As of May 2020, 1,587 American service members were still missing in Southeast Asia. The cheers continued when they landed in the Philippines, Hawaii, and Andrews AFB, Maryland. How many American POWS are still in Vietnam? We also had better medical care there as they had a doctor to attend to us.. His funeral was attended by 250,000 mourners, including the Soviet Premier and the Chinese Vice-Premier. It would hang above you in the torture room like a sadistic teaseyou couldnt drag your gaze from it. John Doc Hofer B 5/46, 198th Bde, Americal. Never mind that the planes had no bombing system for air-to-ground combat, which the Air Force needed for ground support, no gun and no sight system for bomb targeting and dogfighting. American POWs were put on camera and read statements about the respect they were shown by their captors and the comfortable living conditions they enjoyed. Additionally, some activists claimed that the Vietnamese still held live American prisoners, a claim that was advocated vocally for years. After an extended period of ill health, Ho Chi Minh died of heart failure at his home in Hanoi. I decided to comply with the order, but took considerable artistic license in the process. The families were desperate, there was so much misinformation going around. Robert E. Meyers during a burial service at Arlington National Cemetery on October 26, 2015. Life as a Vietnam War POW - Association for Diplomatic If your organization is interested in becoming a Stacker Its about our values and our standards. By the end of 1972, only 24,400 U.S. troops remained in Vietnam, having peaked at 536,100 in 1968. Did You Know? Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. I reserve that title for my wife, Shirley, who held our family together while I was rotting in a cell in the Hanoi Hilton for nearly seven years during the Vietnam War. Ho remained North Vietnam's chief of state and continued to exert influence on the state's government until his death in 1969, but operated largely behind the scenes. He believes to this day that had he not been captured, he would have died there in Italy, as his own army did not have the medical resources necessary to save his life. And as McCain stated in his book: Eventually, I gave them my ships name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. It is a great motivator to get you engagedIts better to find out what happened to the missing than to endlessly stay in a state of uncertainty and frustration that you cant do anything about it, she said. I had brothers who were married, and children had been born, but it was exciting coming home. A plot far deeper then Kellys Heroes, and an unusual romance in B & W. Stalag 17 was made with no special effects. Phisayavong has found that with the passage of time, locals are more willing to help in recovery efforts: I feel that now when I go to missions, people openly cooperateThe first time, villagers did not fully cooperate. Nearly 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War, and more than a quarter century since the normalization of U.S.-Vietnam relations, Vietnam is emerging as a rising power at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region and an increasingly important U.S. partner. (Click to view gallery.) On a human level, the war was disastrousan estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed, and over 1 million Vietnamese soldiers lost their lives. They wanted to get us away from the battlefield but a few days later they did it again. David Harker stands next to the 1973 Corvette he received. Today, the mistreatment of American POWs and the suffering they endured remains a powerful legacy of the Vietnam War. There was no news from home, and the enemy worked hard to make us feel alone and forgotten. Nearly fifty years later, the prisoner of war issue remains a principal part of the American collective memory of the Vietnam War. John McCain is greeted by President Richard Nixon, left, in Washington, after McCain's release from a prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam. In the midst of parachuting, my back and right arm broke and my left arm was severely injured. That February, Operation Homecoming aired on American television showing the release of American POWs from North Vietnamese prison camps. 10:00 am to 4:00 pm However, American Air Force, Marine, and Naval aviators are officers, which made the vast majority of POWs in Vietnam officers rather than enlisted. Museum Naval Academy midshipmen to talk about their ordeal a half-century ago. At the same time, they portrayed their care for prisoners as benevolent despite their stated belief that American prisoners did not deserve good care, hoping to win international support. General admission - $10.00 Only 661 officially recognized prisoners returned from that war alive and about 100 of those have since died, according to Defense figures. We were interrogated when we were captured, Harker said, but we knew the Code of Conduct and so wed give that information. American POWs bore this suffering until the end of the war. It was a long journey and I was glad to be home and for them to be there for me meant so much. Martin Luther King Jr. On Oct. 21, 100,000 protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, with 30,000 continuing the march and protesting at the Pentagon. Gene Smith lit a cigarette on the way down. And sometimes we have to make that choice many times throughout the day. I remember the day when David returned to Preston Glenn Airport in his hometown of Lynchburg, VA. Many prisons used to hold American POWs were in close proximity to Hanoi, with a few of the more well known jails located directly in Hanoi. In one incident, a military judge advocate named Captain Edwin Glenn was actually court-martialed for his direct role in super vising the water torture of a Filipino prisoner. ) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. The Vietnam Wars Great Lie The Current Situation in Vietnam - United States Institute of Peace Sponsor: U.S. She joined with other families of MIAs to form The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, a non-profit incorporated in May of 1970 with the mission to obtain the release of all prisoners, the fullest possible accounting for the missing and repatriation of all recoverable remains of those who died serving our nation during the Vietnam War., The greatest motivation for all of these families is uncertainty, says Ann Mills-Griffiths, chairman of the board & CEO of the National League of POW/MIA Families. The next morning theyd put a ball of rice on a banana leaf and wed carry that with us for lunch as we moved. Vietnam By Dec. 4, North Vietnamese forces found him and marched him toward the camp where he found, according to a speech he gave in February 2018, four of the saddest looking American creatures I had ever seen in my life.. This soldier remains in good spirits after being relieved from the dangerous operation a month prior. Vietnam POW shares the lessons he learned from captivity The objective is to promote history on Medium and demonstrate the value of historical writing. Im surprised they didnt just shoot me, but they took some commo wire and duck-winged me that night.. or concerned about one, connect with our caring, qualified responders for confidential help. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. We were separated from civilization in the middle of nowhere and we couldnt communicate; had no food, and no medical attention thats torture enough for an individual. By noon, nothing had happened. A similar mechanism is in operation today. Major General David T. Zabecki, Army of the United States (retired), is editor of Vietnam Magazine and senior historian at Weider History Group. The draft lottery system worked by randomly assigning every potential birthdate in a year a number between 1 and 366, determining the order in which people would be called to serve based on their day of birth. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. I was led to a blue 1973 Corvette and handed the keys. Great story, I hope to meet you someday at an American reunion. Harker would spend his last three months as a prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton. The partition of Vietnam led 130,000 French-led troops to relocate from the North to South Vietnam, and between 50,000-90,000 Viet Minh to relocate to the North. As such, the North Vietnamese released the POWs they still held. After he returned from Vietnam, Harker took some time off, but eventually returned to Blacksburg and finished his business degree from Virginia Tech in 1976 and found his way to work as a probation and parole officer. By the time he finally got back to Germany in 1947, he, along with literally hundreds of thousands of other German and Italian POWs, had learned a valuable and lasting lesson about America, its people and their valuesa lesson that did much to shape the rest of the worlds view of America for many years after World War II. There can be little doubt that reports of prisoner abuse at the hands of Americans only gives the radical Islamic militants a blank check in their own minds to subject American captives to the most barbaric treatment possibleand so far they have been doing just that. Vietnam Vet Pilot Tells His POW Story - Audacy American servicemen were imprisoned in large numbers during the Korean War, and many were horribly mistreated and left to die by their captors. Many experts swear that it does. Thus began the First Indochina War, a conflict that would eventually morph and spiral into the Vietnam War. He holds a doctorate in military history from Great Britains Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University. It ruins the subject, makes them useless for further interrogation. Kush and I talk about that all the time were not professional POWs. I hold the deep conviction that our country should respect the service of all our faithful troops and veterans. John McCain They didnt pursue it much. So in many ways this debate is nothing new to anyone who knows a little history. Richard Nixon would go on to win the subsequent presidential election, making promises to end U.S. involvement in the war with "peace and honor.". We had very little to eat so people died from starvation, infectious diseases malaria was rampant dysentery. Memberships include: Stay up-to-date with the Museum & Library. I remain a proud American, and I will continue to defend and uphold all that has made this country the greatest country in the world. This operation marked the beginning of the use of chemical warfare by the U.S. in Vietnam, known most infamously as Agent Orange. torture stopped': 1969 brought temporary changes to infamous As a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, I could recall nothing from military survival training that explained the use of a meat hook suspended from the ceiling. The Ohio National Guard killed four unarmed college students and wounded nine more during the shooting. In April 1970, Jerry also personally ordered and led a camp hunger strike, which was successful in obtaining my release from solitary confinement. He was over Hanoi, Vietnam, on Oct. 25, 1967. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the agency within the Department of Defense responsible for tracking down MIAs, reported in May 2020 that 81,900 Americans were still considered MIA: 72,598 from World War II, 7,580 from the Korean War, 1,587 from Vietnam, 126 from the Cold War, and six from conflicts since 1991. It was an early success for U.S. military forces in the Vietnam Warwith 614 NLF troops killed, 45 U.S. Marines killed, and 203 wounded. What Life Was Like for a POW In Vietnam - YouTube For about the next seven years, Boyd endured the hardships of Vietnamese POW (Prisoner of War) camps as he resisted interrogation, torture, and harsh living The Paris Peace Accords marking the end of the Vietnam War were signed on January 27, 1973. WO Frank Anton may have been with you. Where is the line? Seniors, students, and teachers with valid IDs -$8.00Members,children under 12, First Responders, and Active Military - FREE As a 22 year old, Harker was among the older men in his unit. God Bless and keep driving that Corvette!! They are heroes. However, in the years since the first revelations about Abu Ghraib, there have been additional exposures of prisoner mistreatment at Guantanamo and other locations. Then there were the battles Americans lost that precluded the recording and burial of fallen American soldierslike the Battle of Chosin, where 1,200 Marines were lost. We strive for accuracy and fairness. That experience gave him a pretty strong clue that all the Nazi propaganda about the savage and barbaric Americans might not be quite accurate. your CMS. They kept him alive until a collecting party recovered all three of them, and then he and the two Americans were evacuated to a field aid station, side by side in the same ambulance. CantWriteToSaveMyLife@yahoo.com. Once Japan surrendered, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh successfully led Vietnam to independence, forming the short-lived Democratic Republic of Vietnam. republish under a Creative Commons License, and we encourage you to There were over 130,000 American service personnel captured during World War II alone; over 7,000 were taken POW during the Korean War; and nearly 600 returned from Vietnam to U.S. control during Operation Homecoming in the spring of 1973. I signed up to become a fighter pilot, even though I had never set foot on a planeI thought it sounded exciting. Some had been held for as long as five years, and the longest-held U.S. POW for ninewith North Vietnam acknowledging that 55 American servicemen had died during their captivity. My family never heard anything from their CAO. https://www.historynet.com/torture-lesson-vietnam/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, Why? An official website of the United States government. As such, the North Vietnamese released the POWs they still held. Between February and March 1973, 591 American servicemen were released by the North Vietnamese. Today, the mistreatment of American POWs and the suffering they endured remains a powerful legacy of the Vietnam War. In the mountains the men had to forage for food, mostly the manioc root, also known as kasava root. Just $5 a month. Naval Academy When victory in Korea did not materialize, access to these burial sites didnt, either. My parents found out that a couple of those who were released were at Fort Jackson, and so they went there and got onto base and met with them and heard from them that I was alive. In late spring of 1966, Jerry was severely tortured and was forced to make a public TV interview appearance. A crushing defeat of French forces by the Viet Minh occurred in the lead-up to peace negotiations in Geneva. Torture brought each man to his breaking point, and many prisoners were forced to write confessions or sign statements under atrocious coercion. Unrecorded deaths in prison camps also contributed to the high number of MIAs in Korea: The RAND Corporation maintains that a third of captured Americans died in captivity in the first year of the war, and the New York Times reports that about 1,500 Americans are believed to be buried in poorly marked graves beneath former POW camps. WebArmy Veteran recalls his time as POW during Vietnam - VA News On Dec. 8, 2020, U.S. Army Veteran David Harker will celebrate his 75th birthday. 312-374-9333 Guards would return at intervals to tighten them until all feeling was gone, and the prisoners limbs turned purple and swelled to twice their normal size. Finally, in March, the U.S. landed its first major deployment of ground troops at Da Nangwith the intended purpose of defending U.S. air bases. Nor do most of them have sons or daughters serving on the front lines of the present fight. The embarrassment of the Pentagon Papers led President Nixon to attempt to illegally discredit Ellsberg, efforts which came to light during the Watergate scandal and resulted in Nixon's resignation in 1974. Internationally educated, Ho introduced communism to the nation as a clear political antithesis to the capitalistic, colonial rule of France. This message was tapped like wildfire across the Hanoi Hilton as the North Vietnamese played the anti-war singers songs over the loudspeakers to break the After basic and advanced infantry training, Harker was approached and offered an opportunity to go to Officer Candidate School. China supplied primarily infrastructural support, sending engineering troops to build defense infrastructure. The stories were usually very specific. A photo taken in 1967 shows US Navy Airforce Maj. John McCain being examined by a Vietnamese doctor following his capture. We all serve our country one way or another. There are a few guidelines and Nobody wanted to talk about the veterans who had been ignored.. Senator John McCain knows from firsthand experience what it is like to be a POW, and to endure prolonged brutal torture in violation of every norm of international law and every basic standard of decent human behavior. Part of the reason why the POW issue remains an enduring part of the Vietnam War Le Duan had been a prominent and influential figure throughout Vietnam's early 20th-century history, and he is generally considered to have had a more militaristic approach than Ho Chi Minh. The key word for all of us at first was fragility. Vietnam HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The POWs returned after the Paris Peace Accords arrived from captivity under North Vietnam, the NLF, and other militant groups. I remember that because he died in the rice paddies when we were ambushed.. By 1893, France had annexed neighboring Cambodia and Laos as well and created out of the three nations a territory referred to as Indochina. When the draft notice came, Harkers father, an electrical engineer took the news hard. POW/MIA | Vietnam War - Pritzker Military Museum & Library The oppressive heat and Im sure Vietnam Vets will tell you the country had a smell of its own., The soldiers on their way home watched them deplane and Harker heard them say, theres my replacement.. Jerry, Jim and I fought back against the North Vietnamese any way we could. He still drives it today. Half a world away, in Paris, a peace accord was signed January 27, 1973, and soon after Harker and other American POWs heard the news they had longed to hear. One of the most infamous domestic events of the Vietnam War, the protests at Kent State had arisen as news of the secret raids conducted in Cambodia had spread. By March 29, 1973, 591 soldiers would be returned and President Richard Nixon announced, For the first time in 12 years, no American military forces are in Starting in 1982, it became the day the POW/MIA flag was flown over the White House just below the American flagthe only other flag to do so. However, theLinebackeroperations in 1972 called for heavy bombing of North Vietnam, and therefore more planes were shot down. The war saw the Americans and the South Vietnamese fighting against the commies of North Vietnam. This, too, is a discussion we have had before. In this May 25, 1973, file photo, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. In the wake of the Vietnam War, families of American MIAs began organizing to demand an accounting. Being home with his family, Harker said he learned how much anxiety and frustration and worry his parents went through while he was captive. Even after the war ended, the potency of the POW issue was not diminished. WebYet the POWs of Vietnam seem to occupy a special place in the narrative and legacy of the war. Kakuk poses with the flag and a mockup of a bamboo POW cage he uses to dramatize the cause. Under the leadership of Le Duan, North Vietnam began to pursue an aggressive war of reunification with the South, beginning with more active support of revolutionary groups in the South. The mission was simple: neutralize an enemy anti-aircraft gun and then eliminate a truck park they used for supply delivery with two loads of napalm. I was 35 years old, a husband and father of three small children. Members of the Army's Old Guard carry the casket U.S. Army Cpl. It read, Freedom has a taste to it to those who fight and almost die that the protected will never know.. Congressman Sam Johnson. the Vietnam War You Probably Believe HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Vietnam Some of my friends, however, were not so lucky. And as with McCain, their understanding of armed human conflict is deeply rooted in their personal experiences in the war in Southeast Asia. America would suspend the use of the involuntary draft in 1973, relying on voluntary enlistment from then on. If you are a Veteran in crisis A newspaper clipping shows when David Harker returned home. At the age of 20, when I was called to serve my country and defend freedom, I hadnt blinked an eye. McCain has generally opposed coercive and abusive interrogation techniques. But if you subject any of them to enough torture, you will get the most amazing pieces of information, all of them exactly what you want to hear. Search the Digital Collections representing our digitized holdings across a wide spectrum of materials include artifacts, prints, posters, maps and more. A last and perhaps desperate attempt to materially and psychologically damage the North Vietnamese people through "shock and awe" tactics, Operation Linebacker resulted in the deaths of at least 1,600 Vietnamese civilians in densely populated regions. The court-martial board acquitted Glenn, but the Judge Advocate General of the Army, Maj. Gen. George B. Davis, registered a fierce dissenting legal opinion of the verdict. He was a military guy who had fought in Laos as a 17-year old in the early 1960s, and he looked out for us. Before I could get his .45, he stabs me in the side with his bayonet. My dads supervisor said he could get me in the National Guard, but I thought that would be shirking my responsibility. But it isnt quite that simple. The signing of the Paris Peace Accords marked the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, with all troops to be withdrawn in 60 days. The whole theory was that we needthe Vietnam veterans needa place they would be recognized, says Jan Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Comments like those of Donald Trump, or any other American, suggesting that veterans like Senator John McCain or any other of America's honorable POWs are less In December 2005, 33 retired professional intelligence experts and interrogators also signed a similar letter to McCain. Vietnam The recollection of arrival is still fresh even 53 years later. You may also like: Europe in photos before World War I. With nearly 40,000 young men being drafted every month, disillusionment spreading in particular through universities, and news of battlefield casualties reaching the American population, antiwar protests began to gain in size. The POW/MIA movement headed by the National League of Families (who created the famous POW/MIA flag) pushed for the return of the remains of all missing American servicemen from the war. By this point, there were already 23,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam and approximately 400 U.S. casualties. Bow to their captors or take a beating. As a result, our names were blacklisted together as hardcore resistors. We were ecstatic, Harker said. He said it meant a lot to him that we were able to do that to make sure those people could go to the polls and not get hurt. Captain Belcher had been in a province southwest of Saigon where we were providing security for elections, Harker said. He led the way and showed us how to nurse and take care of men, and that became our goal to make people in their last hours and days as comfortable as possible it was our mission, and he was a big inspiration to us.. Between February and March 1973, 591 American servicemen were released by the North Vietnamese. I was doing my junior year at Virginia Tech and my grades were low, so I had to take a quarter off in 1967 and during that time, because I wasnt a full-time student, I had to let the government know. Of the 15 men who entered the rice paddy that evening, only four made it out. You may also like: 40 military terms and their meanings. On the heels of the end of the Korean War (which saw Korea divided at the 38th parallel), negotiators at Geneva proposed a partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel. They served our country faithfully and with all their heart. From 1969 onward the U.S. would pull out over 100,000 troops from Vietnam every year, a process of gradual shifting of responsibility to the South Vietnam government known as Vietnamization. Intended as a temporary division, the Geneva Accords stipulated that a general election was to be held two years later that would reunify the nation. All Rights Reserved. In accordance In the wake of the Vietnam War, families of military members who never returned from service banded together to demand an accounting. Listen 28:49. The SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) shot down a bunch of planes on the third night, after they figured out the flight patterns, and one night they pulled up a deuce and a half and told us to crawl in the back.