September 2003
Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork
September 29, 2003 SEA MIAs Identified
The remains of four servicemen missing in action from the Vietnam War have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
September 29, 2003 PGW Speicher Crash Site Visited
Government investigators reached Navy Capt. Scott Speicher's F-18 crash site in Iraq earlier this month, but found no evidence that would solve the mystery of whether the pilot is dead or alive.
September 25, 2003 KW - CW Remains Found at Chosin and Unsan
Remains believed to be those of four American soldiers missing since the 1950-53 Korean War have been found by joint search teams in North Korea, the US Defence Department said on Wednesday. The remains were found in recent searches under an agreement negotiated between Washington and Pyongyang and will be repatriated on October 28 for conclusive identification by US forensic experts in Hawaii, the Pentagon said.
September 25, 2003 KW - CW Ex-POW Shares His Story
Many a night, troubled by dreams and nightmares, I woke, asking 'why me?''' said former prisoner of war Richard Bassett, in reference to why his life was spared while others died during the Korean War. In response to his haunting question, he rationalized an answer: ''God is not finished with me.'' During his remarks as guest speaker during Prisoner of War - Missing in Action Day at the chapel here last week, Bassett, a former U. S. Army rifleman, recounted his experiences while captive during the Korean War. ''You can't forget it,'' he said. ''You can't forget it.''
September 25, 2003 WW II Bataan Death March Lecture Series
One of the last few survivors of the Bataan Death March, a World War II veteran returned to Tyler this week after revisiting a prisoner of war camp in China, where he spent four trying years of his life.
September 25, 2003 KW - CW DoD News Release on North Korea Remains Recovery
Remains believed to be those of four American soldiers missing in action from the Korean War have been recovered by two teams of U.S. specialists. A joint team operating near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea recovered two sets of remains believed to be those of U.S. Army soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division who fought against Chinese forces from November-December 1950. Approximately 1,000 Americans are estimated to have been lost in battles of the Chosin campaign.
September 24, 2003 SEA Vn Agrees in Principle to File Search
The U.S. says 1,882 Americans remain listed as MIA from the Vietnam War. WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Vietnam has agreed to give the United States some access to Hanoi's top secret files to gather possible information about U.S. troops who may have been held captive after the Vietnam War, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. A spokesman for the Pentagon's office of POW-MIA affairs said Hanoi had agreed "in principle" to an unusual U.S. proposal to hire retired senior Vietnamese intelligence officers to search classified Vietnamese government files.
September 24, 2003 SEA Secret VN POW-MIA Files to be Searched
U.S. and Vietnam veterans of the Vietnam War said on Wednesday they supported a pact made by their governments that would provide access to secret Vietnam documents that may shed light on any American prisoners held after the war. The Pentagon's office of POW-MIA affairs said on Tuesday that both countries had agreed ''in principle'' to an unusual U.S. proposal to hire retired senior Vietnamese intelligence officers to search classified Vietnamese government files.
September 22, 2003 KW - CW US Suspended MIA Recovery Over NK Nuke Admission
The Bush administration briefly suspended its only avenue of military cooperation with North Korea after the communist government confirmed to a State Department envoy last fall that it was running a nuclear weapons program, a senior Pentagon official says. Jerry Jennings, deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW-MIA affairs, said Monday that cooperation on recovering remains of U.S. servicemen lost in the Korean War was put back on track in June after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld decided it did not contradict U.S. policy.
September 22, 2003 WW II Former POW Honored
Fifty-eight years after he was held captive in Nazi Germany, World War II veteran Roy Pease received his Prisoner of War Medal. "I never knew about it. I didn't realize I had to apply for it,"said Pease, who received the medal during a ceremony Friday at Nellis Air Force Base in honor of National Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Recognition Day.
September 22, 2003 IRAQ Recognition for Johnson
Do you know who Shoshana Johnson is? If you don't recognize her name, you may know her face from Iraqi television earlier this year, her eyes, terrified, darting from side to side while Iraqi captors tormented her and the six other American prisoners of war.
September 21, 2003 POW-MIA Freedom Radio Broadcast
News and Views :: Ms. Noonie Fortin :: Mr. Mike Benge
September 21, 2003 NLF Update Line
Family News Update
September 21, 2003 NAF Bits 'N' Pieces
News Summary
September 21, 2003 Missing and Families Pay For Freedom
The faces of missing children on posters never cease to be disturbing. If there were a poster for every missing member of the U.S. military from the nation's modern wars and conflicts, the result would be no less disturbing. The nation observes on the third Friday of every September National POW/MIA Recognition Day. It's significant in that more than 88,000 Americans are still missing from Desert Storm, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Cold War and World War II.
September 21, 2003 WW II The Hardships of Captivity
Former POW shares hardships of captivity: Palominas man captured after bomber was downed
September 21, 2003 WW II An Ex-POW Remembers - Info
September 21, 2003 Residential Storm Stirs Over Rolling Thunder
Lindenwold's planning board will decide Monday whether to let a veterans group known for their motorcycles open an office on Chews Landing Road. Rolling Thunder, a Vietnam veterans group active in POW-MIA causes, wants to occupy a formerly abandoned building they have renovated. The building is next door to Mueller's ice cream stand.
September 21, 2003 CIVIL WAR Andersonville Is An Echo
Andersonville is quiet and still. The long lines of headstones and rain-splattered military monuments are disturbed only by the sound of wind rattling flagpole halyards and the whispers of those who have come to remember.
September 20, 2003 Remembering
It has been a full 50 years since America's "Forgotten War" ended, but its veterans remember it all too acutely. Some of them came together Friday during a commemorative ceremony at Fort Mason to honor fallen and missing comrades.
September 20, 2003 We Must Not Lose Our Resolve
"We must not lose our resolve," Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, EUCOM deputy commander, said during the ceremony.
September 20, 2003 VA Ex-POWs Are Not Getting Benefits
The Department of Veterans Affairs wants former prisoners of war who are not getting disability compensation, health care and other benefits to contact the department. The agency said an estimated 11,000 former POWs are not getting benefits to which they are entitled. The VA issued the plea in conjunction with National POW-MIA Recognition Day.
September 20, 2003 Their Emotions Have Outlived Their Comrades
This is the first year it has hit me how few fellows we have left. We're going to the other side one by one. When it comes time to say goodbye to one of our members, that's the hard part. - Fred Broussard, 80, of Shorewood, a survivor of a German prison camp in World War II.
September 20, 2003 KW - CW Honoring Fallen Soldiers
The Alabama Korean War Memorial to its proper spot Friday at the Alabama Welcome Center on Interstate 65 in Ardmore. The memorial, which honors the 752 Alabama soldiers who lost their lives in the war, will be dedicated Nov. 8.
September 20, 2003 WW II Gone But Not Forgotten
"He always wondered if his brother was going to turn up," said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Karen S. Rankin, Leslie Summerfield's daughter. "And I can remember as a kid him saying that it wouldn't surprise him if Don came out of somewhere where he'd been all these years."
September 20, 2003 CIVIL WAR Andersonville
THE NAME Andersonville Prison evokes a wide range of emotions. People have different perceptions of the prison. Alan Marsh, a historian at Andersonville National Historical Site, spoke this month to the Rappahannock Valley Civil War Round Table to clear up some of the misconceptions as part of the group's study of Civil War prisons and prison experiences.
September 19, 2003 Plight of POWs, MIAs Now Recognized
John Brame sees the ultimate irony of warfare in the plight of America's former prisoners of war. "Can you imagine fighting somewhere and losing the very thing you're fighting for," he asked the crowd assembled for Friday's National POW/MIA Recognition Day.
September 19, 2003 Flyboys Take to Foot and Run for POW and MIAs
Service and sacrifice honored at Mount Rushmore this afternoon.
September 19, 2003 PGW Ex-POW Still Trying
While sitting in front of the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse in Las Vegas, Jeff Tice, discusses his experience as a prisoner of war during the first Persian Gulf War and his involvement in a federal lawsuit for compensation to him and 16 ex-prisoners of war.
September 19, 2003 Rolling Thunder Stands Vigil
Rolling Thunder stands vigil to call attention to POWs, MIAs. More than 88,000 Americans have been classified as POW or MIA since World War II.
September 19, 2003 National POW-MIA Recognition Day 2003
"... that we write no last chapters; we close no books; we put away no final memories until your questions are answered. Your husbands, fathers, and sons and brothers did their duty by this Nation, and this Nation will do its duty by them. Today we stand together."
September 19, 2003 National POW-MIA Recognition Day 2003 - Presidential Proclamation
The sacrifice and service of America's veterans, including those who became prisoners of war or who went missing in action, have preserved freedom for America and brought freedom to millions around the world. On National POW/MIA Recognition Day, we honor the extraordinary courage of the Americans who have been prisoners of war, and we pray for those who are still missing in action and unaccounted for.
September 19, 2003 National POW-MIA Recognition Day 2003 - No Proclamation
It would appear that everyone is so busy running from a few raindrops in Washington, DC that the Proclamation for POW-MIA Recognition Day has yet to be made, on this, POW-MIA Recognition Day 2003. So much for Highest National Priority.
September 18, 2003 KW - CW Waiting For Years, Hoping For Closure
This weekend Dorothy Beseda will attend a government update on the status of her brother, Army PFC William Craig. Dorothy Beseda sits in the living room of her Lemay home and gingerly fingers the four small, yellow pieces of paper she has taken from the box where they are stored for safekeeping. It is the last letter from her younger brother, Army Pfc. William E. Craig.
September 18, 2003 Saluting the Sacrifice
Nearly four decades have passed since Nina McCoy's father was killed in Vietnam, but the pain and loss persist.
September 18, 2003 WW II A Tale of Two POWs
As Americans pause today to commemorate National POW/MIA Recognition Day, two men remember vividly the dark days in German POW camps where they both doubted they would set foot on Southern Illinois soil ever again.
September 18, 2003 WW II Once Foes, Now Friends
Almost 60 years after saying goodbye to a young prisoner of war under his charge, Hendersonville resident George Bruce still corresponds with the former Nazi soldier whom he came to love like a brother.
September 17, 2003 KW - CW The Korean War POW
He was worked over by Korean guards, beaten with rifle butts, kicked and burned with cigarette stubs. And the next afternoon, although he refused to speak, he was given a half bowl of rice. That was in December 1950 when Lawrence "Bud" Bach of Grand Forks was the first American Sabre jet pilot shot down in Korea to be repatriated by the Reds.
September 16, 2003 CIVIL WAR - Chasing History
A century after it's construction, a Whitewright home was deemed worthy of preservation for its architectural integrity and historical associations by the Texas Historical Commission.
September 15, 2003 WW II - Vet Heads to Europe to Meet Milkmaid Savior
After parachuting into Normandy on D-Day, a young Army captain from Hawaii found himself lost and turned to a 19-year-old French milkmaid for directions.
September 14, 2003 POW-MIA Freedom Radio Broadcast
News and Views :: Ms. Diane Carlson Evans :: Ms. Kathy Shemely
September 14, 2003 SEA The Long, Painful Trip Home
im and Jane Black will bury their 22-year-old son at Arlington National Cemetery on Friday. Paul Black is not a recent casualty of the United State's ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
September 14, 2003 SEA Ex-POW Sworn in as Governor of Indiana
Kernan was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 11 months and mayor of South Bend from 1987 to 1995 before O'Bannon picked him as his running mate in 1996.
September 14, 2003 Echoes of War
The denuded hills where 13,000 Union soldiers died a slow death are mostly empty this afternoon. The washed old stone grave markers, many chiseled with the words ``Unknown,'' jut from the lovingly tended green turf. They draw just a pair of visitors. This small spot in southern Georgia is not a place to pass through on the way to somewhere else. It's a place of pilgrimage.
September 14, 2003 Remembering the Missing
"Body not recovered" is a perpetual nightmare for families of soldiers never found, says columnist Linda May.
September 14, 2003 SEA Other Families Still Waiting
It took 32 years for Jim and Jane Black to get to bury their son in Arlington National Cemetery.
September 14, 2003 SEA NLF Update Line
Family News Update
September 14, 2003 WW II POW Gets Enemy to Surrender
American POW talked 40 German soldiers into surrendering to him. Lt. William Standish's fast-talking did the trick.
September 13, 2003 IRAQ Johnson Honored
Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson doesn't think of herself as a hero _ despite receiving the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal.
September 13, 2003 Recognition Day Vigil
September 12, 2003 SEA - The Sound of Freedom
Ted created this fantasy life while sitting in a dirty hole and trying to stay sane while blindfolded, burned and beaten as a prisoner of war kept in solitary confinement in North Korea and China for 14 months. Interrogators sometimes put him in a box and pounded on it for hours; he once had to dig his own grave.
September 12, 2003 POW-MIA Documents Released to Russians
Jerry D. Jennings, deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW/missing personnel affairs, yesterday passed to the granddaughter of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin important documents clarifying the fate of her father, Senior Lieutenant Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, eldest son of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
September 11, 2003 Who Cheapened the Word Hero?
Orson Swindle was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for six years and four months, Ben Purcell for five years and two months. Neither one considers himself a hero.
September 11, 2003 Jennings Concludes Russia Visit
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs Jerry D. Jennings concluded a series of key meetings with Russian officials in Moscow. Jennings is the Department of Defense official responsible for policy oversight of the worldwide mission of accounting for America¹s POWs and MIAs.
September 11, 2003 Michigan Recognition Ceremony
The Department of Military and Veterans Affairs will conduct a brief ceremony to mark National POW-MIA Day. The ceremony will begin at 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19 and be held on the first floor of the Capitol Rotunda in Lansing.
September 11, 2003 CIVIL WAR History Unearthed
After the war, Johnson returned to the area and married Julie Cody in 1866, who had her own tragic connection to the war. Her brother, Thomas, was one of about 1,700 returning Union soldiers killed when the steamship Sultana, overloaded with returning veterans - many of whom had survived hellish Confederate prisoner of war camps such as Andersonville in Georgia - exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 26, 1865.
September 10, 2003 WW II Always A Place For Them
Albert Peter Iodice may never be able to completely disclose what happened to him during his years as a prisoner of war, but one need only look at the old man's face when the Pledge of Allegiance is said to understand what words cannot express.
September 09, 2003 WW II Ex-POW, Mayor Passes
September 08, 2003 SEA Remains Identified
The remains of an Air Force captain from the Mobile area whose helicopter was shot down during the Vietnam War have been identified and will be returned to relatives, federal officials said. Capt. Richard C. Yeend Jr., missing in action since June 9, 1968.
September 08, 2003 The Honoring Pole
September 07, 2003 POW-MIA Freedom Radio Broadcast
News and Views :: Mr. Wilford Billey :: Mr. Lloyd Pate
September 06, 2003 PGW Disinformation Campaign Suspected in Speicher Case
When someone leaked to the Washington Times last month the so-called "secret two-page Pentagon report" that suggested U.S. Navy aviator Capt. Michael Scott Speicher died when his F-18 Hornet was shot down Jan. 17, 1991, the feisty Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., figured it was a message to back off of his crusade to find out what had happened to the pilot still missing from the Persian Gulf War.
September 05, 2003 SEA - Ex-POW Runs for Senate
September 05, 2003 WW II New Book: Fighting With the Enemy
It's almost exactly 60 years since around 450 New Zealand soldiers escaped from German-Italian prisoner of war camps in Italy during the confusion that followed Italy's surrender to the Allies in September 1943.
September 05, 2003 Six Kuwaiti MIAs Identified
Five more Kuwaitis and a Saudi were Monday declared martyrs after their remains were identified among those in the Samawa mass grave, says the official spokesman of the team charged with ascertaining the fate of Kuwaiti POWs in Iraq.
September 05, 2003 IRAQ EPW Abuse Hearings Under Way
The Article 32 military hearing for Sgt. 1st Class Scott McKenzie ‹ accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners ‹ ended Tuesday after four days of testimony, according to his mother, Carolyn Lachemayer of North Fort Myers.
September 04, 2003 PGW
Kuwaiti POW-MIAs Laid to Rest - In a related development, the official spokesman of the team searching for POWs and missing, Fayez Al-Enezi said all POWs will be brought to Kuwait either alive or dead. Announcing that the remains of 17 martyrs had been brought to Kuwait so far, he said "Results of analysis of samples taken from Riggae Cemetery have not yet been received. These will take some more time."
September 04, 2003 PGW Kuwaiti Missing Identified
Sources said the remains of these martyrs were located at the Samawa mass grave in Iraq. They were all killed towards the end of 1991 - while they were allegedly kneeling blindfolded, with their hands tied behind - with a bullet in the back of their head. All of them had earlier been listed as POWs after being arrested by the Iraqis during their occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91.
September 04, 2003 WW II Men Travel World Searching for Lost Bombers
It has been more than 58 years since John Bryner became the lone survivor of a B-17 bomber crew whose plane crashed and exploded in a small German town.
September 04, 2003 WW II Ex-POW Artist Passes
Sir Terry Frost, one of Britain´s most respected abstract artists, who honed his skills in a prisoner-of-war camp during the second world war, has died aged 87. He died on Monday night near his home in Newlyn, Cornwall, with his family around him.
September 03, 2003 WW II MIA's Long Lost Love Sought
Last year, Belgian builders dug up the body of a World War II Spitfire pilot, Sergeant John Smart Carmichael. They also found his rosary beads, a four-leaf clover ... and a receipt for an engagement ring.
September 03, 2003 WW II Battle of the Bulge
Ron Krum grew up without knowing there was a hero in his house. Almost 59 years ago, his father, Mahlon Krum, was wounded and captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, the largest land battle in U.S. military history.
September 03, 2003 WW II The Burma POW
Mr Gimson was widely regarded as one of the most able legal figures of his generation. However, it is a series of 180 harrowing sketches, depicting the darkest period of his life, that will be his lasting legacy.
September 03, 2003 WW II Reunited 59 Years Later
A story about the former World War II prisoner of war appeared on the front page of The Bee on June 29. The article included a portrait of him sketched on Jan. 21, 1944, by fellow POW Les Breidenthal in the Stalag Luft 3 prison camp.
September 02, 2003 KW - CW The POW Inter-Camp Olympics, 1952
The POW Inter-Camp Olympics, November 15-27, 1952, was an actual event featuring Allied POWs - American, UK, Korean and others in athletic competitions. Propaganda in the extreme, the North Koreans even printed a booklet on the "games".
September 02, 2003 PGW Where is Speicher?
U.S. investigators searching in Iraq for clues to the fate of missing Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher, shot down on the opening night of the 1991 Gulf War, have returned to an early hypothesis: that he died at or near the site where his F-18 fighter crashed.
September 02, 2003 IRAQ Lynch Signs US $1 Million Book Deal
Jessica Lynch, the former prisoner of war whose capture and rescue from an Iraqi hospital made her a national hero, has agreed to a $1 million book deal with publisher Alfred A. Knopf.
September 02, 2003 IRAQ Families Question EPW Abuse Charges
Relatives of four Army reservists from Pennsylvania who are accused of beating and abusing Iraqi prisoners say they fear their loved ones are targets of a vendetta.
September 01, 2003 Japan, North Korea and the Missing
Hopes that the six-nation talks over North Korea's nuclear program would also shed light on the fate of kidnapped Japanese citizens have come to nothing, officials in Tokyo have said.
September 01, 2003 IRAQ MIA/KIAs Finally Laid to Rest
Two F-15E Strike Eagle crewmembers killed in action during Operation Iraqi Freedom were buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full honors Aug. 29.
September 01, 2003 SEA Patty O'Grady and the POW-MIA Flag Flap
On behalf of my father, Col. John F. O¹Grady USAF (POW-MIA), and on behalf of my husband, Major John W. Parsels (USA-Ret.), I would like to tell the people of Sanibel how distressed I am about the complaint on flying the POW/MIA flag on a city-owned flag pole.
September 01, 2003 KW - CW Making All Aware of Korean War
While the nation stays focused on its campaign in Iraq, a group of area veterans attempt to raise awareness of the so-called "Forgotten War," in which fighting ended 50 years ago last month.
September 01, 2003 WW II Missing Flier Comes Out of Thin Air
For more than 60 years, he has been lost and forgotten in the vast, often snowbound wilds of Mount Baker.
September 01, 2003 The Last Bridge Home
POW-MIA Issue Update October 2003