Down through the years people, knowing the
government has satellites and polygraphs
available, assumed that technical means have been used to investigate eyewitness reports on POWs/MIAs.
The polygraph is routinely used by the U.S. government for those in sensitive positions as it is used by Walmart/K-Mart to prevent employee theft.
But getting an eyewitness to a major war crime tested is near to impossible. If one is administered, a series of fallback positions are prepared in advance.
Test results become immaterial unless they show deception on the part of the witness. Then he/she is sent out to further muddy the waters of
intelligence on “America’s Highest National Priority.”
They are never charged, and they merely bait their hooks for the next sucker off the plane. If no deception can be noted, they become that most vile of con-artists; the habitual liars who actually believe their own lies.
Some Treated Differently
Those of some undeniable integrity are let down a
little easier.
They actually believe they saw what they think they saw, but of course did not. Game, set
and match to the powers-that-be, even if the game is rigged.
A petty thief has a better chance of being helped
and listened to than someone with a true background to navigate the labyrinth of lies and cover stories created by our enemies to bait the hook and lay down false trails.
What is unconscionable, in the actions
of our government, is to know someone or a group is pursuing a false lead and stand by claiming they hope it is true while limited private resources are
squandered.
The Name of the Game
The U.S. government has gotten into a
childish/dishonorable game of Gotcha in an attempt to disprove and malign all sources and thus the
intelligence gathered.
Hardly what one expects from those who took oaths to never “lie, cheat, steal or quibble.” After all we are dealing with the question of life itself and national honor.
Most investigators in any other arena would be appalled by the U.S. government techniques
employed.
The accused (the Vietnamese, Lao
or Cambodian governments) are asked to provide access to their accusers so that the U.S ‘investigators’ may ask them if the same governments are guilty of a war crime. The governments are then lauded for producing
the now nervous witness.
Simplification
Then he or she proclaims not to have seen or heard what he or she previously had reported. A
report is filed. Everyone smiles and has lunch,
toasting the fine spirit of cooperation. The witness
sadly waves to the departing Americans and
returns to the tender mercies of the state security
apparatus.
A much cheaper way of dealing with this is
simple. Provide minimal funding and ask the witness to cross to a neighboring country (Thailand) on a day
border pass. Quietly polygraph/debrief him far from
the guns of those he accused. If he fails, return him
with enough money for the bus home. Tell him he will, in the future, be exposed as a fabricator. If he
shows no deception, truly investigate and protect the source.
But that would expose the lie of cooperation
and endanger U.S. investments in a dictatorship that
enslaves its people and very possibly our own
POW/MIA.
The Sexton Example
For a government that forgave very serious
violations of Article 104 of the UCMJ and
non-adherence to the Code Of Conduct, by prisoners returning in 1973, it was more ready to think the worst of a POW before and after that time.
A case in point is SSG John Sexton. He was looked on with a very jaundiced eye by U.S. authorities after he was released north of Loc Ninh. The question most asked was “What did he do to get himself released?”
That he looked like hell and could barely hobble along, was ignored.
According to guards in my POW camp, he was released because they felt they had only two choices, release him or kill him.
Why?
He had proved to be a regular Houdini who had escaped numerous times. He had picked his padlock and sawed his chain through with
the serrated edge of his partial-plate. Guards told me the underground bunker I was held in, for refusing to say I would not escape, was constructed to hold and punish John Sexton for escape attempts.
One doubts the office dwelling accusers in our government ever apologized for labeling him or asked him to speak or teach at SERE training. This is not much but it needs to be said:
Staff Sgt. John Sexton, Good Soldier.
Not in a Book
You will not read John’s story in any of the books
promoting the myth that only highly trained aviators
did well in the POW camps of Southeast Asia.
What is ignored is that the two highest-ranking individuals given any punishment (a letter in their file) were aviators of the Navy and Marine Corps.
The highest-ranking individuals who accepted early release were aviators. Some will think saying this is some inter-service thing. But it is not. Heroism knows no rank or unit/branch of assignment.
As some of our worst POW camp inhabitants morph in later life into heroic figures, it is important to go back and look at who they truly were. No matter how well they served later, the red badge of shame, and not courage, marks them forever.
For it is in the most terrible places
and darkest of hours that the true test of an
individual’s courage takes place. If one fails, no
manner of good deeds and fine words in lesser arenas later will ever compensate for that failure.
Who Were They?
The records are sealed but especially the southern camps need to be revisited to determine who these people really were. By virtue of the fact that a desire for the patently illegal early release permeated some camps, nearly to a man, including officers, this needs to be judged on its face and not with the backdrop of an unpopular war.
With that being said, it robs the memory of the dead to not point out the vast majority of POWs executed, beaten and starved to death perished in the jungle.
During the morphing to hero status in recent years, some of our weakest, from the jungle, have become senior officers in the military. It is fine for a nation and her army to forgive. But it is never all right to forget.
The system was once again rigged.
Where It Started
The fix was in, the system became rigged
the day the pat phrase “None are there except those
who wish to be there,” entered the government’s
vernacular.
There is no record of any U.S. official ever
talking to these people. Mind reading may not be the
strong suit of our intelligence operatives and
agencies. It never dawned on our highly touted investigative media that no one can “wish” to be
anywhere if they are dead. And we have made them all dead.
System rigged again.
No evader symbol can be from an American POW/MIA because “they are all dead.”
Just in Case
But if push came to shove, there is always the original fallback position of wanting to be there. Like that pilot living on that mountain with the little Lao
girl. Women seem to play a very large role in the
mind-set at DIA about why someone would still be in Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia.
One was accused of somehow linking up with his girlfriend after taking his own patrol under fire on a combat mission in the jungle. That his position gave him the least ability to direct his patrol into the arms of his girlfriend and the V.C. is ignored.
Another ran off with his girlfriend by escaping from a Navy Brig but “died valiantly” in a POW escape attempt. (He has been reported with the
woman from Hanoi to Danang after the war.)
No Amateurs Here
The Vietnamese know how to rig the system also.
Garwood simply would have stayed “dead” had he remained in Vietnam. After all, to cover a miscommunication with the enemy for a release, some in our government still claim the POW with red release sash in place was Garwood.
That the man had a stick was construed as him
leading an enemy patrol. They claim “Garwood” was
wounded. No, but the Marine Recon Team did kill the man being brought down for release. Better to make Garwood an enemy patrol leader than admit an error like that.
That is just plain fact.
I know for a fact M. Nolan was alive in 1972-73.
He was indeed a “crossover.” But we had to give him a “valiant death” by having him killed trying to cross from the Viet Cong to the Khmer Rouge. He did not have far to go as the Khmer Rouge made up a small portion of the outer-
I was in this camp. Many from this small Khmer Rouge Detachment now make up the leadership of the Cambodian government.
The Wrong Question?
But one doubts if any have been asked why they would whack their buddy Nolan. It seems even those who were known to be bad and those “somebody” made “bad” all got whacked by the bad guys they joined.
This must be true because the U.S. government has killed every single one on paper.
For a nation based on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, we are a tad frivolous with the
very first promise made to our citizens: Life.
This system is not flawed but rigged for death, and death only. But even with death, our soothsayers at DIA have shown an inability to even recognize the truth.
Never Happened?
When challenged, they deny they ever tried to create a fable.
“We don’t believe LTC Dick Schott killed
himself with his own .45 because his weapon
would have flown from his hand.”
When challenged:
“Gee, Mark, we never claimed we did not believe your description of his suicide.”
Since his remains were recovered, they have remained mum except for a short
rumor about “Well, maybe Smith shot him with his .45.” Cooler heads finally told them to shut up.
But in a rigged system that was but a small victory.
(To be continued)
Maj. Mark A. Smith, U.S. Army (ret.), served in Vietnam. He was a Prisoner of War.
