counterintelligence Polygraph Examiner. Obey was one of the last American Officials to be evacuated from Saigon where he was my neighbor in Cu Xa Tu Do Compound. On April 4, 1975, Obey and his wife Yen went to the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital and identified the bodies of my family members killed in the ill-fated USAF C5-A aircraft that crashed during the evacuation. I will be eternally grateful for that help in a critical situation. After the collapse of the Republic of Vietnam on 30 April, 1975, Obey and I were assigned in the Fort Smith Resident Agency, Defense Investigative Service where we worked on POW/MIA and the Vietnam Stay-behind operation as part of the DIA’s Project “Doberman Dawn” (Detachment F, USAINTA, USAINTC), at Fort Chaffee Indochinese Refugee Reception Center, where once again, Obey became my neighbor.
Obey was a fine person and a great soldier. He was a loyal supporter of our unreturned veterans POW and MIA.
Yen, our prayers are with you and your family.
Obey, my friend, rest in peace.
Bill Bell
Former Chief, US Office for POW/MIA Affairs Vietnam
William John O’Brien
December 14, 1933-September 7, 2013
William, also known as Bill or OB to his friends and family, grew up in Fulton, NY where he was one of two children. Bill attended Union College before joining the United States Army and served as an intelligence officer in Vietnam. Bill cared deeply about placing children orphaned by war into loving homes. After retiring from the military with rank CW3, Bill sold life insurance and worked as a regional manager. Bill was passionate about Free Masonry and is the Past Master of two lodges. He considered his Army colleagues and Free Masons his second family. He enjoyed world travel, scuba diving, stamp, coin & gun collecting, cooking, genealogy, theology, linguistics, gardening, and spending time with his family. Bill could fix anything, and in his later years spent time helping his daughter rehabilitate her 100 year-old Sears home in a DC suburb. He taught her how to do plumbing, electrical, dry wall, landscaping and carpentry. Bill was an avid reader. He would read multiple books simultaneously and finish several every week. Not only did he love sharing his wealth of knowledge and spending his time tutoring local children in his neighborhood, he also loved learning new things and had just signed up for an online genetics course.
He is survived by his beloved wife Yen; daughters: Debra, Donna, Kim, Tammatha and Jennifer; his sons-in-law: Yasir and Michael; his grandchildren: Lindsay, Samantha, JP, Amber, David, Justin, and Sam; his great granddaughter Anna; and his cherished rescue dogs Lucky, Sonja and Sasha.
Bill was a war hero, father figure and mentor to many of the people whose lives he touched. Bill was a selfless man who lived his life with a sense of humor and integrity. His passing has left this world with one less great man.

Tammatha O'Brien, Ph.D.
College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences
Department of Entomology ƸӜƷ
Office:
3118 Plant Sciences Building
301.405.1305
301.314.9290 Fax
Mailing address:
4112 Plant Sciences Building
University of Maryland, Dept of ENTM
College Park, MD 20742

On Sep 8, 2013, at 8:10 AM, Tammatha O'Brien <tammatha@umd.edu> wrote:
Hello,
This is Tammatha, Bill O'Brien's daughter. My father passed away last night and I'm trying to make sure of his friends are contacted. I found your email in his address book. My father always cherished the chocolate covered macadamia nuts you sent for Chrsitmas and his friendship with you.
My mother will be staying with me at my house for the next few weeks and if you'd like to contact her my home phone is 240-515-4122
As per my father's wishes, he did not want a memorial and wants to cremated so there will be no ceremony. Do you know anyone else I should contact? Also, can you please reply to my email address since I may soon be locked out of my Dad's account.
Hanoi Jane strikes again
Let’s not forget the movie also includes the racially challenged Opra Winfrey as a cast member and while it claims to be historical the actual person portrayed says it ain’t so.

Posted: 19 Aug 2013 02:36 PM PDT
Apparently the Hollywood hypester producers of the new movie Butler have succeeded in drawing attention to their otherwise forgettable film by casting Hanoi Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan. In recent publicity for the movie Fonda has been more aggressive than usual in sparring with her critics, going so far as to wear a "Hanoi Jane" T-shirt. Sort of "in your face" to the veterans and other who continue to deplore her treasonous conduct in North Vietnam during July 1972.
When Fonda published her autobiography several years ago she devoted little space to her pilgrimage to the Belly of the Communist Beast, nonetheless making yet another attempt to justify her illegal and immoral conduct.
As many of you know, Erika Holzer and I are co-authors of "Aid and Comfort": Jane Fonda in North Vietnam. Because of that, when Fonda's autobiography was published we were asked by Front Page Magazine to write a rebuttal to her excuses/rationalizations. Some eighteen pages later, in an essay entitled "Guilty as Charged" we had demolished everything she said.
For those who can't get enough of Hanoi Jane, the essay can be found at:
http://www.henrymarkholzer.citymax.com/f/Fonda_autobiography_final%5B1%5D%5B1%5D.pdf
To: Senator John Boozman <info@boozman.com>
Sent: Thu, Sep 12, 2013 10:27 am
Subject: Fw: U.S. response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by Bashar Al Asaad regime
Added Comment 9/12/2013
SIGINT collected just prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq indicated that some of the last Russian personnel being evacuated from their advisory compound in
Baghdad were transporting sensitive Russian/Iraqi bilateral records and special weapons from Iraq to Syria for Saddam Hussein. At the time the Russians sought to stave off such attacks by claiming the vehicle movement was a "diplomatic convoy." In any case, however, attacks on the convoy resulted in the abandonment of at least some vehicles. Unfortunately, however, no U.S. personnel were dispatched to the ambush sites in order to collect material evidence and to conduct an incident site survey. These sites were subsequently obliterated.
There is most likely no better way to dispose of chemical weapons than to use them in annihilating opponents, especially those bent on causing serious political and military problems in the future.
Rather than ignoring the facts, unlike the Katyn Woods massacre, these important points should be raised with the Russian negotiators in upcoming talks with President Obama.
The hands of both Putin and Al Saad are equally bloody. Like eliminating fungi, both should be exposed to the bright rays of the sun. Just to make sure that tyrants around the globe do not choose Al Saad as a role model, he should be dealt with severely. This will be a suitable mission for black helicopters in the night, with an additional burial at sea.
Subject: U.S. response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by Bashar Al Asaad regime 
September 10, 2013
Fort Smith, AR 
To: Representative Tom Cotton 
Thus far heated debate in the U.S. Congress, coupled with major media coverage, has failed to provide any empirical proof, or for that matter, even any believable rationale for use of chemical weapons on the population by the Bashar Al Saad regime in Syria. Some have argued that the recent poison chemical incident is actually deception by U.S. Intelligence and Clandestine Services. Some analysts argue that there is an extant plan to unleash chemical weapons in Syria in order to blame it on the Bashar Al Saad regime to justify a direct intervention by U.S. and NATO forces in the country's civil war. Others, however, seek to lay it on the doorstep of the rebels currently rebelling all across Syria. 
As a retired civil servant with some 53 years service, primarily in the Human Intelligence Collection field, I find it amazing that no one has considered the recent use of chemicals in Syria as being part of a long-standing, prepared in advance, cold, calculated contingency plan designed to exterminate an important segment of the rebellious forces now creating havoc for the Bashar Al Saad in Syria. The current rebel force is most likely seen as a future, long-term thorn in the collective backside of the Bashar Al Saad regime, thus the recent incident designed to remove the important leadership ecehelon, as well as, influence groups throughout the population. 
The decision to perpetrate this incident is almost as bold as the political decision to approve the “Katyn Woods Massacre” in Poland during May of 1940. In this instance some 20,000 Polish Prisoners of War (POWs), consisting primarily of officers and civilian intelligentsia were secretly executed in cold blood by machine guns and subsequently buried in mass graves. No serious effort to bring those perpetrating this wire crime to justice has ever been undertaken. The Russian Political Commissar who approved the operation has never even been interviewed.
In the more recent atrocity by the Bashar Al Assad regime, before the dust had even settled, the Syrian regime deployed aircraft and artillery in bombing missions designed to confuse and compromise any possible, future investigation of the incident locations of the chemicals attacks. Shortly thereafter the Russians stepped forward with a surprise compromise political/military solution, apparently aimed at providing political cover for the terrifying attack and laying the groundwork for “talks” between the opposing forces. 
What this all boils down to is a position wherein Bashar Al Saad will be granted “CYA” assistance by the Russians, and possibly even complete immunity, in a situation where he will have successfully pared considerably the threat posed by his adversaries. Thus relieving a visibly shaken President Barack Obama, who can now slither away from any planned military action. In this scenario both Obama and Bashar Al Saad get to have their cake and eat it too. Like the fate of unfortunate Polish military and civilian leaders brutally executed and buried in the Katyn Woods, some well-trusted members of the leadership of the Bashar Al Saad regime are probably right now destroying message traffic and documents related to planning, approving and executing the recent vicious chemicals attack. Will the U.S. Government have enough backbone to preclude this incident from being swept under a rug, along with the Benghazi Incident? Watch the national news tonight, you might have an answer.
Regards,
Bill Bell
Former Chief, U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs Vietnam

http://newtownbee.com/news/features/2013/09/13/son-s-book-shares-deacon-s-wwii-pow-experience/161635
Son’s Book Shares Deacon’s WWII POW Experience
By Nancy K. Crevier
Friday, September 13, 2013

Photo: Nancy K. Crevier
A belief that all should understand the ordeals suffered by World War II POWs in Japanese prison camps, as did his father, Kenneth Stroud, led Waterbury resident Adrian Stroud, right, to tell his father’s story in a book, Prisoner of War Number 2378, available at www.amazon.com.
Share
Share on emailE-mail this story Share on printPrint this story Share on favoritesSave this story
Kenneth Stroud is a mild man, with a ready smile and even at age 93, blue eyes that sparkle. His handshake is firm and while the years threaten to bend him in half, his stride is steady. A deacon in the Catholic Church for 36 years, the native Englishman does not have the demeanor of a man who harbors memories that would raise the eyebrows of the boldest soldier.
But for three and a half years of his life the question for Mr Stroud was always, “What’s next?” Captured by the Japanese in 1942, just after the British forces in Singapore surrendered, the young Royal Air Force (RAF) Leading Aircraftsman would find himself shipped ultimately to the Indonesian island of Haruku, in the Banda Sea off of New Guinea. It would be a grueling journey of deprivation, humiliation, and starvation to a labor camp where he and more than 2,000 other Dutch and British prisoners of war would be forced to begin work on an airstrip that the Japanese saw as a stepping stone to the invasion of Australia.
He would witness physical and mental cruelty beyond comprehension, suffer from the swelling of beriberi and other diseases caused by malnutrition and starvation, and watch as fellow prisoners lost hope and died. A diet of the poorest quality rice cooked in filthy barrels with river water would be his main sustenance. He would watch as men were tortured, cheating death or brutal beatings himself, more than once.
By the time Aircraftsman Stroud watched Britain’s head of Combined Operations Command, Lord Mountbatten, enter Singapore (to which he had been circuitously returned as the war turned against Japan) and announce him “no longer a POW,” his once 150-pound frame had dwindled to just 90 pounds.
Only a few of his friends and family members have ever realized that he was once a POW, said Mr Stroud, and at his late wife’s behest, he mostly kept silent about the memories that sometimes surfaced as nightmares, waking the entire family, but never fully explained in the next morning’s light.
“I had a desire to have a new life, to leave it all behind, and to move on. I wanted to marry and have a family,” said Mr Stroud of his life after the war.“But I do have different episodes stored up here,” Mr Stroud said, September 10, tapping his forehead as he discussed the book written by his son, Adrian Stroud, “and sometimes they come out. Now and again, something will spring to mind.”
Nearly seven decades after the end of World War II, Mr Stroud, a Newtown resident from 1978 to 2005 and now a resident of Southbury, has decided to share his story. Prisoner of War Number 2378, available at www.amazon.com as of October 1, and currently available there as a preorder, is Adrian Stroud’s retelling of his father’s saga in World War II.
“For ten years my wife told me I had to write a book about Dad’s experiences,” said Adrian Stroud, “and then I had friends who urged me to do the same, when they found out he had been a POW.”
He had heard snippets of his father’s POW experience, growing up, said the author, but until he began to research the Japanese POW experience and question his father more closely, following his mother’s death in 2004, he had no idea the horrors his father had endured.
“Dad was always a strict disciplinarian, but never expressed any animosity,” Adrian Stroud said, a trait he finds remarkable. Listening to his father and researching, Adrian Stroud has found the past two years’ task of writing his father’s story “monumental, both in the writing process and emotionally.” He persevered, he said, believing it is important for others to understand that part of history. “The veterans’ memories should be cherished,” said Adrian Stroud.
Kenneth Stroud recalled his first year in Singapore, after joining the RAF at age 20, as a happy time. Singapore seemed far from the war in Europe, occupying luxury suites of a commandeered skyscraper. “Some had fears about the Japanese coming, but nobody knew if or when,” he said. When his commanders ordered him one morning to grab his kit and get on a truck out of Singapore, he did not know it was the beginning of that string of “What’s next?” questions for the next three years.
“The men then sailed to Batavia through the Sunda Strait,” writes Adrian Stroud. “Next the men were told thing were ‘going sour’ and they were placed on American trucks. They traveled east through Java to a port town on the south coast; Tjilatjap.”
As the Japanese invasion moved in, the men found themselves warehoused, put on trucks, and into “stuffy cattle cars,” ultimately ambushed by Japanese sharpshooters.
“It’s hard to say when the real capture occurred,” Mr Stroud said, but it became clear to him when he and the others were herded into a large shed overseen by Japanese guards that he was no longer under the command of his RAF superiors. It from here on that the dark memories were formed, some so awful that he asked his son to not include details in the book.
Adrian Stroud bases his father’s story on many interviews, and devotes a portion of the 83-page book to his father’s diaries kept in the final days of the war.
The End Of The War
“One day, a Dutch interpreter came to see my dad and the others. He asked for anyone with a technical background to accompany him. My dad followed him into an office. There he saw a beautifully made radio set,” Adrian Stroud describes his father’s first brush with the knowledge of the war’s end. “He discovered there was nothing wrong with the set. He turned the volume up to make his adjustments. Whenever he did this, a guard would immediately turn the volume down.”
Convincing the interpreter and the guard that he could not fix the radio without the volume turned up, Mr Stroud heard shocking news. “The Americans had dropped some kind of special bomb on Japan. The end was near!”
August 18, 1945, Saturday: “Officer says last working party day of war, interpreter says end of war, still dubious.” August 22, 1945, Wednesday: “Heard war was over on 16th but nothing official, told that Singapore didn’t give in until 2 days later.”
On October 19, 1945, a Friday, Kenneth Stroud makes his final entry into a diary that would remain hidden in a Tupperware container for 66 years. The entry chronicles his final journey from Birmingham in the West Midlands of England to Upwey in Weymouth, England, where he disembarked the train at 8:30 pm, “to see dear old Mum, Aunty & Mr Rogers waiting for me… Lots to talk about, inevitable speech on every topic imaginable, a dainty spread to delight the eye of any x POW & above all to find that little has altered since I left… Thus ends the diary of my journey back to life.”
Kenneth Stroud keeps in his possession a Japanese-issued Malayan 10-dollar bill signed by Lord Mountbatten and his wife, the Countess, on the day his ordeal as a POW ended. He holds dearly a letter of welcome, issued and signed by King George IV to returning POWs.
He has held close to his heart, for 68 years, the memories of a time when his only comfort was prayer and his only question was, “What’s next?”
With Prisoner of War Number 2378, Mr Stroud has unveiled a time and place that only a few remaining veterans can truly understand, but which will, the Strouds hope, unveil a piece of history to all.
http://www.pnj.com/article/20130913/NEWS12/309130027/Former-airman-speak-POW-luncheon
Former airman to speak at POW luncheon
The 15th annual POW Luncheon will take place at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday at Heritage Hall in Seville.
Retired Air Force Col. Howard J. Hill will be the guest at the event.
Hill’s aircraft was shot down in North Vietnam on Dec. 16, 1967. After being captured by militia, he was transported to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison, where he spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison.
Hill was repatriated on March 14, 1973, during Operation Homecoming.
Twelve years after his release from captivity, Hill was selected as the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs.
In 1986, he twice returned to Hanoi as a member of a U.S. government delegation, seeking information about his fellow servicemen still missing in action.
Cost to attend Tuesday’s event is $20 per person. Call 436-8552 for reservations.
http://www.t-g.com/story/2002941.html
Vietnam era veterans focus on POW/MIAs
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Shelbyville Times-Gazette
Members of the crowd listen to guest speaker Sgt. Major Larry E. Williams during the September meeting of the Vietnam Era Veterans.
(Submitted photo) Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) recognition was the focus of the September meeting of Shelbyville/Bedford County Vietnam Era Veterans. Retired Sgt. Major Larry E. Williams was guest speaker.
Three commanders from local area American Legion posts were in attendance at last week's meeting, in addition to one AmVet commander.
Chaplain Jason Porter opened the meeting with the pledge to the American flag and also led in prayer. He spoke briefly about the POW/MIA table which was set in remembrance of all POW's/MIA's.

Sgt. Major Larry E. Williams was guest speaker at a recent meeting of Vietnam Era Veterans. From left: Williams; WWII veteran James T. Neese, 86, who recently received his high school diploma; and Chief Master Sergeant Donnie Porter (Ret.).
(Submitted photo)
[Click to enlarge]National POW/MIA Recognition Day is Sept. 20. A local prayer assembly is planned for that day at noon. Box lunches will be served for all veterans in attendance.
Veteran Tom Taylor highlighted the staggering statistics of those who are considered POW/MIA, quoting from the Sept. issue of The American Legion Magazine.
"There are approximately 83,000 cases that the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is trying to solve around the world," he said. "Nearly 1,700 of those mysteries belong to the US military personnel who fought in Vietnam."
"Funding and staffing for the JPAC mission must not dry up," continued Taylor. "Our commitment to never leave one of our own on the battlefield distinguishes us as a nation. And what we of the Vietnam War do for today's veterans, for those coming home, is at least part done in tribute to those who never got the chance to become civilians again."
Chief Master Sergeant (E-9) Donnie Porter, TN Air National Guard (Ret.), added to these comments on a personal level.
Porter contacted JPAC and the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), and was able to recover classified documents concerning his cousin Edward Anderson Porter from Huntsville, Ala.
Anderson Porter was an Aviation Radioman 2nd Class ARM2C in the US Navy during WWII. He was a radioman/gunner in a Dauntless dive-bomber and was awarded an Air Medal for service over Tarawa, Truk and Kwajalein in the Pacific.
He was shot down by the Japanese over Mili Atoll and crashed into the sea on March 18, 1944, and was immediately added to the rolls of MIA from the Central Pacific.
There is a gravestone in the family cemetery in Lincoln County with this simple statement: "A Place in Heaven Reserved for One."

Vietnam Era Veterans' chaplain Jason Porter spoke briefly about the POW/MIA table which was set in remembrance of all POW's/MIA's. September 20 is National POW/MIA Recognition Day.
(Submitted photo)
[Click to enlarge]Donnie Porter urges all friends and family members of those missing in action to contact the JPAC and DPMO organizations for further information. JPAC's mission is to conduct global search, recovery and laboratory operations to identify unaccounted-for Americans from past conflicts in order to support the Department of Defense's personnel accou