The American Freedom Network

Remembering Those Who Did Not Return

May 31, 2010 – 10:06 am

Before Memorial Day became a ‘Monday Holiday’ back in the 1970s, it was intended as a day of rememberence for those who had fallen in battle, first in the Civil War (it was first known as ‘Decoration day’) and then for all of our fallen and missing who served under our flag. With the emphasis now on three-day weekends

(yes, i enjoy those, too), the meaning can easily be diluted for those who use the time to get away. It becomes a day about self – R&R after a long stretch of weeks at the office or the plant, barbecue day,

get out of town, etc., with too much going on to stop and remember why.

We also lose sight of those who did not return, but who live, or lived, after the wars they fought in ended. Into the 1970s, there would be the occasional story of a Japanese soldier being found on a small atoll in the Pacific, left behind, still loyal to his orders, who did not realize that the war had ended decades ago.

Imagine having held on for decades, waiting for orders, reinforcements, relief, news – anything – only to find out that you’d been forgotten, and that the world you knew no longer existed. Now imagine that you’re an American POW who never came home. You’re still a prisoner, years or decades after the war ended, and you don’t know if it still goes on, though you never hear bombs explode, or if your country lost. Do they even know if you’re still alive?

US News and the New York Times ran Korean War POW stories in 1996, for example. Here is a quote fromA POW website about the US News article, which I remember reading, and the pictures of the men, shortly after captivity, I won’t forget:

23 SEP 96: In a U.S. News & World Report article, KOREA: AN OLD WAR’S DARK NEW SECRETS, we read: “The evidence, on the face of it, seems persuasive.” The most explosive testimony was given by Jan Sejna. While attempts to discredit Sejna abound, it is with interest that an internal DIA memo, dated April 27, 1992 and signed by the then DIA director, Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr., “noted that Sejna, after testifying about the fate of POWs, submitted to a polygraph examination ‘during which no deception was indicated’ “The
New York Times ran a similar piece at the same time.

Given the bizarre nature of North Korea’s government, the retention of American POWs, as translators, internal propaganda tools, or for any other reason that strikes the fancy of the father-son dictators who’ve ruled there, anything, including 50 or more years’ captivity for our won there, is possible. The trail is fresher, and murkier, however, when we turn our attention to Viet Nam. The American Conservative has a story in their current issue, by no means the first of its’ kind, about Sen. McCain’s efforts to bully POW/MIA
families into silence whenever they raise questions about the 1,000+ live sightings of POWs there, as late as the early 1990s. As the article notes, the Vietnamese may have held them for ransom, as they did with French POWs from Dien Bien Phu, released in the 1970s for an unspecified amount of money. That President Nixon secretly promised over $4 billion in war reparations is not in doubt; that Congress denied the funding is not disputed, either. That several attempts by the Vietnamese government to exchange POWs for money is also quite likely, given the weight of the evidence. That the POWs may have become a liability to a Vietnam seeking normalized relations, Nike shoe factories, etc., as they were to our own rulers, who for so long had denied the betrayal of trust implied b knowingly leaving them behind, seems logical. Their fate now, unknown.

If any POWs survive, in Korea, Vietnam, or elsewhere (from the Cold War, or even from World War

Two)
, their return ought to be a top national priority. If it is ransom that their keepers want, pay it. If not, then holding them constitutes a causus belli, and we ought to do for them what they did for us – fight, if it comes down to it. Anything less than the truth about their status, and action, by whatever means necessary, to effect their return, even if only one lives, is an utter betrayal of trust, honor, and the principles we asked them to fight for.