Some Mother's Son

All the names have faces. And all the faces voices... Voices that cry out from a dark corner of America's soul to be set free. All the names are written down, neatly, in alphabetical order on the lists. The list from World War II has 78, 751 names. The Korean War, 8, 140. The Cold War Era, 164. The Second Indochina War, Vietnam-Laos and Cambodia, over 2,000 that we know of. Grenada, Libya, The USS Stark, Panama, Nicaragua, The Persian Gulf War and now Somalia. To date, over 100,000 names.

Some have been inscribed on plaques and monuments, some names have been cut into the black page of the legacy we call Vietnam, some are engraved into the bracelets that we wear. But each and every name, each and every face, each and every voice is etched into some mother's heart. Some father's, a child's, a sister's and a wife's.

As far back as fifty years ago, and as recently as some months ago, the names of men and women, military and civilian have joined the legion of the lost. And we must ask ourselves, where did we go wrong? At what point did the lives of our best, brightest and bravest become overshadowed by Political, Economic and Military expediency?

It is because of the financial burden of carrying POWs and MIAs as Active Duty... Although captive Prisoners still serve. It is because of the certain perceived political embarrassment that the great United States of America cannot force concessions from a third-rate, third world regime to acknowledge and return our Prisoners and repatriate their remains of our MIAs. It is because of a twisted sense of humanitarianism, believing that family members can grieve and 'get on with their lives'. And it eventually comes down to a 3 judge panel that declares men who were possibly and probably alive, positively dead in 7 minutes flat. With the stroke of a pen, you cease to officially exist.

Presumptive finding of death... PFOD. The catch-22 of this tragic situation that precludes the US from resolution of the major issue... That of our Last Known Alive and living pows. How can we ask our former adversaries for live men, if we ourselves have declared them dead? How can we demand they respond to the live sighting reports, the satellite imagery, some as new as 1994 and 1995 showing secret authenticator codes of downed pilots and aircrews, if we have officially buried them on paper? We can't. Worse yet, we don't.

We simply dig around in the dirt on a massive scavenger hunt, extracting salted dog tags and debris at the cost of one million dollars per excavation site, and exclaim that one tooth, a handful of unidentifiable bone shards and a couple of D-rings are the earthly remains of 8 adult men. We bury empty caskets containing a set of class A's and a belt buckle. Then proclaim for all the world to hear that progress and cooperation is exceptional in the socialist republic of Vietnam.

We simply pass a list of 389 misspelled names to the North Koreans each and every year. And then go home and wait for the phone to ring. Even the number on the Korean War POW list is wrong. We walked away with a confirmed 1,012 POWs, and many more suspected.

We wait until the memories, eyesight and the health of former Soviet officials fade into oblivion before we press for answers on Americans transferred to the Soviet territories from World War II, Korea and Southeast Asia. And we reward the communist Chinese for their brutality and betrayal.

We offer local fishermen $150.00 US dollars for information leading to the recovery of a missing serviceman in Somalia that the State Department said thought might be lying injured on a beach somewhere.

We must stop the unofficial, official policy of expediency that began in 1953 and has snowballed into flat out abandonment in 1994. We must get on the backs of our elected officials, the ineffective Administrations and unwilling or unable Congress and remind them that not only are we veterans, family members and concerned and caring people, but taxpayers as well. They work for us, and we expect a lot more for our money.

We have an opportunity to force our government and its serviant agencies to halt the premature declarations of death, thereby giving us leverage when we ask for live POWs. To allow family members a sense of faith, instead of desertion. To show our men and women in service today, that maybe it won't be a one way ticket when it's their turn.

We are the witnesses of the past. The horrors of war, the tragedy of failed policy. We are the voice of the present, crying out loud and long for those who were denied the right to be here among us. But most importantly, we are the insurance policy of the future, that never, ever again will anyone be abandoned in any place, at any time for any price.

"For those who cannot enjoy the full and free life each of us wants,
who among us will stand in their place."
1995