News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Kosovan US POWs Want Out of Army

Date: September 25, 1999

The three men's images bring back eerie memories of those who joined the Legion of the Lost. Haunted, hollow eyes, stooped shoulders, heads bowed... fortunately we lived with those images, and those men with their captivity for just over a month.

And then they came home. Not because the US did anything to secure their freedom and insure their safety. No, the US was still dickering over their status and playing a media mumbo-jumbo semantics game when a consortium of religious leaders got on a plane, landed in the middle of a political minefield and brought the boys home.

They were offered several choices - remain as they were, preferred duty of of their choice, or resignation and get on with their life. With their priorities profoundly readjusted by their captivity, the three ex-POWs opted for the out and an opportunity to get on with their lives, attend university, love their families and move on.

And, as expected, the USG stonewalled the men and refused to release them. First they were prisoners of Milosevic, then they were prisoners of Washington, perhaps the true meaning of P.O.W.

After going public, two fo the men have apparently been granted a separation and the third permitted to finish out his last year based near his family. Just another example of the red-tape limbo the bureaucracy has created. No wonder family members can't get a straight answer.