Remembering Those We Left Behind 
By Joseph D. Douglass Jr. 

As we prepare to send tens of thousands of young men into war against Iraq, it seems only fitting that we honor and remember those left behind in prior wars. 

The words of Navy Capt. Red McDaniel, who survived 6 years as a POW in North Vietnam, sums up the issue: "I was prepared to fight, to be wounded, to be captured, and even prepared to die, but I was not prepared to be abandoned." [i] 

This is what happened to over 30,000 American servicemen, beginning in WW I and continuing through the first Gulf War. With the exception of the Gulf War, all were left behind in the hands of Communist regimes, whose brutality exceeded by any measure that demonstrated by the Nazis in World War II. 

Little has been said by Washington officialdom to acknowledge the men had been left behind, abandoned. An exception to the rule is Sen. Herb Kohl, who wrote in 1992: "[Military] service is based on a belief in, and trust of, their government: that it will train them well, equip them superbly, and do everything it reasonably can to protect them and care for them. It is the credibility of those promises which the POW/MIA issue strains. For if, after all, the government does not keep its promises, then why should our soldiers honor their pledge to follow orders, even at the risk of their own lives. This Report [Final Report of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs] demonstrates that the government has not kept its promises to those who served in Vietnam. Even more disturbing, is the evidence which suggests - strongly suggests - that that the government failed to keep its promises to those who served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Cold War as well." 

What lies behind this embarrassing state of affairs is well-connected treachery and connivance. The directing forces are not easily pin-pointed. As explained by Col Millard Peck, who ran the DIA POW/MIA office in 1989-1991, "The issue is being manipulated by unscrupulous people in the Government, or associated with the Government . [they] have maintained their distance and remained hidden in the shadows. this issue is being manipulated and controlled at a higher lever, not with the goal of resolving it, but more to obfuscate the question of live prisoners, and give the illusion of progress through hyperactivity. From what I have witnessed, it appears that any soldier left in Vietnam, even inadvertently, was, in fact, abandoned years ago, and that the farce that is being played is no more than political legerdemain done with "smoke and mirrors", to stall the issue until it dies a natural death." 

In 1920, shortly after WW I, Russia was hit by a devastating famine. Just prior, the Russians had denied holding American captives When the Russians asked for food and medical assistance, a sharp U.S. official gave them an offer they could not refuse: release the American prisoners and we will send you food. Russian officials agreed to return the men when the food shipments commenced. We started shipping food, and they released 100 men. Then, they stopped. No more were released, but the U.S. continued shipping food, ignoring the Russian duplicity.  The official position pronounced by the State Department was that no American servicemen were still held captive. 

Following the victory in Europe in 1945, both Presidents Roosevelt and Truman sent directives to U.S. command in Europe that said there would be "no criticism of treatment [of American POWs] by the Russians" and that there would be "no retaliatory action to Russian failure to cooperate," which referred to Russian failure to give the United States access to American POWs in the German POW camps the Russians had captured. As a result, only the 4,165 American prisoners were released, those from the one camp visited (at Reisa). The remaining 21,000 Americans prisoners in German camps taken over by the Russians were abandoned to the Russians. They were shipped to Russia to lives worse than death. Records were then falsified by U.S. and British intelligence (an equivalent number of British POWs were also abandoned) in an effort to hide what had happened. 

Following the Korean War, Col. Phil Corso was on Eisenhower's White House staff. He was in charge of the POW issue. In Senate and House hearings in 1992 and 1996, he explained how Eisenhower made the decision to leave the missing American POWs behind after he, Corso, had explained to Eisenhower that thousands were missing, that US intelligence knew they had been shipped to Russia and China, and that achieving their return would be difficult. U.S. policy was clear, he explained. "We couldn't put pressure on the Soviet Union or the satellites, we couldn't - they had our prisoners and we couldn't put pressure on them. That was it. Our policy forbid us from doing it. If you did it, you were disobeying national policy." In implementing this policy, U.S. executive agencies - State, Intelligence, and Defense - subsequently denied any American POWs were left behind. This is still taking place today. 

In 1973, at the time of Operation Homecoming following the end of the Vietnam War, President Nixon was told by Secretary of Defense Laird's point man on the POW issue, Dr. Roger Shields, "Mr. President, . we, we do have two missing for every man who did come home." President Nixon said, "Right," and then changed the subject. U.S. policy stated by the State Department the next day said no American captives remained in Vietnam. Add to this President Nixon's clear statement that all our POWs have been returned. 

Vietnam remains a bitter example of our government's failure to honor its commitment to those who served our country. There has never even been a full accounting of those missing. The official numbers of those missing are only about a third of what they should be. Thousands of the missing are not counted, including special operations forces, military deployed in civilian garb, those listed as killed-in-action-body-not-recovered who were not killed but rather captured, intelligence operatives and administrators, State Department and AID employees, civilian contractors, and even many so-called deserters who were missing - not because they deserted but because they were captured as in the case of Bobby Garwood. Moreover, government efforts to lie about those abandoned, hide information, sweep live sightings of POWs under the rug, and order people who knew what happened to remain silent have been legion and personally experienced and documented by nearly every investigative reporter who became interested in the POW issue. One by one, these investigators have become enraged as they witnessed first hand how the government ran roughshod over honor and principle, and over many of the investigators. 

Similarly, there has been no attempt to identify or count those captured during the 40-year Cold War. These missing Americans includes not only those captured while on