News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Powell In Hanoi

Date: July 26, 2001

"Powell Shares Thoughts on Vietnam
By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Flying into Vietnam for the first time in 32 years, Colin Powell didn't want to miss a thing.

He positioned himself in the cockpit of his aircraft, the one he uses as secretary of state, so he could have a panoramic view of the scene below.

"I kind of wanted to see ... the mountains north of the river, and just to see the paddies, the beautiful green, and then to hear the voice of the air traffic controller in the tower at Hanoi, greeting our pilot, giving him instructions, to hear that voice and the accent again brought back lots of memories," Powell said.

He also shared his impressions of modern day life in Vietnam. "So much has changed, of course, but so much is the same - the rice paddies, the houses I remember, the people, industrious, hard at work. There's always a twinge," he said.

During the Vietnam war, Powell served two tours, ending his second in 1969, when he was an executive officer. His job was to ensure that his battalion had all that it required.

As he states in his biography, Powell backed the motives that led to U.S. involvement but was bitterly critical of the way senior officers conducted the war, saying they refused to acknowledge to their political superiors how badly the war was going.

He arrived here Tuesday but a heavy meeting schedule with colleagues from Asia-Pacific countries assembled here prevented him from sharing his reflections on his return until Thursday.

He spoke to reporters and to a gathering of interagency military personnel who are working to obtain an accounting of U.S. war missing - nearly 2,000 from the Indochina War, the great majority in Vietnam.

Powell stressed the importance of the work carried out by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, as the operation is formally known.

"All of my buddies came home, even those who died, we got the remains, but for those we didn't find, there's still a longing in the hearts of their family members and their fellow veterans," he said.

The MIA building is nestled in a garden behind a high wall in the center of town. As the Chevy Suburban in which Powell was riding arrived, the staff was lined up on the steps of the two-story cream building.

In a nearby garden of tropical flowers, Powell paid tribute to the 16 members of an MIA search team who died in a helicopter crash last April.

Seven were Americans and nine were Vietnamese.

Powell took two incense sticks from a table and planted them in a vase at the foot of the plaque, on which the names of the victims were inscribed.

In brief remarks, he congratulated the staff for "reconstituting" themselves following the tragedy.

Powell turned back to the plaque and picked two roses from a table and placed them in another vase at the base of the plaque. Then, standing erect, he saluted the plaque."