Vietnam @ MindSay 
war
By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service
Sept. 18, 2008 - Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have begun, thousands of American soldiers have been welcomed home with elaborate parades, gymnasiums packed with tearful spouses and children, and commanders proclaiming from podiums great deeds done in battle. Still others have had more tragic homecomings, instead returning in flag-draped coffins to grieving spouses and families; their ceremonies replaced with memorials held quietly in serene cemeteries across the country.
But 88,000 servicemembers from wars past are buried on foreign shores and at sea, servicemembers whose mothers and fathers, husbands, wives and children have had neither the pleasure nor the closure of any homecoming.
Quietly, behind the scenes of the current conflicts, hundreds of military troops and civilians have gone about the business of bringing them home, one by one.
"We're probably the first nation since the Roman Empire to have soldiers in so many different places in the world," said Charles A. Ray, deputy assistant secretary of defense for prisoner of war and missing personnel affairs and a former U.S. ambassador to Cambodia.
Ray's office is charged with developing the policy and overseeing the efforts of the nearly 600 men and women in a handful of agencies across the country who work to research, recover and identify those who still are listed as missing from past wars.
In testimony before Congress this summer, Ray called their efforts the embodiment of the nation's commitment to those it sends into harm's way.
"If we can afford to take young and men and women and shove them out the door to go to war, we can afford to do what is necessary to bring them home and take care of them after they come back home," Ray said in an interview later at his office near the Pentagon.
"You ask people to sacrifice for their country," he said. "To me, that is a minimum payback for that sacrifice — not only on the part of the individuals, but for their families as well."
Ray is no stranger to the sacrifices of war. He served as a Special Forces soldier in combat. Coming out of his second combat tour in Vietnam, Ray acknowledged, he was skeptical and had no expectation that the government would continue searching for those missing there, many of whom were his comrades.
In fact, it was nearly 10 years after the war in Vietnam ended before the U.S. government would return to begin searching for the missing there. But now, as the head of the agency that leads the search, Ray said rapid advances in technology and sweeping changes on the international landscape have opened doors to recoveries and identifications that were closed before.
Former enemies have become allies. DNA testing, once deemed unreliable, has developed to become a key piece of evidence in nearly 85 percent of all missing troop identifications, Ray said. The United States, for the first time, is working on agreements to begin recovering the remains of servicemembers missing in countries such as India.
Navy Rear Adm. Donna L. Crisp, who commands the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, in Hawaii, called recent negotiations groundbreaking.
Crisp is working with the government of India to send recovery teams there, hopeful it will happen next year. And talks with China that were interrupted by the Olympics, she added, are going well to have recovery teams return there after five years.
"This mission, because it is so unique and so humanitarian, is accepted by nations for what we are doing," Crisp said. "Every nation that I have worked with has been very open and is willing to assist us."
The command's headquarters is based in the U.S. Pacific Command because that is where most of the servicemembers are missing and where nearly 80 percent of the organization's efforts are concentrated. Recovery teams have worked in Laos for more than 25 years and in Vietnam for 20. Teams regularly are in Cambodia and are close to exhausting all leads there, Ray said.
Crisp recently met with South Korean officials to begin a mutual effort look for each other's lost servicemembers there. South Korea has 130,000 soldiers missing from the Korean War. The two agencies are exchanging scientists and information to aid the search.
No other country invests as heavily in servicemember recovery efforts as the United States, Ray and Crisp agreed. This has propelled DoD recovery technologies to the forefront internationally, leaving many countries eager to learn from their work.
The Armed Forces Identification DNA lab in Rockville, Md., is one of the oldest and largest labs in the world working with ancient DNA testing, or testing from severely degraded samples. It is the DNA testing lab for the JPAC, and it recently helped bring to a close a near century-old search for the remains of two children executed alongside the rest of the family of Russia's last czar.
Russian scientists also traveled to JPAC's central identification laboratory in Hawaii to study its use of skull identification using photographs. The JPAC has the world's largest skeletal forensic lab.
The JPAC also is working to have a hydrographic ship scan the coastal waters of Vietnam to identify places where planes may have gone down.
"It's just, basically, having an adventurous spirit and a scientific desire for discovery to do a better job that keeps us on the cutting edge," Crisp said.
Still, with all of the technological advances, nothing replaces traditional field work and science, she said.
On any given day, investigative and recovery teams are deployed in some of the most remote regions around the world. Their work takes the teams deep into jungles and to mountain tops. They work with local people for up to two months at a time taking on inhospitable living conditions, rough weather, poisonous snakes and insects and unexploded ordnance. Nine Americans have died in those missions.
"Nothing replaces digging," Crisp said. "We haven't found any magic to replace good old American know-how and hard work."
One of DoD's biggest challenges in recovering missing servicemembers is the fact that it is fighting the clock in many of the recoveries.
Nearly 78,000 still are missing from World War Two, and JPAC's teams are working possible crash and burial sites that are more than 60 years old. Remains continue to deteriorate. Fields have grown over. Eyewitnesses and immediate family members have moved or died.
The JPAC is attempting to speed the time between recovery and identification of remains by expanding its size. Congress has approved a $100 million, 140,000-square-foot facility that will triple its current lab size. Construction is scheduled for 2010. For the first time, the entire command will be located in one spot; it now is spread across 10 trailers and temporary buildings on three bases in Hawaii.
In the meantime, the Navy has given the lab 20,000 square feet of temporary space so that it can work the identification of more remains simultaneously.
The JPAC lab identifies about two Americans per week, and each case can take years to complete. Historians there work on as many as 800 cases at a time, piecing information together like a puzzle.
To date, the JPAC has identified nearly 1,500 formerly missing servicemembers. They have recovered 913 from the Vietnam War, 107 from the Korean War, 17 from the Cold War, 456 from World War Two and four from World War I.
But for all of the DoD's efforts, the process is still painstakingly slow for those waiting for an identification of a missing family member, Crisp said.
"It is never as fast as it can be. Because if it is your husband or brother, you want to know immediately," Crisp said. "It's never fast enough. It's not fast enough for us, and it's not fast enough for the families."
Even second- or third-generation family members feel the impact of a missing servicemember, Ray said.
"As they get older, sometimes the emotion gets stronger, because they are facing leaving the world with unfinished business," he said.
That's part of the reason his office hosts 10 family updates across the country each year. At many of the updates, he makes time to answer questions on his office's efforts. They have met with 14,000 family members since 1995, Ray said.
At each of the updates, Ray's office encourages family members to have a DNA sample taken. The simple procedure of having a swab of saliva taken can help ensure that if or when their servicemember is recovered, the remains can be identified.
While the DNA rarely is the singular piece of evidence to identify a servicemember, when combined with other evidence, it can be the one piece that puts the puzzle together, Crisp said.
"The most frustrating part is to have gone through all of this and then get to the point where you can't find the one piece of information that lets you identify the hero," Crisp said.
For the most part, the families are gracious and many times surprised at the extent of the government's efforts to bring their servicemember home. Getting away from Washington, D.C., and meeting with the families has a rejuvenating effect on him, Ray said.
"It reminds me of why I do this, and it makes it easy for me to get up in the morning," Ray said.
Ray said his job serves as a reminder that America's freedoms came with a sacrifice. Americans shouldn't forget, he said, because the families of those missing never will forget.
"We have a country blessed, ... but it has been the blood, sweat and tears of millions of Americans before us who answered the call when it was necessary, and did what they had to do, to include paying the ultimate price," Ray said. "We are where we are, standing on their shoulders."
MIKE CASEY: My name is Mike Casey. I was a medic in Vietnam. I served in Vietnam from 1970, ’71. I was getting—I got there toward the end of the war, so I was seeing the homicides, the suicides, the rampant drug addiction, heroin addiction, shootouts. We had assault helicopters. We had Cobra gunships. We had APCs. We had dusters. We had 155-millimeter howitzers. We had 175-millimeter howitzers. And we were killing people.
JEREMY SCAHILL: John McCain, of course, is also a Vietnam vet and is running in part on his war record. Your response?
MIKE CASEY: You know, he had twenty-three combat missions over Hanoi. I know what those airplanes hit. I have many friends that have walked into villages that had been bombed by napalm, that have killed hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians. He bombed civilian targets, because civilian targets are military targets. You have to remember that. It’s the most important thing that you can remember. We kill innocent civilians on purpose. They are military targets. This Geneva Convention stuff is bull [blank]! And that’s what we’re doing in Iraq. That’s what we’re doing in Afghanistan. It’s what we did in Vietnam. It’s what we did in Laos, Cambodia, Panama. You name it.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Both the Republicans and the Democrats refer to John McCain as a war hero.
MIKE CASEY: Bullshit.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Why?
MIKE CASEY: I got a Bronze Star in Vietnam. Am I a hero? No! I did—I made a difference in Vietnam, and I’m proud—to a large degree, I’m proud of my service, because I think it made the difference between helping a lot of people in Vietnam with their injuries, because, like I say, I saw injuries. I saw dead American soldiers taken off of helicopters. And, you know, gentleman, there is nothing worse than to see an American soldier take his last breath. And there’s nothing worse than seeing a dead Vietnamese civilian that was killed irresponsibly by an American GI.
I get so tired of this hero stuff. I was not a hero in Vietnam, end of story, Bronze Star or not, Combat Medical Badge or not. I did my duty in Vietnam. But John McCain riding on a hero status? Give me a break! You know, I get so tired of John McCain thinking he’s the only one that was damaged in Vietnam with his post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s funny that when he came back as a POW, they never interview the enlisted men that were in those camps. And I know some of those people that were in those camps.
I RECEIVED THIS IN THE MAIL FROM A HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND OF MINE: (the "Republican brothers & sisters" was not meant for me ;~) (by the way, this friend was in Nam himself)
To my Republican brothers & sisters.
I ask you read this with an open mind.
Try, please?????
Those of you who say, at least McCain served in Nam.
Kerry did too & look what the Swift Boaters tried to do, with their lies.
Stan
This is a comment on a posting on John McCain.
He admits to this in his book.
The entire posting can be found on the link below the
comment:
The reprint of Dr. Butler's March article from Military Times needs all the exposure it can receive, even if the original piece was published five months ago and was totally ignored by everyone in the media until
yesterday.
It needs re-telling because McCain actively cultivates the image of a “warrior ” and “war hero,” the genuine article, toting a carefully crafted impression around like a Louis Vittuon carry-all. The problem is that the supposedly genuine Vittuon actually is a cheap knock-off, a piece of counterfeit luggage.
After years of McCain perpetuating the myth, it’s time someone publicly calls McCain what he is: An exaggerator of his military experience and fabricator of his status as war hero.
In fact, Pentagon records show that the Man Who Would Be President was a
not-very-good Naval Academy student who preferred parties to studying and
graduated in the bottom five of his Annapolis class; a mediocre pilot who crashed three jet fighters during training before being shipped out to ‘Nam where he crashed a fourth; an insubordinate junior officer who got
shot down over Hanoi because he disobeyed direct orders to abandon his 23rd
mission and return to the USS Forrestal; and, as a POW, provided so much intelligence – admittedly, bits of it false – and co-operated so extensively with the North Vietnamese in exchange for favourable treatment over a three year period that fellow prisoners gave him the derisive nickname “Songbird.” In propaganda, the North Vietnamese even used his nickname in a news release about McCain, not understanding it was an insult by prisoners disgusted with his behaviour.
Put bluntly, the closest John McCain has ever come to a war hero was when he sat on his grandfather’s lap as a child. The first John McCain commanded naval aviation at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
In other words, John McCain III (or “Admiral Three Sticks” as a Republican Senate aid called him over drinks one night) not only changes his positions on substantive issues in the campaign, he totally changes the
reality of his “ service to my country.” No wonder he has trouble staying
on message as a candidate; he can’t keep the story of his life straight.
By repeatedly violating the Military Code of Conduct while a POW, he placed other naval airmen in jeopardy. Unclassified North Vietnamese and Pentagon records confirm that he provided Hanoi with detailed
information about the number of airplanes on the Forrestal, flight paths into and out of North Viet Nam, how targets were selected, the positioning of rescue ships and the success rate of attacks from fighter-bombers based on his carrier. As far as can be discovered, the only thing he deceived the North Vietnamese about was the names of the pilots with whom he flew, for which he substituted the names of the Green Bay Packer’s offensive linemen. McCain has dined out on the Packer story for decades, omitting the other, less noble, portions of his captivity.
That his father and grandfather were Annapolis grads kept him from being
booted out of the Navy, his family background also contributed to McCain being awarded 28 service medals. He received slightly more than one medal for each of his 23 missions.
“The question really is how many guys got that number of medals for not being shot down,” explains Bill Bell, a veteran of Vietnam and former chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs.
Eventually, even the Navy was on to McCain. He "retired" after being told
twice that he would not make Admiral like his forefathers.
For the original article:
http://www.alternet.org/election08/95825/?page=entire
Lets All Remember Those Who Gave Their All!!
The Arizona Memorial
My husband and I were very blessed to be able to go to Honolulu a few years ago, and while we were there we when to Pearl Harbor. I was raised to know what Memorial Day stands for, but after visiting the Arizona Memorial I have a whole new perspective about this day, this day that was intended for us to remember and honor those that gave their ALL for us. So we can live in a country were we have freedoms that we don't even think about, that we often abuse and don't appreciate, and almost always take for granted.
I think back to those who fought for our freedom from; England, France, Spain, and then the freedom for all Americans during the Civil War, for all the lives that were lost during two World Wars, two wars that were never declared war, but were called conflicts Korea and Vietnam, the first war with Iraq, and now another war with Iraq, and Afghanistan. I wouldn't begin to know how many have died through all these wars, and how many more will. But I do know one thing that they died for one reason they believed that freedom isn't free. It costs more than gas, than food, or anything else you can put a dollar sign on.
Our freedom should be cherished; everyday even when we want to point fingers and complain, (and I'm not saying that we don't have things to complain about) but we should stop and decide what is really important. My mom used to say "If it won't matter a year from now, it is probably not that important." With the economy slow, gas prices ridiculously high, our dollar weak, a president, I won't go there, and candidates that are, well I won't go there either. We still have the best country in the world, a country worth fighting for. We should all be praying for our country and our leaders, even if we don't like their policies.
When I think of America, I think of Americans; not Italian Americans, or African Americans or Irish American... just Americans. Unless you are an American born Indian your ancestry came from somewhere else. The thing that has always made us a strong country was our unity! I fear we are losing that, I fear we are becoming the rich and the poor, the domestic and the foreign, those that think they should be able to do whatever they want to with no accountability, and those with no compassion.
I hope this Memorial Day we all stop and thank a veteran, pray for the families that have lost a veteran, and pray for our wonderful country. Pray that we become united and strong in purpose, that we know how blessed we really are and we appreciate our freedoms. I hope everyone will take a moment from your day and remember those that gave their ALL!!!!!
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service
March 25, 2008 - In 1967, Robert Hutchinson was a young soldier serving in the jungles of Vietnam. He was concerned that the men in his unit weren't getting enough mail from home. Sgt. Joe Artavia's letter home to his sister, Linda Patterson, asking her to find a city to adopt his unit made a huge difference to Hutchinson and his comrades, Hutchinson said.
"The adoption of our company by the city of San Mateo (Calif.) and your personal dedication to our unit is a matter of great pride to me as well as to many of my brothers-in-arms," Hutchinson wrote in a recent letter to Patterson.
Though Artavia was killed March 24, 1968, he did learn that his request had been fulfilled.
After a March 17 American Forces Press Service story highlighted both the city and Patterson's 40-plus years of troop support, others are following Hutchinson's lead and are contacting Patterson.
Though she is hearing from veterans, she's also hearing from current servicemembers regarding her organization, "America Supporting Americans," which works to have communities across the country adopt military units.
"We are hearing (of) a lot of units registering with (America Supporting Americans). Even Navy Seabees have contacted us," Patterson said. "Hopefully some cities will start trickling in soon."
Patterson also said she's excited about other opportunities to share the history of San Mateo's relationship with Company A, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
Currently, a display at the San Mateo Public Library conveys the story. "There is talk about circulating a moving wall of this history across the country hopefully to inspire others to join (America Supporting Americans') Adopt a Unit program," she said.
In addition, Patterson said she hopes to take a small contingent of representatives from her organization to visit adopted units in Iraq. The trip would be similar to the then-unprecedented trip she made to Vietnam nearly four decades ago.
America Supporting Americans is also a supporter of America Supports You, a Defense Department program connecting citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad.
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