A. INTRODUCTION: Thank you for your invitation to appear before your Committee on behalf of American civilians who have been, currently are, or may find themselves in a "Prisoner of War" status in the future. In the recent past, I was pleased to learn that civilian employees working directly or indirectly for the U.S. government and, particularly for the U.S. military, would have to be accounted for in the same or similar way that military personnel who become prisoners are accounted for. I was very disappointed then to learn that this provision had been eliminated from the bill. The purpose of my testimony today is to stress the importance of including coverage for civilians in the Missing Persons Act or other legislative initiatives.
B. BACKGROUND: I think it is important to give you a little background about myself and other civilians who were captured in the Vietnam War in order to give you a better appreciation for the type of people that I am asking you to cover by legislation.
Speaking for myself, I was a 33-year-old bachelor working for the Department of Labor in Washington, DC when I was invited to go to Vietnam and work for a consortium of contractors (RMK-BRJ) under contract to the Department of Defense. I accepted the invitation and went to Vietnam in April 1966. After a year with RMK-BRJ, I returned to the U.S. and after a couple of months, returned to Vietnam and was hired as a civil service employee of the US Navy. I was hired in Da Nang in September 1967, and assigned to Hue in December of the same year. I was taken prisoner on February 1, 1968 during the Tet offensive. At the time of the capture, the five military personnel next door and the four men in my house, which served as both my office and sleeping quarters, combined forces and resisted capture for approximately two days. At the end of this time, with two men killed and everyone wounded and practically no ammunition to defend ourselves with, and the enemy zeroing in with mortars, and seemingly no real hope of rescue, we were taken prisoners by the NVA. Even though I was assured that when I left Da Nang to be assigned to Hue that I should not worry because being a civilian, should anything happen, that we would be the first ones to be taken out of there.
Unfortunately, I did not get a clarification as to who would be my escort. I think it is important to point out at this point that I had no great concern that my parents would know of my status -- for you see I was fortunate in that there were five Americans who were with me, three of whom successfully escaped and made their way back to friendly lines and two women who were with me for some time and were released. I knew in my own heart that these people would report back to the military that Larry Stark was a prisoner. I was, therefore, extremely disappointed to learn from my Mother (on my release) that she did NOT KNOW I was a prisoner and that my Dad died four years after my capture, not knowing that I was a prisoner.
Try to put yourself in my place -- After my release from Great Lakes hospital where I had spent a month recuperating, I travelled around the Midwest giving talks about my experiences as a prisoner of war. My mother, who would attend some of these talks, told me on more than one occasion that she never knew that I was a prisoner. At first, it didn't register with me, because I knew that all these people who were with me had reported that I was a prisoner. When I questioned her more closely, she said, "All we got from the Navy was a letter stating that there was an UNCONFIRMED REPORT that you were taken prisoner." The same letter also stated that if there was additional information, they would notify her. I ask you, what does it take to confirm the fact that a man is a prisoner of war? How many escapees does one need to have testifying that he or she is a prisoner of war?
Had the provisions of the Missing Persons Act concerning civilians, which have just been deleted from the Act, been in place at the time of my capture, there would have been no opportunity for our government to cover up the fact that I was indeed a prisoner. And if the periodic reviews, initially covered by the Act, were in place at the time of my capture, my status would clearly have been changed from `Missing in Action' to `Prisoner of War'. As it was and as it will be unless this Act is amended, there will be no guarantee that a civilian who is taken prisoner will ever be listed as `POW' and except for the grace of God, find his or her way home. To drive home the point of what my Mother and Father had to deal with, I would just tell you that our Pastor at that time, who himself was a former Navy chaplain and who had two brothers who were Admirals, told my Mother that there was little hope that Larry survived the Tet offensive.
And indeed when I think back to my captors who said, "Lucky for you," (apparently meaning that I was captured and not killed), I did not really appreciate the fact that I was lucky until I returned to Hue in 1974 and learned that at the time of my capture, 5,000, mostly civilian Vietnamese, and others like the two German doctors who lived up the street from me, were massacred in Hue during the Tet offensive. The meaning "lucky for you," now became clear. And even more clear when I revisted Hue and viewed the disinterred and reburied remains of some 3,000 Vietnamese.
C. EXPERIENCES OF CIVILIAN PRISONERS: Just so you know that it was not a piece of cake because we were civilians, I want to add that in addition to the two men who were killed at the time of capture in Hue, Tom Ragsdale, a civilian who was working for US AID and who was standing no more than 10 feet away from me, was blown away by a bomb dropped from one of our own planes while we were waiting to go to North Viet Nam. Later, another man who had been with us, died of an apparent heart attack on the trail. I also want to add the fact that I -- as well as other civilians --- participated and assisted in the escape of two American military members who made it back to friendly lines. Later, three men who escaped from a prison in the North -- one military, the longest held POW, Col. Jim Thompson; along with Lou Meyer, the other Navy civilian POW, and Speed Atkins, a retired Army major. Lou was an excellent "soldier" civilian; and Speed Atkins, who was about 55 years old at the time and our senior citizen insisted on going with them. Unfortunately, a couple of days later, they were recaptured. There were other civilians with us, many of whom were interrogated as though we were CIA agents. We also had some non-Americans with us-- `Pop Badua', for example, a Filipino working for Voice of America (VOA), who was helpful in so many ways, and who made a cross for Tom Ragsdale's makeshift grave which was helpful later in identifying his remains and having them returned back to the States. Russ Page, a 50-yr old World War II veteran, who was a prisoner of the Russians for a short time during WWII, told the interrogators on one or more occasions that "I don't know why you call me out here...I don't like you, and you don't like me, and I have nothing to tell you -- so, who don't you just leave me alone?!"
I want to mention also that, even though they were not Americans, there were two German nurses--Monica and Bernard--who survived, out of the five who were captured, behaved in exemplary manner. Monica, for example, assisted Col. Ben Purcell when he was on a hunger strike by floating half her food down the drainage/ditch so that he would have something to eat unbeknown to the enemy. I could tell you many more stories about civilians in captivity. But suffice it to say that in many cases, we fought with the military, were captured with the military, were held with the military, ate and slept with the military, assisted the military in their escape attempts or, in some cases, went with them. In fairness, therefore, civilians should be accounted for by the military because in most cases, we were supporting the military. If the provisions of the Missing Persons Act are not amended to include civilians, it is highly unlikely that the State Department will fill this role. Consider for a moment what it would take in my case. A team would have to go up to Hue, review the situation, interview people, pursue leads as much as possible, try to determine my status and then go back to Saigon--or wherever--and later keep up with me and do periodic review. I ask you, realistically, do you see this happening?? Isn't it more likely that we would be abandoned to the whims of our captors or the military personnel with whom we were detained??
Another point that I would like to make for those of you who believe---as my favorite senator believes--that we were all making a ton of money and therefore, if we were captured, that was just "tough bezotts!"
For those of you who say that civilians were in Viet Nam for the money, let me say that at the time of my capture, my base salary was less than $12,000 per year. Some of the men working for volunteer agencies, like Mark Cayer and Gary Daves who worked for the international Voluntary Service (IVS), received $50 and $75 per month, respectively. You can hardly accuse them of being in Viet Nam for the money. We were not there to get rich; we weren't there as mercenaries. Many of us, especially those working for the Department of Defense, fully supported military effort.
In closing, let me just say that it is not practical to leave our accounting to the State Department of Embassy people. It just won't work because they are not equipped to handle a situation especially similar to that which existed in Vietnam where the frontlines sometimes were as close as the front door. Finally, I ask you:
Is it asking too much that civilians be accounted for in the same or similar manner in which the military are accounted for? If we work with them, if we are imprisoned along with them, if we suffer--and in some cases are tortured -- like them, if we eat the same food that they do and share the same POW camps that they did, is it not right and just to account for us as you account for them??