March 2002

Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork

March 30, 2002 KW-CW - Priest-POW Nominated for Sainthood
Born on a farm south of Pilsen, Kapaun went into the priesthood and served his native parish before becoming an Army chaplain and serving in World War II and Korea. Those who knew Kapaun and promote his case for sainthood recount his brave and selfless service on behalf of other soldiers on the front lines and in a prisoner-of-war camp. Kapaun died in a Chinese POW camp in 1951.

March 29, 2002 WW II - Former Nazi to Stand Trial in POW Deaths
A 93-year-old former Nazi SS leader has been charged with murdering nearly 60 Italian prisoners of war in 1944, German prosecutors say. Friedrich Engel is alleged to have ordered the killings in retaliation for the deaths of five German soldiers visiting a cinema in Genoa.

March 28, 2002 PGW - Iraq Insists Offer Is Serious
Iraq insisted Wednesday its offer to receive a U.S. team to investigate the fate of an American pilot shot down during the 1991 Gulf War was serious, after Washington dismissed the move as propaganda.

March 28, 2002 WW II - Tokyo Rejects Suit, But Allows Ex-POW Testimony
A Tokyo court yesterday rejected a demand for compensation by a group of Allied soldiers and civilians held captive by the Japanese during World War II.

March 28, 2002 SEA - Roll-Call of POWs-MIAs on Sunday
The Taunton Area Vietnam Veterans Association will hold its annual POW/MIA Day Service on Sunday at the Vietnam Memorial on Church Green.

March 28, 2002 WW II - Ex-POWs Teach Patriotism
Former World War II Prisoner of War George Webb has received his certificate from the government of France thanking him for his service to the country.

March 28, 2002 PGW - US Says No Offer, Yet
The United States said on Thursday it has still not received formal notice from Iraq of an offer to let a U.S. delegation investigate the fate of missing U.S. pilot Michael Speicher.

March 27, 2002 SEA - DPMO Chief Says Live POWs Still Out There
Jerry Jennings, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, said on March 11 that live American prisoners are being held from the Vietnam War and the administration is committed to bringing them home.

March 27, 2002 PGW - Iraqi Offer Repeated on Radio
Iraq's offer to allow a U.S. team to investigate the fate of Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher was carried by the government radio ‹ not just by Chinese and British wire services, as Bush administration officials asserted Monday.

March 27, 2002 WW II - POW Suit Against Japan Rejected
A Tokyo court has rejected a suit in which some 150,000 prisoners of war and civilian detainees demanded compensation from the Japanese government for suffering inflicted during World War Two.

March 27, 2002 SEA - Coming Home, 32 Years Later
Thirty-two years after he vanished in the jungles of Vietnam, Refugio Thomas Teran is coming home. Home to the parents who never stopped waiting and hoping, home to the friends who never forgot the handsome boy with the generous heart. Home to a hero's burial, with full military honors, in Arlington National Cemetery.

March 26, 2002 PGW - Iraq Invite Could Be Valid
While the American government publicly discounts the offer, former arms inspector Scott Ritter said Monday there may be some substance to an apparent invitation for Americans to enter Iraq and search for a pilot shot down in the Persian Gulf War. Ritter, who was chief of a U.N. inspection team that was eventually taken out of Iraq, said he has held talks with U.S. government members about the offer.

March 26, 2002 PGW - Cheney "news to me"
Vice-President Dick Cheney said yesterday that an Iraqi offer to receive a US team to look into the fate of a US navy pilot downed over Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War was "news to me". However, he said Washington would study the offer to see whether it was "a serious proposition".

March 26, 2002 PGW - UN SecGen Annan to Discuss Speicher
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to meet Iraq's foreign minister next month for two days of talks, urging the return of arms inspectors, his spokesman said. Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard said Annan and Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri would meet on April 18 and 19 in New York, stressing that the secretary-general felt two days of talks might be warranted. The two met for one day on March 7, in their first high-level talks in a year.

March 25, 2002 KW-CW - 50 Years Later
Fifty long years have passed since Army Cpl. Melvin Morgan of Stanly County disappeared somewhere in Southeast Asia, captured by enemy forces during the Korean War.

March 25, 2002 NAF Bits 'N' Pieces
Summary of News

March 25, 2002 PGW - Rumsfeld DoD Briefing Transcript March 25, 2002 PGW - Iraq Demands Ritter
Iraq and the missed American pilot. An official Iraqi source said on Sunday that his country is ready to receive an American delegation in order to investigate the fate of the American pilot who was lost during the Gulf war in 1991.

March 25, 2002 PGW - US Waitning For An Invitation
Iraq has not invited a U.S. delegation to discuss the fate of an American pilot shot down over Iraq during the Gulf War, Bush administration officials said Monday. "We're not aware of any offer by the Iraqi government," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, referring to media reports about an invitation. "To my knowledge, it is only a fact that it's been printed. Whether it's actually happened, I'm not aware of it."

March 25, 2002 PGW - Iraq News Agency on Speicher
raq declares it is ready to receive an American team to discuss the fate of American pilot Michael Speicher who shot down over Iraq in the first day of the U.S-led aggression on Iraq in 1991.

March 24, 2002 PGW - Iraq Willing To Discuss Speicher - Wants Media Crew & ICRC
raq says Speicher is dead, but Washington says Baghdad has ignored requests for an explanation as to his fate after the crash. "To prove our good will in this regard and to refute repeated American allegations against Iraq, we express readiness of concerned Iraqi parties to receive an American team to visit Iraq to probe into the (U.S. pilot) issue," an Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

March 24, 2002 New and Updated Items

March 24, 2002 WW II - Together, Forever
Two World War II airmen who died when their plane was shot down were buried the first time 56 years and thousands of miles apart. On Friday, newly discovered remains were buried together in a single coffin.

March 24, 2002 POW-MIA Flag Flies
They say that it's a national attempt to raise awareness of MIAs and U.S. soldiers who might still be in Vietnam as prisoners of war. The group says that there are 1,986 Americans still unaccounted for in Vietnam.

March 22, 2002 PGW - VFW Looks For Action & Answers

March 22, 2002 PGW - Investigation of Speicher's "Whereabouts Still Important"
Cmdr. Speicher became the only American unaccounted for in the war with Iraq. He was declared killed in action. He was left behind. It was not until three years later, when the plane was discovered in the desert, that questions about the fate of Cmdr. Speicher began to surface.

March 22, 2002 SEA - NLF Update Line
Family Update

March 22, 2002 WW II - Former POW Remembers
That's changing: A documentary is being made about a prisoner exchange involving a group of Allied soldiers held by the Germans, and Harden was one of those soldiers.

March 22, 2002 SEA - Michigan MIA To Be Buried At Arlington
SSG Refugio Thomas (Tommy) Teran of Westland, MI will be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, April 19, 2002, nearly thirty-two years after disappearing during a battle in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam.

March 22, 2002 SEA - Former POW Shares Stories
Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Ed Hubbard, a former POW, shared his story with the Greenwood Exchange Club Tuesday.Hubbard was shot down and imprisoned in North Vietnam in 1966.

March 22, 2002 DPMO Chief
A Marine Vietnam War combat veteran and staunch supporter of the POW/Missing Personnel issue now steers the organization that oversees the nation's efforts for a full accounting of missing servicemen.

March 22, 2002 State Senate Oks Flag Flying
Iowa schools would be encouraged - not required - to display the American, Iowa and Prisoner of War flags in classrooms under a bill approved Tuesday by the Senate.

March 21, 2002 WW II - An Extraordinary Life
An obituary appeared earlier this month under the byline of veteran Newsday writer Bill Kaufman. It began: "Gene C. Browne, a retired aerospace engineer for Grumman and a Tuskegee Airman during World War II who was a POW in Germany after his P-51 Mustang was shot down in combat, died Feb. 22 at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip. He was 77."

March 21, 2002 PGW - Scott Speicher Petition

March 21, 2002 SEA - Pete Peterson Moves On
Pete Peterson, a former prisoner-of-war in Vietnam who later became U.S. ambassador to the nation, said Tuesday he is starting a new company to increase the United States' business presence in Southeast Asia.

March 21, 2002 Civil War Site Saved
Along a road near a honky tonk and a cluster of trailers sits an overgrown farm field and a little-noticed granite monument. For a few months late in the Civil War, this ground was a prison for 16,000 Union troops. Many were hastily sent here after Union Gen. Sherman captured Atlanta and Confederates moved prisoners from Georgia's infamous Andersonville prison.

March 21, 2002 POW-MIA Flag Flies High
Jeff McIntyre has been waving a black and white flag in front of public officials in the state for the past five years. Last week, in the final hours of the state Legislative session, his flag-waving paid off with passage of a bill requiring all public entities in the state to fly the POW/MIA flag on six national holidays.

March 21, 2002 SEA - Bracelet Returned
For 20 years, David Scrivener kept the identification bracelet of Marvin Leonard close by -- wondering if some day he might be found. He wore it in North Dakota when he served in the Air Force. Lately, the Kent County Sheriff's Department deputy kept it on his dresser, even though it had been 30 years since Leonard, helicopter pilot, disappeared in a crash over Laos during the Vietnam War.

March 21, 2002 PGW - Pilot A Priority
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told Congress yesterday his agency is tracking down every possible lead concerning a U.S. pilot lost in combat over Iraq in 1991.

March 21, 2002 POW-MIA Remembrance Day Walk Invitation

March 20, 2002 WW II - R. M. Hare Passes
Hare enlisted in the Royal Artillery in World War II. Captured after the fall of Singapore in 1942, Hare spent three years as a Japanese prisoner of war and was among the forced laborers who built the notorious Thai-Burma Railway. Throughout his time as a prisoner, he kept a diary of philosophical writings.

March 20, 2002 H RES 65
Establishing a Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs.

March 20, 2002 WW II - River Kwai
An original section of a railway forcibly built at the cost of the lives of thousands of Allied prisoners of war has arrived in Britain where it will go on display. The 415-kilometre Thai-Burma railway, which included the infamous bridge over the River Kwai, was built by about 60,000 Australian, British, Dutch and American PoWs during World War II.

March 20, 2002 POW Assistance Act
To assist United States veterans who were treated as slave laborers while held as prisoners of war by Japan during World War II, and for other purposes.

March 20, 2002 WW II - Nurse POW Book
Women have long been left off history pages, but for the American nurses who were held prisoners of war during World War II, their omission from the historical record was no mere oversight. The nearly 100 military nurses who were taken captive were deliberately silenced by the U.S. military.

March 20, 2002 ME - Long-Term POWs Released
Iran has released since Monday 682 Iraqi prisoners captured during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war, completing the latest phase of prisoner exchanges, the official IRNA news agency said Wednesday.

March 20, 2002 SEA - Pete Peterson Honored
Recognizing Ambassador Douglas `Pete' Peterson for his service to the United States as the first American ambassador to Vietnam since the Vietnam War. (Agreed to by the Senate)

March 20, 2002 Ransom For Hostages?
The U.S. Government will make no concessions to terrorists holding official or private U.S. citizens hostage. It will not pay ransom, release prisoners, change its policies, or agree to other acts that might encourage additional terrorism. At the same time, the United States will use every appropriate resource to gain the safe return of American citizens who are held hostage by terrorists.

March 20, 2002 Looking For POWs 32 Years Later
In December 1971 there was a 2 week-long India-Pakistan War. The Indian Army prevailed in overrunning Bangladesh and took thousands of Pakistani POWs in the process. As late as 2000, there was constant bickering between Islamabad and New Delhi over the 'forgotten POWs.' (sound familiar?)

March 20, 2002 Misery Knows No Borders
In Chechnya, there is now just one lone Russian voice remaining to chronicle the lives of those embroiled in the killing and corruption that have become the hallmark of President Putin's efforts to bring the province under the control of Moscow. Her name is Anna Politkovskaya, and she is not about to give up the fight.

March 20, 2002 POW-MIA Flag Act 2001 Senate
To require the display of the POW /MIA flag at the World War II memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

March 20, 2002 POW-MIA Flag Act 2001 House
To require the display of the POW /MIA flag at the World War II memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the District of Columbia.

March 19, 2002 SWA - Sources Claim 18 US POWs Captured

March 19, 2002 PGW - Wolfowitz Says "Pretty Hard Evidence" on Speicher
One of the Pentagonıs leading advocates of toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein said Saturday that quick action was needed to limit Husseinıs ability to threaten the region and Americans.Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told CNNıs ³Novak, Hunt and Shields² that President Bush has not made a decision about military action against Iraq.

March 19, 2002 PGW - PG Vets Group Wants Answers, Momentum
After 10 years of U.S. intelligence agencies denial, the Washington Times quotes anonymous senior defense officials claiming the British report provides new information indicating rescue operations were called off hours after the White House learned of the downing of Commander Speicher's aircraft in 1991. Veterans groups immediately began calling for a full accounting of Speicher, and 12 others who were listed as KIA/BNR (Killed In Action/Body Not Recovered) during the Gulf War. The NGWRC has continually maintained that Speicher and others were not afforded a proper investigation by the Department of Defense (DoD).

March 19, 2002 SEA - Great New Book
Jane Fondaıs visit to Hanoi in July 1972 and her pro­North Vietnamese, anti­American conduct, especially her pose with an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes and her propaganda broadcasts directed toward American troops, angered many Americans. In their eyes, she was guilty of treason, but she was never charged by the American legal system. Instead, she has made millions, been the recipient of countless awards, and remained an honored American icon.

March 19, 2002 Sending Messages
A white rectangle with a red circle meant it had sunk a Japanese merchant. A red sunburst signified that it laid claim to an enemy warship. Parachutes connoted a rescued airman, and eight-balls related that it had taken a prisoner of war.

March 18, 2002 POW Benefits Act
To amend title 38, United States Code, to provide improved benefits for veterans who are former prisoners of war.

March 18, 2002 WW II - Bataan-Corregidor Memorial
On Sunday, 7 April 2002, the Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Foundation of New Mexico, Inc. and the City of Albuquerque will be dedicating a new memorial at Bataan Memorial Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

March 18, 2002 SWA - A Man of Courage
A family friend of Aviation Boatswain's Mate (Handling) (SEAL) 1st Class Neil Roberts, the Navy SEAL who was killed March 4 in Eastern Afghanistan, said recently that Roberts was "a loving husband and father, a loving son and brother, a true friend and warrior who never once questioned his commitment to his family or his country."

March 18, 2002 WW II - Howard Thompson Passes
Born in Natchez, Miss., Thompson studied journalism at Louisiana State University before serving in the Army as a paratrooper. He was a prisoner of war for six months in Germany.

March 18, 2002 PGW - Congress Needs A Wake-Up Call
Over the past week since the Speicher news has come out, Congress, for the most part, has been asleep. Calling a Congressional local or DC number, one will generally find that their staff doesn't have a clue, puts you on long-term hold (read: IGNORE) or can't get you off the phone fast enough.

March 18, 2002 PGW - Where Are The Human Rights Groups Now?
A week has passed since the news of Speicher became public and the silence of some is deafening. As noted previously, during and after Vietnam, none of the human rights organizations would touch the POW-MIA issue. The men and their families were cast adrift and on their own.

March 18, 2002 DPMO Family Update Reminder
23 MAR 02 - Charlotte, NC :: 20 APR 02 - Portland, OR

March 17, 2002 SEA - The Case Against Hanoi Jane - Section On Versace

March 17, 2002 PGW - Other PGW Unaccounted-For
Just in case anyone is wondering, Michael Scott Speicher is not the only unresolved case from the Gulf War. From a year ago, in the same Update that announced Speicher's status change we find...

March 17, 2002 PGW - Did Navy Pilot Get Left Behind?
For more than a decade, the State Department has not been able to get a satisfactory response to there queries about Speicher's fate. Baghdad officials have repeatedly ignored U.S. requests for information about the pilot's fate. Speculation about Speicher has been a hot topic for veterans who have wanted to bring Speicher's remains home to be buried on home soil.

March 17, 2002 SEA - Vietnam Turns Over Remains
The remains of two American servicemen listed as missing in action were handed over to the U.S. Full Accounting Joint Task Force (JTF-FA) representative by a representative of the Viet Nam Office for Seeking Missing Persons (VNOSMP) at Da Nang International Airport in the central city of Da Nang today, Mar. 14.

March 17, 2002 SEA - Searching For Vietnam's Missing
Over the past 50 years Vietnamese soldiers have frequently found themselves fighting and dying on Cambodian soil. Wars against French colonialists, conflict with the Khmer Rouge, and the bloody "American War" have left as many as 22,000 Vietnamese soldiers buried here.

March 17, 2002 SEA - Jungle Holds MIA Clues
A remote jungle site 12 kilometers north of Snuol in Kratie province may have yielded the remains of an American serviceman killed in 1971 when his helicopter was shot down. The archeological dig underway in the province is one of several operations being run by the US military's Joint Task Force-Full Accounting. The current mission is in Cambodia to find and repatriate the remains of Americans who went missing during the Vietnam war. JTF-FA also runs annual operations in Laos and Vietnam.

March 17, 2002 SEA - Vet Wants To Help Recovery Efforts
An American soldier who served in Cam Ranh Bay during 1966-67 during the war against Viet Nam has written to the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, expressing his willingness to "help in the human recovery and the people to people friendship" in Viet Nam.

March 17, 2002 NAF Bits 'N' Pieces
Summary of News

March 17, 2002 Legislation of Interest
Amendment prohibits use of funds for filing a motion in any court opposing a civil action against any Japanese individual or corporation for compensation or reparations in which the plaintiff in the action alleges that as an American prisoner of war during WWII, he or she was used as a slave or forced labor.

March 17, 2002 PGW - Pilot Likely Seized
A U.S. intelligence report on the case of Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher provides the most complete explanation by the U.S. government on why the pilot probably was captured alive by Iraqis after ejecting from his F-18 in 1991. "We assess Lt. Cmdr. Speicher was either captured alive or his remains were recovered and brought to Baghdad," said the report, "Intelligence Community Assessment of Lieutenant Commander Speicher Case."

March 16, 2002 PGW - Pentagon May Classify Gulf War Pilot As POW
The Pentagon is considering changing the classification of an American pilot -- whose jet crashed in Iraq on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War -- from Missing in Action to a Prisoner of War, sources told CNN Friday.

March 16, 2002 PGW - Gulf War Pilot Saddam's Secret POW?
As the US edges towards another confrontation with Saddam Husseinıs regime, fresh evidence has now emerged that the Iraqi leader could have secretly kept Lt-Cmdr Speicher as a hostage for more than a decade. British intelligence officials are reported to have passed on information to the CIA in the last few months that a US pilot, believed to be Lt-Cmdr Speicher, is being held in Baghdad.

March 16, 2002 PGW - Iraq May Be Holding POW
Baghdad is concealing information about his fate,ı CIA document says. U.S. intelligence agencies say an American pilot shot down over Iraq during the Gulf War was either captured alive or his remains were recovered by the Iraqis.

March 16, 2002 WW II - A Fifty-Year Wait
took them more than 50 years to learn the truth: Tamaqua native Carl W. Forster died instantly when his B-24 bomber was hit by enemy fire on Sept. 27, 1944, during a bombing raid over Nazi Germany.

March 16, 2002 SEA - Wall Remembers State's POWs
In the spirit of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., the Vietnam POW/MIA Traveling Memorial Wall creates the same sort of reaction -- reverent silence.

March 16, 2002 PGW - Bush Seeks Info on Missing Pilot
Retired Cmdr. Bob Stumpf, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and President Bush are seeking a full accounting of the status of Speicher, a former Jacksonville resident who attended Florida State University. He was shot down Jan. 17, 1991, the first night of the Gulf War.

March 16, 2002 SEA - Former POW to Speak
Retired U.S. Army Col. Benjamin Purcell, who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 62 months, will speak during the Eighth District Georgia History Day Contest program at Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus on March 22.

March 16, 2002 WW II - POWs Saluted
They are not just former veterans, nearly all from World War II; they are former prisoners of war, men who were once considered missing in action. March 16, 2002 WW II - POW Nurse Passes
Mrs. Kelley, 87, was one of 64 Army nurses liberated from a Japanese military prison in the Philippines in 1945. She had been held at the Manila prison for three years. Mrs. Kelley was an Army nurse from 1940 to 1949. During the war, she treated soldiers and operated in underground tunnels in the Philippines.

March 16, 2002 PGW - Graham Seeks Status On Speicher
News reports this week said an Iraqi defector told intelligence officers about an American pilot being held and seen by only senior Iraqi officials. "Emotionally and spiritually, I believe he is alive," Stumpf said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Only an extraordinary person could have endured physically and mentally under the conditions of his incarceration, but Scott is that type of man."

March 16, 2002 WW II - Raid That Freed 500 POWs
Robert Prince, 81, who lives in Kirkland, led a WWII raid that freed more than 500 POWs. Wars may be recorded as vast campaigns, but they're remembered as a series of personal moments. For Robert Prince of Kirkland, one such moment was directing a raid into a Japanese POW compound in the Philippines, an operation that lost only two men while freeing more than 500 American prisoners.

March 15, 2002 PGW - US: Iraq Has Pilot, Dead or Alive
.S. intelligence agencies say an American pilot shot down over Iraq during the Gulf War was either captured alive or his remains were recovered by the Iraqis. "We assess that Iraq can account for Lt. Cmdr. Speicher but that Baghdad is concealing information about his fate," said an unclassified CIA summary of a report by the intelligence community. "Lt. Cmdr. Speicher probably survived the loss of his aircraft, and if he survived, he almost certainly was captured by the Iraqis."

March 15, 2002 PGW - Rumsfeld's Remarks
During the DOD News Briefing today, March 15 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was given a clear-cut opportunity to play fireman and put out fire burning under the Speicher story. He did not... are the USG powers-that-be really interested in the Speicher case (now 11 years old) or is it a convenient way to go after Iraq now that Afghanistan is winding down?

March 15, 2002 PGW - DOD Briefing - Rumsfeld
"There has been a very serious effort on the part of the United States government over a sustained period to try to gather as much information as possible. And some of it is information that is from sources that require it to be classified. Some of it isn't. Some of it's speculation. Some of it -- most of it is unauthoritative. That is to say, it is coming from people who heard from somebody about something, or believe there might be a situation that could be characterized as encouraging from our standpoint. But I do not have any -- I have not seen any intelligence on this in the last week myself."

March 15, 2002 PGW - Graham Joins In
Graham, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that Iraqi owes the United States an explanation about all military personnel unaccounted for.

March 15, 2002 PGW - Bush on Speicher
"Well, that's where we're  --  this is the old hypothetical again.  And let me just put it this way:  It doesn't change my opinion about him.  Matter of fact, it reinforces the fact that anybody who would be so cold and heartless as to hold an American flyer for all this period of time without notification to his family just  --  I wouldn't put it past him, given the fact that he gassed his own people."

March 14, 2002 Three Missing - Presumed Dead
The Navy today called off the search for three air crew members missing since their Seahawk helicopter crashed in the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday morning. None of the crew was recovered, a 6th Fleet spokesman said.

March 14, 2002 PGW - Pilot May Be Alive & Held In Jail
A report published Monday claimed that the U.S. government has information suggesting Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher may be alive in an Iraqi prison. The Washington Times reported that British intelligence told its American counterparts of an American pilot being held captive in Baghdad, 11 years after the Gulf War.

March 14, 2002 SWA - SEAL Awarded Posthumous Bronze Star
Neil Roberts fell out of the helicopter as it hurriedly left the scene of the grenade attack. Video from a remote-controlled spy plane showed him being dragged away by al-Qaida fighters, and troops who returned to the scene found his body.

March 13, 2002 PGW - US Asks Iraq About Speicher
The Pentagon called on Iraq yesterday to reveal what it knows about the fate of a missing U.S. Navy pilot shot down near Baghdad in 1991. Spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the Pentagon does not know whether Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher is a prisoner in Iraq but is working hard to find out what happened to him.

March 13, 2002 SEA - Statement of Ambassador Burghardt
The United States in its relations with Vietnam will continue to put a high priority on the fullest possible accounting of U.S. servicemen who were prisoners-of-war or missing-in-action, according to Raymond F. Burghardt, the U.S. ambassador-designate for Vietnam.

March 13, 2002 SEA - NLF Update Line
Status Update

March 13, 2002 SEA - NLF Update
Family Update

March 13, 2002 JTF-FA Release
A Joint Field Activity consisting of an investigation team, a research investigation team and five recovery teams will deploy from Hickam Air Force Base for Vietnam on a mission to account for Americans still unaccounted-for as a result of the Vietnam War. The teams consist of up to 95 personnel of mostly Hawaii-based U.S. military specialists from Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA), the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI) and the Joint Field Operating Base, Hawaii (Stony Beach).

March 13, 2002 CILHI Release
An arrival ceremony will be held on Hickam Air Force Base, March 15, 9 a.m., for the remains of what is believed to be three servicemen who died in the Vietnam War. The arrival ceremony will include joint honor and color guards. The remains were recovered by teams deployed to Vietnam and Laos on missions to recover unaccounted for servicemen from previous wars.

March 13, 2002 WW II - Unknown No Longer
Seaman Apprentice Thomas Hembree, killed more than six decades ago during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was honored yesterday by family members at a Punchbowl burial ceremony with full military honors. Hembree is the first and only of the Pearl Harbor "unknowns" buried at the National Cemetery of the Pacific to have been identified and reburied. He was a 17-year-old from Kennewick, Wash., serving on the USS Curtiss when he died during the 1941 attack.

March 12, 2002 PGW - DoD Briefing
"And it's important, I think, that the American people understand that we have in the Pentagon a special group of people that work all unaccounted-for folks. This is a front-burner issue for us. We take this very seriously."

March 12, 2002 PGW - State Department Briefing
"In addition, the case was initially raised at the July 2001 meeting of the tripartite commission in Geneva and continues to be a topic of discussion at those commission meetings since then. At the last such meeting on March 8th of 2002, the U.S. delegations, led by U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait Richard Jones, underscored that Iraq continues to shirk its responsibility to answer the many unresolved questions about Commander Speicher's fate."

March 12, 2002 PGW - Senator Suspects Pilot Alive in Iraq
A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee said yesterday he suspects a Navy pilot shot down over Iraq in 1991 is alive and being held captive as the State Department said Baghdad has ignored U.S. requests for information about the pilot's fate.

March 11, 2002 PGW - Senator Calls for POW Status Change for Speicher
At first the Navy said Lt. Cmdr Michael S. Speicher was killed in the Gulf War, then that he was missing. Now, Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas wants the fighter pilot's status changed again ­ to prisoner of war ­ on the possibility he was captured by Iraq and is still alive.

March 11, 2002 PGW - US Presses Iraq on Missing Pilot
The United States complained to Iraq last week that it had failed to answer questions about a U.S. pilot shot down over Iraq at the start of the Gulf War in 1991, a U.S. spokesman said Monday. The United States brought up the fate of Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher at a meeting in Geneva Friday of a Tripartite Commission grouping Iraq, the International Red Cross and the Gulf War allies, led by the United States.

March 11, 2002 PGW - SPEICHER REPORTED ALIVE
U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained new information indicating Iraq is holding captive a U.S. Navy pilot shot down during the Persian Gulf war, The Washington Times has learned. British intelligence provided the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) with the new information several months ago, and intelligence officials said it could assist in the ongoing investigation into the fate of Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher.

March 09, 2002 NAF Bits 'N' Pieces
Summary of News

March 08, 2002 New Items of Interest
A "Hot" Front in the Cold War - The U-2 Program: A Russian Officer Remembers by Alexander Orlov; The War In Laos - The Fall of Lima Site 85 by James C. Linder; Held Hostage in Iran - A First Tour Like No Other by William J. Daughert

March 08, 2002 WW II - No Trail Ever Goes Cold
Republic of the Marshall Islands ‹ No trail ever goes cold. Nearly 60 years after nine U.S. Marines were believed to be executed on this tiny central Pacific island, members of the U.S. Armyıs Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii are here to find their remains.

March 08, 2002 SWA - Misery Knows No Boundary
Vipul Purohit was three months old when India and Pakistan last went to war. The plane of Purohit's fighter pilot father was hit inside Pakistani airspace on a chilly December night and he never returned.

March 08, 2002 WW II - 60 Years Later
But this grassy patch of land, surrounded by palm trees and light industry, was a beach almost 60 years ago, crisscrossed with trenches and bomb craters. It was where the Allied forces came ashore during their invasion of Kwajalein in 1944. Itıs also suspected of being the place where nine U.S. Marines, and possibly others, were executed and buried.

March 08, 2002 SEA - Family Closes Chapter
When the officer, Johnny Johnston, and a sergeant from Fort Bragg arrived at Nicholson's house late last month, they thanked her for her husband's service and said his remains were on their way home. Decades of waiting and wondering were over.

March 08, 2002 SEA - Leave No One Behind
Sandusky's Charlie Buck has been missing in action since Vietnam. A $20 million annual effort seeks to discover his fate and that of others who made the ultimate sacrifice.

March 08, 2002 WW II - Commemoration
Dec. 7 - Tommy Hembree never really had a chance to live. In the predawn hours of Dec. 7, 1941, he reported for duty in the radio room of the seaplane tender USS Curtiss. A skinny 17-year-old farm boy from Kennewick, he had been at Pearl Harbor for all of seven days.

March 07, 2002 SWA - HRW Condemns Murder of POW
Human Rights Watch today condemned the apparent execution of a captured American service member by Al Qaidafighters in Afghanistan. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts was reportedly seized after dropping from a helicopter.

March 06, 2002 SWA - US Serviceman Captured & Killed
s U.S. troops poured from the belly of a Chinook helicopter, a rocket-propelled grenade fired by the al-Qaida hit the craft and American forces scurried back aboard and took off. A head count showed someone was missing. For the Americans, their worst fears came true on Monday. The missing serviceman was captured and killed by al-Qaida. "We saw him on the Predator being dragged off by three al-Qaida men," said Maj. Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck, referring to an unmanned reconnaissance plane mounted with a real-time video camera.

March 05, 2002 By Laws of War, They Aren't POWs
The U.S. government has yet to decide exactly how to handle al Qaeda and Taliban detainees being held in Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The uncertainty has kept alive the legal debate over the status of the 500 or so detainees and whether they are being denied certain rights under international law, including the Geneva Conventions. March 04, 2002 KW-CW - Phony POW Pleads Guilty
An Army veteran who figured in the exposure of the refugee killings at No Gun Ri, South Korea, in 1950 pleaded guilty Monday to defrauding the government. Edward Lee Daily of Clarksville, Tenn., admitted in court that he falsely claimed he was a first lieutenant, a Korean prisoner of war and was wounded by shrapnel, according to U.S. Attorney James K. Vines.

March 01, 2002 CILHI
The CILHI maintains 18 search and recovery teams. A typical 10- to 14-person search and recovery team consists of members with specialized duties and skills including anthropology, photography, explosive ordnance disposal, medicine (medics), mortuary affairs, linguistics (interpreters), and radio communications.

March 01, 2002 WW II - Pearl Harbor Unknown Identified
A funeral will be held March 5, 10:30 a.m., at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, for Apprentice Seaman Thomas Hembree, of the U.S. Navy, who was killed in the attack of Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. Hembree was disinterred from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in January 2001 as an unknown and was recently identified by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii.

March 01, 2002 WW II - 'Great Escape' POW Passes
Desmond Plunkett, 86, a Royal Air Force flier who helped plot the daring World War II prison camp breakout that inspired the Steve McQueen film "The Great Escape," has died. Prisoners at the Stalag Luft III Nazi prison camp put Mr. Plunkett -- who had been shot down over occupied Holland on June 20, 1942 -- in charge of making 1,500 maps that the men would need to get to safety after tunneling to freedom.

POW-MIA Issue Update April 2002