Free Republic

Clarence Lee of Shallowater, a veteran with four tours in Vietnam to his credit, completed 15 years in the Marine Corps the hard way. "The last tour was 14 months long, because that's when I got captured," he said. Lee can stand with a crutch, and moves about with a wheelchair or motorized scooter because of permanent injuries inflicted when he was a prisoner of war. He attributes his survival of nine months of torture to help from God. Lee, now in his 60s, was a helicopter pilot during the war and received five Purple Heart medals while fighting the...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15, 2006 -- Military and defense leaders, former prisoners of war and families of missing servicemembers gathered here today to commemorate National POW/MIA Recognition Day and to reaffirm their commitment to ensuring a full accounting of those missing in action. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks at an armed forces full honor review in honor of National POW/MIA Recognition Day Sept. 15. Photo by Helene C. Stikkel  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called today’s observance an opportunity to honor...

As a Nation, we look to our service men and women as examples of courage and sacrifice. When our country and the world have needed brave Americans to advance the cause of freedom, our men and women in uniform have proudly stepped forward and selflessly endured hardships to defend liberty. We are grateful to all who have served, and on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, we give special honor to the extraordinary patriots who have been prisoners of war and to those who are still missing in action. We take inspiration from...

The cartoon depicting the Great Escape was drawn ten days after the breakout from Stalag Luft III Prison camp art that escaped guardsBy Jack Malvern PoW's scrapbook of the Great Ecape is to be auctioned A CARTOON of the prison break depicted in the film The Great Escape has emerged in a prisoner’s war diary. The cartoon — drawn ten days after the event and accompanied by a poem lamenting the shooting of 50 of the escapees — appears in a scrapbook that belonged to Clive Nutting, a prisoner who was involved in the two most celebrated escapes of...

A controversial documentary titled Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, about Sen. John F. Kerry’s anti-Vietnam War activities in the 1970s that was released just before the 2004 presidential election sparked at least five politically charged lawsuits. Now there’s only one. In recent weeks, lawyers for the plaintiffs have dropped three libel suits brought by anti-war veterans who said they were falsely portrayed in the film made by journalist Carlton Sherwood. Sherwood was also hit with a copyright infringement suit in New York that accused him of unfairly including clips from another film and photos from a book. But that...

COLONELS Klink and Hogan and Sgt Schultz of the sitcom Hogan's Heroes have done real PoWs of the Nazis no favours, a federal minister says. (Australian) Veterans' Affairs Minister Bruce Billson said that thanks to Hollywood, those in German and Italian prison camps in World War II were wrongly perceived by many as having had a fairly easy time. Mr Billson, 40, said after launching this year's Weary Dunlop Medical Research appeal that he watched repeats of Hogan's Heroes as a child. But he had a totally different view as he now considered whether European PoWs should be given a...

Pentagon investigators threatened the death penalty and used other coercive techniques to obtain statements from some of the seven Marines and a Navy corpsman jailed for the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian, two defense lawyers say. Attorney Jane Siegel, who represents Marine Pfc. John Jodka, 20, said Naval Criminal Investigative Service officials spoke to her client three times after he was taken into custody May 12. Jodka was questioned for up to eight hours at a time and was not offered water or toilet breaks, Siegel said. "They used some really heavy-handed tactics to extract the information," Siegel said,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - About 594 prisoners were released in Iraq on Wednesday, state television reported, a day after new Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said a total of 2,500 would be freed to help foster national reconciliation. More than 100 of them were freed in the capital, a Reuters reporter said. About 110 detainees had been gathered at the capital’s main bus station, where prisoners are taken before they are set free, he said from the scene. They were later released.

Associated PressLUBBOCK, Texas - The trail to finding soldiers still missing from the Vietnam War is beginning more and more at Texas Tech University. An Internet archive of decades-old documents from the school's Vietnam Center has provided Defense Department researchers dozens of leads in the cases of 1,805 American soldiers who never returned from Southeast Asia. The growing online collection, launched in 2004, led Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Robert Newberry to send a recent letter informing the center that POW-MIA analysts have uncovered 41 leads from the archive. And many more new clues are likely on the way: of the...

HANOI (AFX) - The government here and the US have reached an agreement in principle that should enable Vietnam to join the WTO, staterun news media reported at the weekend. The state-owned Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said Hanoi had 'technically concluded the 12th round of negotiation with the US' on WTO accession Saturday after a week of 'intense discussions'. But the VNA report also said: 'Several issues remain unsolved'. The Tuoi Tre daily newspaper quoted Minister of Trade Truong Dinh Tuyen as saying: 'The talks reached agreements in principle.' He reportedly added: 'The official signing will take place in the...

/5/2006 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) -- More than 120 former prisoners of war continued a 33-year layover of freedom by reliving the flights that carried them home from North Vietnam. The Hanoi Taxi -- the last C-141 Starlifter still serving in the Air Force -- made two of its final three flights May 5. Former POWs gathered in Fairborn, Ohio, for a reunion and to take part in a weekend of activities created by the Air Force Reserve’s 445th Airlift Wing here that includes the retirement of the famed aircraft. The Hanoi Taxi was the first of...

Translated Text of an Iraqi Document Concerning Kuwait POWs As the opening date of Operation Freedom neared, Qusai Saddam Hussein-one of Saddam’s bloodthirsty sons, made arrangements to move captured Kuwaiti prisoners into critical locations, to serve as “human shields”. There were 448 Kuwaitis, captured during the First Gulf War ,when Saddam made his infamous incursion into Kuwait. By the terms of the UN Cease Fire agreements –signed by Iraq on 3/03/91- all Kuwaitis were supposed to have been freed and repatriated without delay. Clearly,this never happened ; and sadly,the ultimate fate of these 448 helpless captives is unknown. CMPC-2003-012666 Republican...

Page 28, 32 and 33 of this April/1/2003 document IISP-2003-00026588 discuss how the Iraqis are going to treat the dead American and British soldiers as well as the Coalition POW to serve their regime propaganda. It is infuriating to read such a thing, but it is important to reveal how evil this Saddam regime had been. Partial translation of page 28 which a meeting of the Military Sector Commanders of the Iraqi Army where they discussed the issue of dead Coalition troops and POWs Beginning of partial translation of page 28 F. Study the subject of the dead criminals Americans...

Page 221: "From 1965 to 1969, China's aid to Vietnam took three main forms: the dispatch of Chinese engineering troops for the construction and maintenance of defense works, airfields, roads, and railways in North Vietnam, the use of Chinese antiaircraft artillery troops for he defense of important strategic areas and targets in the northern part of North Vietnam; and the supply of large amounts of military equipment and other military and civilian materials." "On 17 April 1965, the North Vietnamese General Staff cabled the Chinese General Staff, requesting that Chinese engineering troops be sent, etc. Page 223: "Beginning in early...

Perhaps the most difficult tour of duty is not done on the battlefield as we know it from films and documentaries. Facing the enemy in combat, the American soldier has always had at least a fighting chance. But what about the soldiers captured or surrendered by their commanders on the battlefield? Frank DeVivo doesn't like to talk about it, but he knows what it means to be a POW. DeVivo was serving in the U.S. Army on Corregidor when the Japanese attacked. The tiny, fortified island guarding the entrance to Manila Bay was a key, strategic site and had been...

SIERRA VISTA — It was in December 1941 when Benjamin Franklin Williams was a private first class, serving with a New Mexico National Guard unit in the Philippines. Japan struck what was then a U.S. territory. A few months later, Williams found himself a prisoner of war. Like many captured in the Philippines, he would spend World War II in Japanese POW camps, where he was forced to work on starvation rations and abused. Some of his teeth were knocked out by a Japanese guard who used the butt of his rifle on Williams after knocking him to the ground...

Dear Americans... This wasn't easy to write (I'm alternately sad and furious), but it's crucial to our soldiers today to know. When is it too late to keep asking??? Are There Still American POWs In SE Asia?We should never let ourselves get past the point of caring. Or worse...forgetting. "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation." - George Washington

Dear Patriots... This wasn't easy to write (I'm alternately sad and furious), but it's crucial to our soldiers today to know. When is it too late to keep asking??? Are There Still American POWs In SE Asia?We should never let ourselves get past the point of caring. Or worse...forgetting. "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation." - George Washington

Photo: GERRY PATE More than 100 people march down St. John Street toward Barnet Park Saturday morning during the "Walk As One" rally in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. that was sponsored by the city of Spartanburg. Sen. John McCain has been invited to attend MLK festivities on Monday. POW eager to meet McCain JANET S. SPENCER, Staff Writer Published January 15, 2006 Ret. Lt. Col. Ted Ballard lived in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war cell next to Sen. John McCain for two years. On Monday, McCain, a Republican who served as a Navy captain, will be...

Essay Contest on POWs of the Japanese US-JAPAN DIALOGUE ON POWS, INC., a California non-profit organization, is pleased to announce that it will hold its first essay writing contest. The purpose of this contest is to promote understanding and dialogue among/between college students in Japan and the United States on the history of American POWs of the Japanese during WWII. We look forward to receiving many submissions from both countries. Two winners, one from Japan and the other from the United States, will win a free trip to Phoenix, Arizona, where the annual convention of American Defenders of Bataan and...