Earlier this month, an article appeared in the Rocky Mountain News about a former POW from SEA (which we did not post as the man was not on the PMSEA). Intrepid vets, Ex-POWs and Activists were all over it and the following is a follow-up piece posted on March 9th. Good job Rocky Mountain News.
Records don't support Vietnam vet's POW claim
By Rocky Mountain News
March 9, 2005
Vietnam veteran Richard Ray Ingram wasn't a prisoner of war as he claimed, according to Department of Defense records.
Ingram, 59, of Johnstown, received various service medals last week at U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard's office. He claimed at the ceremony, and still maintains, that he was captured for a day and escaped.
Information from the National Personnel Records Center in Missouri, the repository for military records, showed Ingram earned the eight medals he received, including a Purple Heart and the Vietnam Service Medal with two bronze service stars.
But a representative of the Pentagon's POW/MIA office said Ingram isn't on the Vietnam POW list.
"Every field commander down to the lowest level has to report upwards of the status of his troops," said Larry Greer, spokesman for the POW/MIA office.
Ingram's superiors would have reported him missing, even if it was just for a day, Greer said.
Despite no record of his capture, Ingram maintains he was a prisoner.
"A lot of stuff they don't put down," Ingram said. "I know what I went through. I know I was a prisoner for a day."
© The E.W. Scripps Co.