Re: Parents of fallen soldier: Our son died looking for Bergdahl and the military lie
No.
I'll say this, the United States spends more time and money on locating and returning our service members than any other country be they alive, dead or MIA.
Just last year we recovered two more Marines from Guadalcanal who were listed MIA in 1942 or 43.
We as a nation have always tried to locate our MIA's except right after the Vietnam War.
During the Vietnam War there were numerous attempts by Army Special Forces, Marine Recon, Navy SEALS/UDT and the Air Force to rescue American POW's in North Vietnam. Many of those missions are still classified.
It was after the war beginning in 73 with the anti military movement in America when it seemed that no body gave a **** about our MIA's. It was a time when those still on active duty couldn't go off base wearing the uniform and when Vietnam vets wouldn't acknowledge that they served. That would change starting in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became President.
The first time most Vietnam vets heard their first "Welcome Home" was in 1989/90 with Desert Storm.
Remember with the build up to Desert Storm the usual liberal anti-war protesters were just about to take to the streets and back stab the American soldier again like they did during the Vietnam War ?
But not this time. It was the Vietnam War vet along with their families and other patriots who took to the streets, brought back the old tradition of the yellow ribbon. We weren't going to let these libs do it again.
Note:
There are still 73,547 American soldiers, Marines, sailors and Coast Guardsmen who are still listed as MIA from WW ll.
Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office
Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office
Here is a true story of a successful POW raid that occurred in Laos. Since it is a little over 8,000 characters I have to post it in two parts.
Part I
It began in early December, when a Pathet Lao peasant-cum-guerrilla defected to an intelligence team near Thakhek. Interrogated by the RTA liaison officer stationed at the CIA office in that town, the rallier gave information on a Communist jungle prison at Ban Naden, a secluded village near the entrance to a karst cave. What’s more, he said the prison contained an Air America employee.
The CIA had been picking up vague reports about the Ban Naden camp for a year; now with more precise intelligence, Savannakhet Unit began planning for a raid. A heliborne strike directly onto the camp was briefly considered, then dropped. Instead, the case officers favored using a small guerrilla team that would infiltrate from a distance. To lead the raiders, Walt Floyd, the CIA advisor responsible for the northern sector, chose his best road-watch team leader, a Lao Theung sergeant named Te. Raised in the Ban Naden area, Te, a former FAR paratrooper, was allowed to choose his own action team. They then spent two weeks rehearsing the operation at Nong Saphong. Strict secrecy was observed: only Te, his radioman, and the Pathet Lao defector were informed of the mission.
On 5 January 1967, Te and nine of his best men loaded up with carbines and bolt cutters. Call-signed Team Cobra, the guerrillas boarded H-34s along with the Pathet Lao defector and were inserted into a landing zone a two-day hike from the prison. Over the next 48 hours, they took an indirect approach to their target without making enemy contact.
During the darkness of 7 January, the team stole toward the prison camp from along a narrow creek. Triple canopy covered the sky, with sections stripped of foliage by air strikes. A pair of adjoining caves, together six meters wide at the mouth, faced east at the base of a 500-meter high limestone cliff. Bamboo bars covered both entrances; behind each were more than 20 inmates. Two bamboo buildings, two meters high, two meters wide, and three meters long, were situated in front of the caves. Also evident was a series of earthen detention cells swelling from the ground.
At 0400 hours, the team struck, killing three Pathet Lao Guards, wounding a third, and driving off the rest. Bolt cutters in hand, Te raced to the mouth of the caves and sliced through the chains holding shut the bamboo latticework.
Holed up in one of the earthen detention cells in front of the cave was Pisidhi Indradat. A former PARU commando, Pisidhi had joined Air America as a kicker and had been aboard a C-46 shot down in September 1963 near Moung Phine. He and four of his crew mates-two other Thai kickers, one Hong Kong Chinese radio operator and American Eugene Debruin-parachuted from the flaming aircraft and survived, only to be captured and imprisoned by the Pathet Lao. Shunted among four jungle camps over the next nine months, they managed an escape in May 1964. Recaptured six days later, they were tortured before being shifted among three new prison camps. In December 1965, a sixth detainee, USAF officer Duane Martin, joined the pack. Two months later, Dieter Dengler, a downed U.S. Navy pilot, made it seven.
In June 1966, after being shifted to yet another camp, the prisoners made a second escape. Taking different directions, two Thai kickers, the Chinese radioman, and Eugene Debruin were never seen again. Of the two pilots, Martin was hacked to death five days later upon entering a nearby village; more fortunate was Dengler, who attracted a rescue chopper and was whisked to safety on 20 July. Pisidhi, meanwhile contracted malaria, was recaptured, and was beaten all the way to the prison at Ban Naden. Having shown a flair for escape, Pisidhi was isolated in one of Ban Naden’s solitary detention cells constructed of mud-and-straw cement hardened over a barbed-wire frame. He was eventually joined in the cell by a FAR officer (who soon died of injuries) and two sergeants. The remaining 80 plus prisoners included Team Juliet, a road watch unit that had been captured near the Mu Gia Pass, plus several dozen civilians and ex-Pathet Lao who had in some way besmirched communism.
When the Cobra rescue party broke into the camp, Pisidhi, down 31 kilograms from his normal 70, assembled with the other freed prisoners. Many quickly disappeared into the bush, leaving 52 of the ex-captives to join the Cobras for a convoluted escape route west toward a prearranged exfiltration site.
Within two hours after the raid, Communist troops began to give chase. Forced to go slow because of the poor health of the freed prisoners, Te worked his way to the closest roadway, Route 12. Overhead, T-28’s arrived and began sniping at the pursuing Communist forces. They were soon joined by F-4s, which laid down thick diversionary strikes along Te’s new escape route.
