The Truth Hurts

CONFEDERATE POW CASE UNRESOLVED

by Chip Beck, Special Washington Correspondent "Washington, D.C. (23 Feb): Responding to a 122-year old Live Sighting Report of a Confederate POW allegedly returning to his home in Brandon, Florida via Savannah, Georgia, the Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) issued an interrim report to friends and family members of Pvt Benjamin DeVane, CSA.

According to Larry Greer, spokesman for DPMO, "There is no substantive evidence that Private DeVane was ever held as a POW in Union prison camps." To back this analysis, Greer revealed that DeVane's name does not appear on any list of prisoners in DPMO's extensive list of Civil War files.

Mr. James Wold, Director of DPMO, went even further. "We have attempted to locate surviving Union prison camp guards to confirm that DeVane was a prisoner, but no such guards have stepped forward. We believe this indicates that the Union prison camps may not have existed in the first place, and the whole story is a hoax."

However, Wold assured DeVane's great-great grandchilden that DPMO was taking the Savannah Live Sighting reports seriously, and had given it "top priority." Nevertheless, he was not sanquine about the outcome. "You have to understand that we receive thousands of Live Sighting reports about Confederate Soldiers returning to Dixie after the Civil War. So far, none of them have turned out to be true."

Wold's Deputy, J. Alan Liotta, who agreed to be interviewed on national TV for 16 hours had this to say. "The Union Forces during and after the Civil War kept meticulous records. Private DeVane was observed Killed In Action (KIA) at Sharpsburg, six miles south of Hagerstown. It is absurd to claim that he was a POW of the Yankees, even once, much less twice. We have no reports of DeVane ever fighting at Gettysburg. To think that he survived the Civil War and was walking on foot down the East Coast of the United State in 1865 is ridiculous."

Liotta went on to support Wold's statement that DPMO was treating the reports of DeVane's remains being discovered in Savannah, with "all due seriousness." To show his sincerity, the diminutive Liotta stood on a chair so gathered reporters could see his earnest smile and sincere eyes.

Jo Ann Travis, DPMO's Collections Director, took time off from getting her General Education Diploma (GED), to brief reporters on steps that DPMO is taking to debunk the DeVane scam. "We sent samples of the leather boots that were found at the (alleged) DeVane burial site to the Army's Central Identification Lavoratory in Hawaii (CILHI) to be tested. CILHI has compared traces of residual sweat from the soles of the shoes with DNA samples from the great-great grandchildren's pet parakeet. The results clearly show that the remains in the Savannah grave could not possibly be those of Pvt. DeVane."

DPMO's Special Projects Officer, Dr. Angelo Collura, revealed that he is the country's leading authority on Pvt. DeVane, and has recently completed an exhaustive six year study aimed at discrediting the reports on DeVane's alleged March to Georgia. "Anyone with half a brain," he said, referring to himself, "knows that this report could not be true. Clearly, some scam artist with a bit of knowledge has mixed up historical reports of Sherman's march to the sea, and tried to pass off this ludicrous DeVane story."

To further bolster his position, Collura revealed that Bobby Garwood said absolutely nothing about Pvt Benjamin DeVane when Garwood was interviewed by space aliens in 1979. "Garwood never heard of DeVane," Collura said. "Reports of DeVane being in Savannah in 1865 are pure bunk."

Questioned about the DeVane controversy at his office on Capital Hill, Senator John McCain called POW activist Ted Sampley a "scumbag." When informed that Sampley had nothing to do with the DeVane reports, McCain threw the reporters out of his office and threatened to veto any legislation brought to the floor of the Senate for the rest of his term.

Specialists from DPMO's North-South Joint Commission on POW/MIAs were sent to Savannah last month to inteview Georgians. The NSJC experts, who speak and read Southern dialects, examined post Civil War documents and interviewed the Oldest Living Conderate Widow. "We found the burial documents to be authentic and the widow's testimony to be compelling evidence that the remains in Savannah were those of Pvt. DeVane," said Mr. Norm Kass, Director of the NSJC.

James Caswell, DPMO's Strategic Planner, called for the immediate dismissal of Mr. Kass and his investigative team. "DPMO's motto is 'Integrity in Everything We Do.' How can we have integrity if people from inside DPMO do not conform to official policy?"

Backing Caswell, DPMO Deputy Director J. Alan Liotta, asked his chief financial officer, Richard Conoboy (also referred to as "Dick,-Head Of Resource Management") to cancel Mr. Kass's payroll time card for the month. "We cannot let honesty go unpunished in DPMO," Liotta intoned.

Speaking out on the DeVane controversy from the Oval Office, Commander-In-Chief Bill Clinton vowed to expand NATO at all costs. "We cannot let the reports of DeVane's sighting stop the march of history." He reiterated that his administration has assigned the "highest national priority to achieving a full accounting of all Civil War-era POWs." To prove his sincerity, Mr. Clinton went across Pennsylvannia Avenue for lunch at McDonald's.

Back at DPMO's plush climate-controlled headquarters in the Crystal Caverns of Virginia, Kay Wittless, head of the Family Liaison Branch, soothed DeVane's distraught descendents. "You people really need to get a grip on yourselves," he comforted them sweetly. Ms. Wittless, a political appointee who indicated she would be destitute without her job, assured the family that she would go to the mat to find the "truth" about DeVane. The humor in her voice greatly cheered the younger family members.

Returning to the press conference from unexpected extra-curricular activities, James Caswell brought with him a declassified intelligence report that had just been manufactured by DPMO analyst Bob DeStatte. DeStatte, who was alive during the Civil War, and who at various times was an aide-de-camp to both General U.S. Grant and General Robert E. Lee, verified that the remains found in Savannah could not possibly be those of DeVane.

"We have reliable information from Stony Beach," Caswell quoted DeStatte as saying, "That DeVane was buried in Canada. The Royal Mounties have confirmed it."

Faced with that mountain of evidence confirming the DeVane Scam, the press conference was terminated. Family members, who remain highly distraught and overly emotional, plan to continue with the charade-parade, and will transport the unidentified remains from Savannah to Brandon. General Wold lamented the plans "of the activists," but assured them, "he understood their pain."