News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Family Questions Identification

Date: April 17, 1999

USAF Captain Samuel L. James may be 'accounted-for' as fas as the USG is concerned, but his family has a considerably different opinion.

After 26 years of wondering what happened, the family will not be in attendance when the USG lays what it says are James' remains to rest. James was shot down over Cambodia in 1973.

"I think they just want to close the books on these POW/MIAs. The facts are really not there," said James' sister, Barbara White, of Huntsville, Ala. "We can accept the truth, but is this the truth?"

A question echoed by many, many families over the years.

James was lost along with Doug Martin when their F-4 was shot down. Beginning in 1993 USG investigators visited the site o find that locals had scavenged the site repeatedly. In 1995 and again in 1997, excavation teams opened the site and found several teeth, a handful of bone fragments and a dog tag. Dental experts stated the teeth matched records and a military panel determined the 'remains' belonged to James and Martin.

The family, using four separate dentists, came away with entirely different results. Not one specialist was able to find a match between the recovered teeth and the dental records. Another serious question was the 'new' appearance of the dog tag said to be James'... this is compounded by CIA reports stating James sent a radio transmission after the loss incident.

"The identification of POW/MIA remains is not a game of horseshoes. Close does not count," the family said in a statement.

A commingled burial beneath a single headstone was planned by the DOD.