b.Log

First, Do No Harm
January 28th, 2010

Commentary :: The world is a little less today with the passing of a remarkable woman, Dr. Teresa Vietti.

An internationally renowned physician, she was a pioneer in pediatric oncology. Because of her outstanding sacrifice as a healer, hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved, enriched or benefitted in some way. She was 82.

She was of note because of who she was, and what she gave. But why is she of note here. In this particular place, an archive of stories of the missing.

Because she had a twin sister. Equally remarkable, equally gifted as a physician and surgeon. Imagine twin daughters, born in 1927, in an age where women graduated high school, got married, had a family and collected recipes, yet by the 1950's, BOTH are respected doctors of medicine. An unheard of accomplishment.

Dr. Teresa Vietti chose to serve here in the States. Selflessly, she gave of herself to her young patients, dedicating her life to healing.

Dr. Eleanor Ardel Vietti chose to travel half-way around the world to a remote, disease infested jungle, treating the most reviled patients in that faraway place - lepers and tribal people. Ban Ma Thuot Leprosarium was deep in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, set apart from the rest of the conflicted region in an emerald valley. It was here that Ardel Vietti chose to serve. It was here that she worked tirelessly with other missionaries to alleviate the suffering and stigmata that came with the diagnosis of leprosy.

She had taken the Hippocratic Oath - I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

How ironic then, that after years of selfless service and sacrifice in the jungle, from 1957 until her capture, she would be taken Prisoner on Memorial Day, May 30th, 1962, herself to be ultimately harmed. Earlier in the day, it is reported that bridges leading to Ban Ma Thuot had been burned and warnings posted. Repair work was begun nonetheless. Photographs of Dan Gerber on his tractor are grey and grainy, yet still speak volumes to the remoteness of their enclave, eight miles from the nearest town. That evening about a dozen guerillas entered the hospital compound and whisked Dr. Vietti, Archie Mitchell and Daniel Gerber off into the night, into the jungle, never to be seen by civilized men again.

The earliest of news reports of the loss howled how the 'Reds' had stormed the 'leper colony' and taken an American doctor... a woman no less. Three Americans kidnapped, missionaries.

It was the Diem Era and America was not yet fully engaged in the tragedy that would become Vietnam, so the response in headlines across the country is not surprising. However, the possibility of danger was clear and mounting. Only a week or so earlier, the Viet Cong had detained another group of missionaries in the immediate area. These fortunate souls were sternly lectured and set free. The night of the 30th, after Dr. Vietti and her companions were taken, along with considerable medical supplies and surgical equipment, food and a vehicle, the remaining staff and family at the leprosarium were lectured and then told to leave and never come back.

Reports out of Saigon, 150 miles southwest, stated the South Vietnamese Army mounted a search. Military sources stated that a Special Forces detachment 8 miles away in Ban Ma Thuot would not participate in the search unless requested to do so. One wonders if they were ever engaged in the search. After a month, when she had not been rescued or returned, reports came in from informers and captured VC POWs that an American woman missionary doctor was being forced to treat wounded Communist guerillas and to train their medics in the mountainous highlands. At the same time, a missionary at the leprosarium wrote that Communist guerillas promised not to harm the good doctor. How she came to that conclusion or what evidence there was of that promise, it is unknown. Five months later, tribal people reported seeing all 3, alive, well and still captive. Continued reporting by captured guerillas show her to be alive through 1965, being shunted from village to village with intelligence personnel also believing her to be alive.

As late as 1971, the missionary wife of one of her captive compatriots claimed to have heard from tribal people that the threesome were alive... being dragged about the countryside, treating and teaching. What became of her after that, only heaven and her captors know.

In 1968, the Ban Ma Thuot leprosarium was once again in the news, just as tragically. In the early hours that would become the Tet Offensive, the Central Highlands and the small hospital enclave with its church and homes were rocked by a vicious attack that left 6 dead - one being nurse Ruth Wilting who was Daniel Gerber's fiancée and waited for his return - many injured, and 2 more captive... Betty Ann Olsen and Henry Blood. On that night in the middle of some strange distant place, cut off from the rest of the world, the leprosarium that Dr. Vietti had built, that had saved and served so many of the afflicted mountain people, was finally destroyed.

Two women, identical in more ways than we can imagine, healers, humanitarians, sworn to never do harm to anyone, and harmed, each in their own way, by a war, in a jungle, a lifetime away.

If You Look For Trouble, Trouble Will Find You
January 29th, 2010

Commentary :: Apparently, we have more missing people.

Not military in uniform thankfully, but civilians. Not doctors or linguists, or support personnel who make a huge sacrifice and risk life and limb to assist the men and women in uniform and who are sent into harm's way.

But civilians who chose to cross over. To North Korea no less. Two - one who entered North Korea illegally in December, and now another within the past several days.

In between reportage of fruit baskets, floral tributes, songs lyrics being penned and tea parties with Socialist Vietnam, the DPRK's news organ, Korean Central News Agency, tells us 2 Americans have been detained.

Detainee #1
American Detained in DPRK
Pyongyang, December 29. 2009 Juche 98 (KCNA) -- An American was detained after illegally entering the DPRK through the DPRK-China border on Dec. 24.
He is now under investigation by a relevant organ.

Detainee #2
American Trespasser Detained
Pyongyang, January 28. 2010 Juch 99 (KCNA) -- An American was detained for trespassing on the border of the DPRK with China on Jan. 25.
He is now under investigation by an organ concerned.

One the very same day that we learned of Detainee #2, we hear from the US side that an overture by North Korea to begin anew the recovery of Korean War casualties - some 8,000 still unaccounted-for, is a no go.

Whoa, let's back up here.

Rant :: For decades, the families of American POWs and MIAs lost or held-back from the Korean War were equally lost in a legal limbo after the Armistice was signed and we hunkered down below the 38th parallel.

How many decades did these families wait until we were able to convince the DPRK to allow humanitarian excavation and recovery missions? Too many.

Finally, as we worked, very successfully,with the North Koreans on remains recovery, the US, in a snit over failed negotiations on other matters with the contentious nation, halted all recovery missions in May 2005.

Families were left with no options, men abandoned at the onset of a precipitous peace in 1953, were abandoned again. It's been almost 5 years since the USG shut down operations and nothing has happened to bring American remains home from North Korea.

Then, in March 2009, some idiotic journalists go tramping into the DPRK, of their own volition, get themselves arrested and suddenly we have half of Washington on alert.

The DPRK announced they would be tried for "their suspected hostile acts" (whatever that meant) and in June, were subsequently tried and sentenced to a Northern labor camp. The two women, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, worked for Current TV, a "politics and youth-oriented news channel" founded by former Vice President Al Gore.

It did not go unnoticed that while the US will not allow a quiet, cooperative effort with the DPRK to return remains of American servicemen, it will move heaven and earth to get former President Clinton to travel halfway around the world and personally intervene and bring the journalists home in August 2009.

Why?

With all the people missing and imprisoned around the world, why were these two suddenly so important?

Was it the fact that they were young women journalists? If so then they have set women in journalism back a half century and are an embarrassment.

Dickey Chappelle lost her life on the battlefield of Vietnam in 1965 and was so beloved and admired by the Marines she traveled with, she was buried with full military honors and a Marine Honor Guard.

Anna Politkovskaya, war correspondent, author, human rights activist and sometimes go-between with warring factions, survived numerous death threats, a mock execution in Chechnya and a suspected poisoning, only to be assassinated in October 2006.

Mar’a Esther Aguilar Cansimbe, crime reporter, went missing in Michoac‡n state, south-western Mexico, one of the world's most dangerous areas. She remains unaccounted-for.

Thousands of women have put themselves in mortal danger covering the distant and ugly corners of earth to tell the world what was happening. To show the world, even when we did not want to see.

There is Marguerite Higgins, Margaret Bourke-White, Kate Webb, Tracy Wood and 75 women who were accredited to cover combat in Vietnam. By the end of WW II, at least 127 American women had secured official military accreditation as war correspondents, if not actual front-line assignments.Kit Coleman (Catherine Ferguson) became the first woman in the world to be a war correspondent. In 1898 she traveled to Cuba to report on the Spanish-American War. There was Peggy Hull, the first female Correspondent to be accredited by the War Department in WW I.

So if the argument they are women is offered, then it is hollow and disingenuous to those brave women who have served and sacrificed in search of a story, and continue to do so.

Is it because they were simply journalists? And as such, they should be held in a separate category, protected from harm because they are simply there to get out the truth?

Again, it would be a disservice to a veritable legion of correspondents, photojournalists and photographers who have gone to the grave while covering a story - or injured, gone missing or worse, Prisoner.

In 1975 the Balibo Five were slaughtered and then Roger East executed in Dili shortly thereafter while investigating the deaths of the 5 young men massacred in East Timor.

Dana Stone and Sean Flynn, captured at a dusty checkpoint in Cambodia, were only 2 of many journalists swept off the dirt roads in a 3 day period in April 1970 that saw as many as 9 international correspondents captured near the same checkpoint. Known to be Prisoners, they were rumored to be turned over by the VC to the Khmer Rouge and eventually executed after 5 years in captivity.

Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and murdered in 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan.

What about Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi? Arrested, detained, tortured at the National Stadium-cum-concentration camp in Santiago, and then executed in 1973 during the Chilean coup of Pinochet? Horman had made the horrible mistake of following a story and taking notes - of US participation in the overthrow of Allende. The US Embassy and US State Department WENT OUT OF ITS WAY TO HINDER the search by the family for the truth and Horman's body. Contemporaneous documents, released decades later after forced declassification, showed the US knew Horman was in imminent danger and was complicit in the cover-up of his detention, torture and demise.

The above does not even touch the tip of the iceberg of sacrifice that journalists have made over the decades. It only serves to illustrate what others endure on a daily basis.

(To truly begin to understand the magnitude of loss, please visit The Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial - Jorunlaists in Perial Section :: http://www.newseum.org/scripts/Journalist/peril.asp)

Now back to Ling and Lee.

Was their negotiated release political expediency? Admittedly their connection to failed candidate Gore and his former superior Clinton would certainly not hinder them. Additionally in the current atmosphere of Washington DeCeit, their alliance would be most beneficial.

No one wishes to see another human being suffer. Certainly not in the confines of a paranoid government such as North Korea. But, they went under their own steam. They chose to go. That a virtual choir of supporters clamoring for their freedom could so easily push the current Badministration to send Clinton off on a mission of mercy and retrieve these women speaks volumes.

It says that if you wear a uniform and make every sacrifice, including the ultimate sacrifice, you have less value that two reporters who either can't read a map or deliberately went across a belligerent's border. No one forced them to go.

It says that diplomatic efforts - albeit unofficial - replete with photo ops and flowers, will be the order of the day if it is politically expedient for the powers-that-be.

Washington called this a humanitarian effort.

What about the humanitarian effort to repatriate our war dead? The highest National Priority?

(Oh, I'm sorry, my mistake. No one in government has used that phrase for a decade or so. And I do not mean the men and women at DPMO, JPAC, CILHI, AFDIL or anyone else slogging through the minefield of DNA, documents and artifacts. They are committed. My reference is to the crippling mindset that comes out of the State Department and the Whitewash House and its advisors.)

Then, in December 2009, an activist named Robert Park marches into North Korea with Bible in hand and a letter asking Kim Jong Il to embrace Christ or whatever and close down his labor camps. His Christmas foray ended up not with Dear Leader's conversion but his own arrest and detention. He planned the whole event, giving an interview to Reuters previous to his odyssey and asking that the news organization hold the interview until he had crossed into North Korea. Calculated at the very least.

Although his commitment to bring attention to human rights abuses in the DPRK is laudable, the truth is, he chose to go. His is a deliberate and calculated detention, he went to lengths to leave a legacy interview and has insured a large fan/support base to loudly bring attention to his plight.

His supporters plan a rally in Seoul. Hundreds of thousands are expected to attend. I expect that all the Human Rights NGOs will be there... it is right up their alley.

Now, yet another, supposed American, seems to have shown up in the DPRK. Who is he? Who knows.

But what we do know is that at the very same time that this last guy (or gal) goes over, the DPRK holds out a carrot to the US to start up the stalled recovery missions and within 24 hours the USG rebuffs the offer.

The USG has taken the position obviously that the resoultion of unrepatriated POWs, MIAs and KIAs are not a humanitarian issue but one that must be inexorably chained to nuclear disarmament, human rights abuses, et al.

If the US has such a soft spot in its heart for humanitarianism when dealing either officially or unofficially with North Korea, it should start with those held the longest... those captured Americans, Allies and living South Koreans, too many of whom have endured decades of privation, and the remains of those whose families are going to their graves, waiting.

Wannabe Warriors - An Inconvenient Truth 26 July, 2009

Commentary by AII POW-MIA :: One does not discount the problem of phonies and their theft of honor.

The endless parade of indviduals - some of whom had otherwise stellar service records - is mind boggling. Discussions into the psychology of the Wannabe Warriors would take days and that is not the point here.

We must hold those who steal - rank, commendations, status and membership - up to harsh scrutiny until they admit the truth and take responsibility for their actions and apologize to whomever was hurt in the process.

Stealing is a crime. Whether that theft is honor or entitlement.

Even more egregius is the theft of benefits. By claiming false status, false experiences, these individuals reap rewards they are not entitled to - disability benefits, medical services, pensions, registration and licensing fees, hiring priority, the list is endless.

With every lie they take something from somone who IS entitled. With every dollar they take, they steal from another veteran who IS deserving.

They should - each and every one of them - be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and the authorities should use watever means necessary to recover monies stolen with these lies.

However, a silent but complicit partner in this problem are some individuals in the VA, some VSOs (Veteran Service Officers), some county and local government officials and Veterans' groups who all too often say 'we have to take the vet at his word' when a phony's story is challenged and brought to their attention.

The recent events in Colorado highlight this aspect - A man claiming to be a POW, receiving 100% disability as a POW, who NEVER WAS A POW, has been able to keep his job advising other Veterans because, as the Country Authorities (his employers) state, "At this point, unless there is a charge proven, he is still employed as our county officer," said the Commissioner, noting that the controversy seemed to be based on third-party reports and hearsay."

Exposing a POW to be a phony is an inconvenient truth.

The truth hurts. And many are loathe to embrace that truth and lose 'their POW'or admit they were scammed as well.

On a number of occasions over the years, we have encountered fake POWs, SEALs, self-promoted and self-awarded veterans, etc. .. Our only discussion here however, is the issue of fake POWs. When the individual was challenged, their story about secret missions questioned, harrowing escapes met with skepticism, destroyed records and secret orders was and is the immediate, and only, defense.

BUT - when further pressed, a number of organizations, some VA facilities and some VSOs will NOT challenge the phony. They continue to embrace "their POW", their "SEAL", their "Medal of Honor" recipient.

As if possession through membership enchances the good works of these brotherhoods and service organizations. As if challenging the story will diminish the experience - which if real - it will not, or be perceived as being un-patriotic or unsupportive.

By no means should this be construed to diminish any one or any group. However, the prevalence of Phonies has been permitted to some degree, perhaps even rewarded and encouraged, by the lax enforcement in the past of challenging stories and status.

Example: On a major anniversary marking the end of the Vietnam War, a massive parade and gathering was planned in New York. Crowds were in the tens of thousands. Part of the parade featured several convertible cars with Ex-POWs seated in places of honor who woud be driven at the head of the route to the grandstand for the rest of the program.

There were some Bataan Death March Survivors, WW II Eastern Europe Theater POWs, a handful of Korean War Ex-POWs, a Lao who had endured forced reeducation after working with the US and being abandoned by the US and a South Vietnamese who suffered under the North as a POW.

Additionally, a colorful Vietnam POW showed up replete with buttons and patches and headed for his place of honor in the lead car.

Let me be clear here - there had been previous notifications that this man was NOT a former POW. The groups involved knew full-well his DD 214 was falsified and his claims were challenged by us and others.

Nonetheless, they chose to put him with the other former POWs and trot him out in front of everyone... chiming repeatedly his membership in their chapter to the assembled throng of onlookers.

When told flat-out he was a phony, the county folks and vet officers said 'it would look bad' to remove him and 'they had no specific proof he was not who and what he said he was.'

Example: Numerous County and local government VSOs contact us regarding the experiences of some of their clients. In most instances the veteran in question is looking to increase benefits, receive additional services or finances on a County level, beyond the VA benefits that they already receive.

The VSO will state in the beginning that they are trying to get more of something for their guy. They want information to help bolster the request. When they are told the guy is NOT a former POW they challenge us, not the guy. They feel compelled to support this guy, even when told they are being lied to. Some have come back and said that it is because of people like us - who challenge the guy - that he has all these problems.

We say it is because of the phonies being embraced and accepted by the folks around them that there is a problem and there is always a shortfall for services and funding for REAL heroes.

Example: Nurse Practitioner working with traumatized veterans contacts us asking for in-depth information on the experiences of a POW so that they may better treat their Vet... a former POW. When told their POW is not a POW they become VERY defensive and argumentative. They ultimately challenge us and say 'how do you know?', forgetting that they had in fact contacted us.

Example: An Army-Navy/Memorabilia shop opens up, run by a SEAL and an Ex-POW. Great guys, great stuff, great big ole jug by the door for donations to help POWs.

Only problem is neither are who they say they are - NOT an Ex-POW or an officer for that matter (left service as an Enlisted man) - NOT a SEAL (medicaled out before basic was completed)... and Heaven knows where all the five and ten and twenty dollar bills stuffed into the POW jug were going. They showed up at fairs, parades, street fairs, commemorations, concerts, you name it, they and their jug were there. The Officer Ex-POW was even promoted during this period! He received an Honorary promotion from Captain to Major, and started wearing new awards and rank as a result.

And no one stopped them. Intead they were embraced and honored. The few who accepted the truth and knew they were phonies, refused to 'rock the boat'.

And in time, these two phonies scammed their friends and fellow veterans the same way they scammed the rest of the public and public officials.

A sad story that plays out in so many places, over and over again.

This is NOT an indictment of Veterans' Service Organizations, VSOs, local goverments, the VA or anyone else.

They do remarkable work - millions of men and women are helped through the benefits and brotherhood they selflessly provide.

However, it is a wake up call that there are those amongst them, in positions of responsibility, who are blinded by the words POW, Purple Heart, Medal of Honor, SEAL, et al... to the detriment of their own organizations and the men and women who honestly deserve these titles and entitlements.

Honorable men and women have made extraordinary sacrifices and suffered greatly.. and in so doing, they have EARNED the right be called Prisoner of War, Medal of Honor recipient, SEAL... they earned that privilege with blood, tears, fear, privation, torture, suffering, and sometimes their lives.

That someone, somewhere, should steal that honor, steal the stories, is despicable. That others should allow that theft by turning a blind eye or making excuses for them, makes them accomplices.

Why are Our Guys Less Important Than Their Guys?
The US and North Korea

14 July, 2008

It's Bastille Day somewhere across the ocean. The French national holiday - a day of liberation - Quatorze Juillet.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité was the catch phrase of the day in 1790, the first anniversary observed. Liberty, equality and brotherhood. Something our former Prisoners can understand all to well.

So what does Bastille Day have to do with North Korea? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But, in light of the Day's significance to so many and it's resounding call for Freedom, it ends up being most appropriate for the current rant.

President Bush Plans to Delist North Korea.

In a Whitewash House press release we learn that North Korea will be lifted from the Terror List and the Trading With the Enemy sanctions will be lifted.

Why? What are these people thinking?

North Korea, the same North Korea that has taunted the world with its insane babble and antics regarding nuclear capabilities, starves its citizens, abducts foreign nationals willy-nilly and has managed to hold POWs from the 50-year-past Korean War.

An endless stream of escapees from North Korea has graced our front pages over the years, relating horror stories and how others remain in captivity.

We have just learned, pubicly, that they allowed China to take an American POW, Richard Desautels, into China where he subsequently died and was buried, gravesite unknown.

You can be sure there are more Richard Desautels.

What is particularly painful, however, is the treatment the North Koreans heaped upon American POWs.

On any given day we hear the NGOs scream about how hideous we Americans are. The front pages and internet have image after image of American atrocities.

Yet they never address the atrocities of others... against Americans.

Perhaps it is because we manage to maintain a modicum of dignity and do not publish the gruesome images of tortured Americans, beheaded Americans, slaughtered Americans.

We do not list the litany of abuses against captured troops or those Killed in Action.

We quietly put these honored dead into a box, cover them with a flag and lay them to rest.

We do not exploit their tradgedies nor those of their families. We do take great pains to maintain the dignity and honor of those who make the ultimate sacrifice.

Perhaps that is why our losses are treated as less than others by the international media and Human Rights groups.

No ugly pictures.

Well, we have ugly pictures. And we have even uglier descriptions from American POWs who survived captivity. Plenty of them.

Let's consider the images and reports from American POWs who came back from North Korea at the end of the Korean War. And these were the lucky ones that made it back.