December 2002
Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork
December 31, 2002 SEA - Hanoi Welcomes McCain
Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, received a warm welcome from Hanoi leaders who praised his efforts to promote reconciliation between the former enemies, officials said yesterday.
December 30, 2002 WW II - The Liberation That Went Awry
At Blomberg, Ballenger was involved in the liberation of a prisoner of war camp that went awry. "We had freed a bunch of Polish and Russian prisoners" said Ballenger. "They decided they wanted to take revenge by executing some of the townsfolk. We had to put them back into the compound and post guards to keep them in."
December 30, 2002 WW II - Another Bataan Survivor Passes
Mr. Kinser joined the United States Army in 1939, serving in the Air Corps and later transferred to the United States Air Force. He served in the military during World War II and was held as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese for 42 months. Mr. Kinser also survived the Bataan Death March, a forced march of about 65 miles to prison camps, which took place in the Philippines in April 1942. Many of the prisoners on this march died of disease or mistreatment.
December 24, 2002 WW II - The Christmas Miracle
For 57 years, a former prisoner of war searched for the man who saved his life. Now he's finally getting a chance to say thanks. And he didn't have to go far at all.
December 23, 2002 KW - CW - There Was No Way Out
He fought to survive through three wars and 33 months in a Prisoner of War camp to finally retire as a master sergeant. Even honored with numerous awards and decorations, the fight remains against discrimination and for equality.
December 23, 2002 WW II - Christmas In Prison
Wojahn's most memorable - and worst - Christmas was 58 years ago today, when he and other captured U.S. troops were depressed, cold, hungry and crammed inside rail cars outside a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.
December 22, 2002 WW II - "Presence" Was Best Christmas Gift
It was Christmas Eve 1942 when Ramirez, who had been languishing near death in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Philippines for months, possibly suffering from malaria, suddenly regained consciousness.
December 22, 2002 Ex-POW Lead Battle Against Bad Policy
The administration's support for rescinding lifetime health benefits for World War II and Korean War veterans and continuing problems at veterans hospitals stand as proof, veteran leaders say, that America is more than willing to lean on its soldiers during times of war but tolerates them serving as political props in peacetime.
December 19, 2002 Former Joint Commission Member Retires
Gutierrez said one of his most satisfying assignments came in 1996 when he was sent to Russia to work with the joint U.S.-Russian POW/MIA committee.
December 18, 2002 Civil War - Confederate History Comes Home
White became a private in the 36th Virginia Cavalry, fighting in the battles of Winchester, Gettysburg and Kernstown. He was a prisoner of war at Point Lookout Prison Camp in Maryland.
December 12, 2002 PGW - Students, Police Join Free Speicher Effort
When teacher and Gulf War veteran John Kern assigned his Landon Middle School students to write essays about missing Jacksonville Navy pilot Scott Speicher, he had no idea it would come to this.
December 11, 2002 SEA - NLF Update Line
Family Update
December 09, 2002 PGW - Speicher Case Plan Hinted
The White House is forming new plans to resolve the fate of a Jacksonville Navy pilot missing in Iraq since the Persian Gulf War, but two key senators said yesterday they have had no luck getting the administration to elaborate about that or a recent communique to Baghdad.
December 08, 2002 SEA - Bracelet Becomes Six Degrees of Separation
A U.S. soldier missing in the Vietnam War has forged a bond between a teacher and a student, though neither ever met the man.
December 08, 2002 WW II - Pearl Harbor, POWs Remembered
The poem told how soldiers were asleep in their barracks at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when Japan launched its sneak attack at 7:55 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941. The two-wave attack killed 2,343 sailors, soldiers, marines and civilians, with another 1,272 people wounded, and 960 missing. Five battle ships were destroyed.
December 08, 2002 SEA - Family Meets With MIA Office
After 30 years and only sporadic contact with the Pentagon, Margarete Holm was invited to a briefing on Wednesday where about 20 top civilian and uniformed officials explained how they hope to finally recover the remains of her husband, Waterford native Arnold E. Holm.
December 08, 2002 NAF Bits 'N' Pieces
Summary of News
December 05, 2002 Search Is On For MIAs
For 30 years, Margarete Holm has declined to place a memorial stone in honor of her husband, Army Capt. Arnold E. Holm Jr., a helicopter pilot who was shot down over Vietnam in 1972 but whose remains have never been recovered.
December 05, 2002 SEA - Decades of Wondering
When Capt. Francis Wayne Townsend left for Vietnam in January 1972, he didnąt tell his parents when heąd return. Thirty years later, the fallen Air Force navigator finally has come home.
December 04, 2002 SEA - Burial Brings Closure
The Townsend family of Rusk was preparing for church in August 1972 when an Air Force detail brought them the news that their son's plane had been shot down over Vietnam. Now, 30 years later, the family has finally buried him.
December 04, 2002 President Bush Signs S.1226
S. 1226, which requires the display of the POW/MIA flag of the World War II Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
December 02, 2002 SEA - Names Etched in the Heart
For the past 20 years, Brett Miller never knew the man whose name is engraved on his stainless steel bracelet.
December 01, 2002 WW II - Gone But Not Forgotten
A Scots widow whose husband survived a Second World War air crash is to travel to Holland to bury his fellow crewmen who died during the mission.
POW-MIA Issue Update January 2003