European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 11, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse Vietnam mias 20 years after . Withdrawal their cases remain unresolved by George Esper a special correspondent the United states has fought four major wars and two lesser ones in the 20th Century but Only in the Case of Vietnam has the Issue of the missing in action haunted the nation years and years after the fighting ended. Here Are some facts 3,350 missing in world War i 78,750 missing in world War it 8,200 missing in Korea 2,264 unaccounted for in Vietnam none missing in the wars with Grenada and Iraq As the 20th anniversary of the us. Withdrawal from Vietnam approaches Many of the families of the men who never made it Home still live in limbo. Some Are emotional casualties of the War suffering depression alcoholism even suicide. The Issue has haunted six presidents from Lyndon a Johnson to George Bush. It moved the Senate to create a select committee last year to look into whether any americans could still be alive. It spawned heroic Rescue movies of the �?T80s a uncommon valor and missing in name a few a that Are cited by critics As culprits in reinforcing the belief that there Are american pos still alive in. A a Indochina. Why have Vietnam s mias a and Only the Vietnam mias of this Century a conflicts a become a National question that has outlived the War itself and transcended All other wars the families of the missing men Vietnam veterans military analysts historians psychologists and senators heading the select committee on pow Mia affairs agree that government itself and the divisiveness of the War Bear a Large part of the blame. R h. Bruce Franklin author of the Book Mia. Or myth making in America said he believes that at the heart of the Issue is an entirely new category the government created a pow Mia a which had never existed before. Quot in previous wars the category pos consisted of people who were known or a believed to have been captured and Mia is people who were just missing and we did t know what happened to them Quot Franklin said. Quot by tumbling them together in this single category they created the. Illusion that any missing person May it Vul we eve had to Deal with a government that refuses to be accountable for Vietnam. We Are determined that they must 1 Al Ziegler tank commander in Vietnam possibly be a prisoner of son. John f. Kerry d-mass., chairman of the select committee on pow Mia affairs agrees that the Pentagon blurred the Issue by lumping the two together. Quot they lumped the word pow in front of mias even though a lot of the people on the list were mias Quot Kerry says. Quot they knew a lot of them were mias not pos. They made it one entity so its very. Confusing. A lot of people Are running around thinking there Are 2,000 pos. It s a. At the time Kerry says the Pentagon was responding to political pressure from the families and from government officials in command. Quot they did t know How to Deal with it Quot he says. Quot they did no to know How to get the answers Quot Kerry thinks there was some lobbying by the families not to separate the pos and mias to ensure that All of them were answered for and to acknowledge the possibility that somebody who was missing might potentially be held prisoner. Even Kerry s committee carries the. Designation pow Mia. A that s what was created by the Senate Quot Kerry says. Quot that show we began before the Issue was clarified by virtue of the As an example of. The confusion the Pentagon lists the 2,264 americans As unaccounted for it then Breaks this number Down into 1,170 pow Mia and 1,094 As Quot kill Eden action body not recovered Quot on the basis of reports from others who witnessed the action. Quot you Are either pow or Mia. You cannot be both Quot says capt. Susan St Mednansky a Pentagon spokeswoman. Quot the Bottom line is that they re All unaccounted asked then whether the 1,170 lumped together As pow Mia were prisoners or simply missing in action she says. Quot we done to know about any of these. That s Why we think that these pictures and the new information we re getting from the vietnamese will be so St Mednansky said the. Pentagon has always maintained that because it has no information either proving or disproving live pos it operates under the Assumption some May be alive but this statement is simply for Public consumption. Senior military officials and others have said they Don t believe there Are any live american pos being held in. Vietnam. _ the families say government officials from presidents on Down have misled Vietnam Veteran Watt Han Rockson or. Tooka Tor names of Tost comrades on a Vietnam veterans memo la White demonstrating hts determination to find out what happened to those Stilt missing. Them in a National radio and television address on March 29, 1973, declared Quot All of our american pos Are on their Way Quot we mean to end your heartache and uncertainty. We will vigorously pursue the answers you seek and deserve Quot president Reagan said on july 19,1986, in his weekly radio address from the Oval office of the White House and most recently in october president Bush announced that Vietnam has agreed for the first time to make available All information on pos. Quot today finally i am convinced that we can begin writing the a a Las chapter of the Vietnam War Quot Bush said. A a a a. Quot the government said they were All coming Home Quot says sen Kerry. Quot and the government said they were All dead. Neither was True. They did t ail come Home and they weren t All dead. So in both cases the government sowed the seeds of mistrust Quot a a Kerry says that to make matters worse the government for a Long time did t help the families get information classifying documents that should t have been a Quot classified and stonewalling inquiries. At the end of world War ii and Korea there was less mistrust of government Kerry says. Quot there was a sense of acceptance of the government s word so the Issue did not live on Quot he says. A but i do think there a Are people today who because of the a mistrust Are asking questions about that period of time where they did t. . Thousands of live sigh tag reports in the mid to late 70s that continue even today helped perpetuate the belief there were live pos in Indochina says sen. Bob Smith r-n.h., vice chairman of the select committee on pow Mia affairs. The Pentagon says none has panned out. Families and friends of the pos and mias Quot Haven t received the information Quot Smith says. A they Hunt for information. They have to travel to seven or eight agencies in the . Government from the casualty offices to the la the Cia the Asa. It just goes on and on and they re being jerked around Smith thinks that if the government had Given out All the facts when it had them it would have resolved some of the cases sooner and perhaps put the minds of loved ones at ease. Smith also believes the Quot emotion of Vietnam compelled the families friends and comrades in arms to pursue the pos and mias ail these years. Quot the american people were not behind the War at least politicians weren to Quot Smith says. Quot we had this debate within the. Country. Many veterans were not really received with the honors they probably deserved. A a a Quot some of the emotional problems resulted from that Post traumatic stress syndrome. I think that s when the stories. Started to come out that men May have been left behind. I think that added to the Many Vietnam veterans agree with Smith. The Vietnam War Tore America apart. Anti War demonstrations and debate became a part of the Battlefield War itself. As the . Military found itself bogged Down not Only on the Battlefield but by racial drug leadership and morale problems there was a Rush to get out. In that haste critics charge american pos relatives Topow mias hold up pictures of the missing and chant Quot release Alt files tenths truth during an address by president Bush last year. Were left behind Nixon began a phased withdrawal of the More than 500,000 american troops in 1969, culminating with the signing of the Paris peace agreement on Jan. 27,1973. That agreement meant the end of the War for the United states and the release of 591 pos from february through april of 1973,. Dubbed Quot Homecoming Quot but the War did not end for communist North Vietnam and .-backed South Vietnam. Fighting continued for two years until South Vietnam fell to the communists on april 30, 1975. The country was reunified shortly afterwards. Quot i think what gave birth to it is just the legacy of the Trail that Vietnam represents Quot says Al Ziegler an army tank commander in Vietnam. Quot those of us that served there Felt we were betrayed by the Powers that be in Washington this Issue is just another aspect of that ongoing betrayal. A Quot we be had to Deal with a government that refuses to be accountable for Vietnam. We Are determined that they. a Ziegler is associated with Homecoming ii a nonprofit group. That keeps a 24rhour Vigil at the Vietnam veterans memorial in Washington in the belief that americans were left behind. They sell pow bracelets and to shirts from a Booth near the memorial. A spurred by mistrust of the government scores of organizations like Homecoming ii have sprung up on both the National and state Levels dedicated to a full accounting Vietnam veterans join protesters in an. Anti War demonstration in 1969. At right president Nixon la Cuaves the . Role in Southeast Asia. All of our american pos Are on their Way president Nixon March 29, 1973 of americans missing in action. Despite denials by the vietnamese that they hold any pos and statements by the. government that it has no solid evidence any Are being detained Many families still believe their loved ories Are alive. One of those is Dolores Apodaca Alfond of Bellevue wash., National. Chairwoman for the National Alliance of families for the return of America s a missing servicemen. Quot the Vietnam generation woke up to realize their . Government has not told them the truth on the Vietnam Issue Quot she says. Quot they Are in their Middle 40s and have families and have never really believed in their government. Quot Guys that served believed they did their Job but they did hot come Home to anyone applauding them. They weren t allowed to finish the Job the Way it should have been done. Servicemen in past wars fully their government. When their government said everybody was dead they believed Alfond s brother air Force maj. Victor Apodaca was shot Down Over North Vietnam on june 8,1967. Quot we know he s alive a she says. Quot we know he got to the ground. There was a Beeper signal. I Don t agree this is the last chapter because we have not done anything yet to bring living pos Home. I believe this is Ellen Langer a professor of psychology at Harvard University says families continue to believe their loved ones Are alive even though there is evidence to the contrary because they Are Able to make a Case for themselves no Malter what. A what constitutes evidence May be different for these families than for people who Are not As involve Quot she says. Quot they know somebody else who is alive. They a i lit s t i s r it a file take As the absence of positive confirmation of death that the person can be what gives Rise to these beliefs Are the so called Quot discrepancy cases Quot in which some americans were alive when last seen or heard from through radio signals and the United states has reason to believe they were taken into Captivity or turned Over to communist authorities. Last june Kerry announced that he had concluded from recently declassified government documents that As Many As 133 servicemen were still unaccounted for when the american pos were released in Early 1973 and the United states ended its military role in Vietnam. Quot some of them May have been dead but the belief is some of them were not Quot Kerry says. Military officials believe some of the pos died at the hands of their captors tortured and Given inadequate medical treatment and food or were victims of the foreboding Jungles and mountains of Vietnam and Laos. Quot the idea that we left people there in 1973 is ludicrous Quot says Harry g. Summers jr., a retired army colonel who negotiated with the North vietnamese on the pow Mia Issue in Hanoi and Saigon. Quot we know there were people identified As pos who were unaccounted for and Are still unaccounted Lor Quot Summers says. A the feeling was they done them in but did t want to admit it you can t prove a negative. So nobody can say positively there s nobody left Over there but my own personal feeling is that there a Summers who writes a syndicated column that appears in the stars says the pos and mias and their families were caught in the crossfire continued on Pago 20 Page 18 the stars and stripes monday january 11, 1993 the stars and stripes a Page 19
