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A Pennsylvania POW/MIA was referred to
in the February 17th article Website reunites Vietnam Vets in the
York Dispatch mentioning MIA (Spec 5) Richard Lacey from Pittsburgh.
Although the subject of an American POW/MIA is not a pleasant one,
by any means, I was glad to see a story about the issue – even if
it only captures a few sentences of a related topic. The POW/MIA
issue needs to be kept alive and out-front so the POW/MIA(s) and
their families are never forgotten.
To review: Specialists Lacey, and William Behrens
(Spec 4), were enroute to the Regional Communications Group in
Saigon on January 31, 1968 to deliver a message when they were
ambushed in the Gia Dinh province located on the southern side of
Saigon. The body of Specialist Behrens appeared at the Ton Son Nhut
Army Mortuary Affairs unit on February 3, 1968 (although how his
body arrived there is a mystery) and the jeep they were driving was
recovered between the 8th and the 15th of April, 1968. The body of
Specialist Lacey has never been recovered and he remains as one name
on a long list of heroes who fill a category simply titled “Killed
In Action – Body Not Recovered.”
To date, there are 1,945 American military and
civilian personnel who remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.
Pennsylvania is home to 103 of these individuals, whose status range
from “Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered” (57 of them) to “Presumptive
Finding of Death” (45). Additionally, the U.S. Government
officially lists Mr. George L. Ritter, who is a Pennsylvania native
and civilian pilot employed by Air America, as “Missing in Action.”
Mr. Ritter’s crew and aircraft, a C123K “Provider,”
was shot down while flying a mission roughly 10 miles south of Hong
Sa, Laos. According to the Homecoming II Project and the P.O.W.
Network, it is purported that Mr. Ritter and 8 other American
Prisoners were being held as late as 1984, and that Mr. Ritter was
being used as an aircraft mechanic in various regions throughout
Laos. There is also a report of a rescue attempt in 1984 – an
attempt that was unsuccessful. Out of the 1,945 unaccounted for were
156 serving in various positions in, about, and over the country of
Laos, a place to which our Government officially denied having ever
set foot in for years.
One such person to be wrested from the skies over
Laos is York native Edgar W. Weitkamp, who served with the Army
Attaché Office in Vientiane, Laos. On March 23, 1961, Army Warrant
Officer Weitkamp was a passenger aboard a SC-47
intelligence-gathering aircraft bound for some deserved “R&R”
in Saigon, when the plane was shot down over an area known as “The
Plain of Jars.” A second passenger, Major Lawrence R. Bailey, was
able to parachute from the plummeting aircraft and was taken
prisoner by Pathet-Lao forces and held for seventeen months.
Reportedly, there were no other survivors, however, there are
unconfirmed reports of a second parachute in the incident.
Unfortunately, the Vietnam War is not the first
war to produce an ominous list of American personnel who are
POW/MIA.
Because record keeping was not a high priority,
there is no way to determine the exact number of POW/MIAs from wars
prior to the Korean War; however, it is estimated that some 78,976
Americans remain missing from the Second World War. In recent years,
it has been widely speculated that the Soviet Union held back
American personnel who they had liberated from German prisoner of
war camps. Since 1994, there has been a joint US-Russia Working
Group laboring to determine whether thousands (as alleged in some
accounts) or even any live American prisoners of war were not
returned by the Soviets. Moreover, some accounts report prisoner
moves to the former Soviet Union dating back to the Korean War and
also involve movements to mainland China as well.
There are currently some 8,177 American personnel
who remain unaccounted for from the Korean War – 593 of them once
called Pennsylvania home. On October 7, 1952, an Air Force RB-29 was
shot down, by Soviet LA-11 Fighters, while flying a mission north of
Hokkaido Island – just north of mainland Japan. One crewmember's
remains were repatriated in 1993; however, the remaining crewmembers
are still missing. Although the loss incident is tied to the Cold
War and not the Korean War, the remains of Hanover native Frank E.
Neail have never been located or repatriated. Government documents
indicate that as many as 343 Americans have never been accounted for
as a result of Cold War incidents between September 1945 and August
1991; 16 of these gallant heroes are from Pennsylvania and their
loss incidents are recorded between 1950 and 1969.
It has always been widely believed that American
prisoners of war were held back after the end of the Korean and
Vietnam Wars, however our government has ‘emphatically and
categorically’ denied this. And the Countries at the wrong end of
the accusations deny this as well. North Korea continues to deny to
its southern brothers that it holds no prisoners from the Korean War
– but to date, 24 South Korean soldiers, who were captured by the
communist forces between 1950 and 1953, have escaped…one as
recently as February 1, 2002. According to an article written by the
Associated Press “Seoul, South Korea (AP),” Kim Jong-Wan was
taken prisoner during a battle in central Korea and had spent most
of his life working at a coal mine before escaping in December.
Incidentally, an article in the January 18th issue of the Korea
Herald reported that the South Korean Defense Ministry states that
457 South Korean POWs are believed to be alive in the North.
Only one American POW/MIA has ever escaped from
Vietnam after Operation Homecoming in 1973. In 1979, Marine Corps
PFC Bobby Garwood was able to slip a note to a Finnish diplomat –
who delivered it to the BBC in London; who announced Garwood’s
incarceration to the world. Shortly thereafter, he was on a plane
bound for freedom…or so he thought. As he stepped off the plane in
Bangkok, he was greeted by a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, who read
him his rights, charged him with desertion, and led him away in
handcuffs. Here is a quick question for you to ponder: If you had
just 12 days until you left the horror of the Vietnam War forever,
would you abandon or desert your country and its armed forces?
Although Garwood was eventually cleared of desertion charges, his
claims of seeing other live American POW/MIAs during his unfortunate
and needless incarceration went unchecked – even after his sworn
testimony before a House Subcommittee meeting on Asian and Pacific
Affairs.
On the evening of March 1st, I sat in a slightly
crowded movie theater in Hanover with my wife and listened to Mel
Gibson repeat a promise made by the Honorable Lieutenant Colonel Hal
Moore, the person he portrays in his latest movie “We were
Soldiers…”
“I can’t promise you that I will bring you all
home alive. But this I swear…when we go into battle, I will be the
first to step on the field and I will be the last to step off. And I
will leave no one behind…dead or alive. We will all come home
together.”
“And I will leave no one behind…” “We will
all come home together.”
The words have echoed within my mind since March
1st and leave me choked up and teary eyed when I picture the speech
before his troops. I find myself wishing that those who remain
missing had somehow served under Lt. Col Moore’s command; at least
they would have made it back one way or another. The promise above
reminds me of a code I was asked to adhere to when I raised my hand
and took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United
States when I enlisted in the Air Force in 1991. The Code of Conduct
is an ethical and moral code, which focuses primarily on Americans
in combat – and the conduct we must adhere to in the event we are
taken as a prisoner of war. But that code has another, less visible
side to it.
A preamble, of sorts, to the Code of Conduct, as
described in a 1992 volume of Air Force Pamphlet 50-34 states “Just
as you have a responsibility to your country under this code, the US
Government has an equal responsibility – always to keep faith with
you and stand by you as you fight in its defense. If you become a
POW, you may rest assured that your government will care for your
dependents and will never forget you.” “Furthermore, the
government will use every practical means to contact, support, and
gain release for you and all other POWs.”
With the exception of one person, all of our
hometown heroes have been written-off by our Government as “presumed
dead.” As near as I can tell, there is no mention of a statute of
limitations on the Government side of the Code of Conduct. I find no
mention of a statute in any of my enlistment or reenlistment
documents. Jurors who decide the outcomes in criminal proceedings
are instructed to base their decisions of guilt or innocence “beyond
a shadow of doubt.”
I ask, simply, why are our POW/MIAs not afforded
the same benefit as our criminals?
Mike Blades
Hanover, Pennsylvania |
