WWII veteran Newton Heisley, a former pilot in the Army Air Corps, designed the flag in 1972 using his Marine son as the model for the black and white flags famous silhouette. In an unprovoked assault on the village of My Lai in northern South Vietnam, a company of recently deployed and undertrained U.S. soldiers committed numerous atrocities, including the indiscriminate murder of 500 civilians, men, women, and children. A newspaper clipping shows when David Harker returned home. Action films like 1983s Uncommon Valor and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) fictionalized attempts at rescuing living soldiers from captivity in Vietnam. In the wake of the Vietnam War, families of military members who never returned from service banded together to demand an accounting. The April protests garnered the participation of hundreds of thousands across multiple U.S. cities, with a number of prominent public figures attending, including the Rev. So in many ways this debate is nothing new to anyone who knows a little history. The NVA are stripping everything off us anything they can use. This country is what we love. From 1969 onward the U.S. would pull out over 100,000 troops from Vietnam every year, a process of gradual shifting of responsibility to the South Vietnam government known as Vietnamization. But for the most part, we didnt, and we and the rest of the world were far better for it once World War II was over. Since ancient times, soldiers have gone to war and never returned, their fate unknown. Thus began the First Indochina War, a conflict that would eventually morph and spiral into the Vietnam War. I had brothers who were married, and children had been born, but it was exciting coming home. Then, bowed or bent in half, the prisoner was hoisted up onto the hook to hang by ropes. Those who disagree are often all too ready to dismiss those who do as the usual suspects: bleeding-heart liberals who have never served their country in harms way and dont have the faintest idea what war is really all about. Just $5 a month. That February, Operation Homecoming aired on American television showing the release of American POWs from North Vietnamese prison camps. Aside from leg irons and leg stocksboth of which were used on me for months and years on endthe meat hook was a favorite instrument of torture at the Hanoi Hilton. I was in the 3rd of the 21st in an area of operations at Que Son, Harker said. We were ecstatic, Harker said. Vietnam POW He was a military guy who had fought in Laos as a 17-year old in the early 1960s, and he looked out for us. By that time there are a bunch of rifles pointing at me. The planes we were flying, F-4 Phantom IIs, were really Navy aircraft designed for fleet defense. The battle had long-lasting implications, in that it reinforced tactics for both armieswith the NLF relying upon close-quarter combat to reduce artillery efficacy, and the U.S. pursuing a war of attrition with North Vietnam, aiming to dwindle their numbers. As such, the North Vietnamese released the POWs they still held. The key point is that every human being has a breaking point, whether he is the chief operational planner for Al Qaida, a U.S. Navy fighter pilot, a future candidate for president of the United States or just some poor foot soldier who was unlucky enough to get captured. In September 2005, 25 retired generals and admirals from one- to four-star rank, along with three former Vietnam POWs, signed a letter to McCain strongly supporting his proposed amendment. My dad was really upset. By 1893, France had annexed neighboring Cambodia and Laos as well and created out of the three nations a territory referred to as Indochina. Next thing I know my hand is over his mouth and I have his arm at his side. This created a unique situation in most previous American wars, the majority of prisoners were enlisted men captured by the enemy, often times in groups. Once we compromise those values, we find ourselves on the slippery slope to being just the same as we think they are. This resulted in the formation of the National Liberation Front, which had the explicit goal of overthrowing the government of Ngo Dinh Diem in the South. In defiance of his captors, he repeatedly blinked his eyes in Morse code during the interview, spelling out the word T-O-R-T-U-R-Eand thus confirming to U.S. intelligence for the first time that we were indeed being tortured. In a famous incident in 1966, prisoner Jeremiah Denton, Jr. blinked the word torture in Morse code during a televised propaganda interview, confirming suspicions of mistreatment. The torture technique known as waterboarding isnt new either. We all serve our country one way or another. Nearly fifty years later, the prisoner of war issue remains a principal part of the American collective memory of the Vietnam War. Great story, I hope to meet you someday at an American reunion. From Dec. 18-29, 1972, the U.S. Air Force conducted an operation called Linebacker II, a maximum effort campaign to destroy targets using B-52 heavy bombers that dropped more than 15,000 tons of ordnance on more than 30 targets. By merging inclusion, diversity, equity and access with our core values, VA provides better care for Veterans, and better opportunity for employees. Le Duan had been a prominent and influential figure throughout Vietnam's early 20th-century history, and he is generally considered to have had a more militaristic approach than Ho Chi Minh. Ten years later, we try againand lo and behold, its there, and they tell us, At the time we couldnt tell you., Phisayavong says he understands how conditions change over time. He believes to this day that had he not been captured, he would have died there in Italy, as his own army did not have the medical resources necessary to save his life. I Spent Seven Years as a Vietnam POW. But nothing happened. Chicago, IL 60603 As the U.S. embassy and the troops guarding it were being evacuated, two U.S. Marines died from a rocket attack, the final U.S. casualties of the war. Hal Kushner, who grew up in Danville, Virginia, was injured in a helicopter crash in late November. All Rights Reserved. On a human level, the war was disastrousan estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed, and over 1 million Vietnamese soldiers lost their lives. The North Vietnamese maintained that the United States was committing an illegal war, one that disqualified them from receiving the rights guaranteed by the Geneva Convention. Furthermore, as McCain so correctly points out, this debate isnt about themits about usabout who we are and what makes us different from the enemy we are fighting. I didnt think about the possibility of being killed. It was a day I will never forget. When my German father-in-law asked me that question for the first time right after the news broke about abuses in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, I didnt have a good answer for him. McCain has generally opposed coercive and abusive interrogation techniques. North Vietnam and the NLF suffered massive casualties from the offensive, with an estimated 60,000 dead. They served our country faithfully and with all their heart. We had a communication system where wed put a note on the lid of the waste bucket, or use the tap code, and we had to do that because we were only allowed out of our cell for about an hour a day, and never more than one cell was let out at a time. The defeat escalated negative public opinion of France's presence in Vietnam, led to the partition of the country, and the eventual complete withdrawal of French presenceto be replaced eventually by American intervention. God Bless and keep driving that Corvette!! It is a great motivator to get you engagedIts better to find out what happened to the missing than to endlessly stay in a state of uncertainty and frustration that you cant do anything about it, she said. Americans at home were confronted with defeated, weary, and terrified airmen paraded around by their captors. The question of whether any U.S. military personnel were kept imprisoned after the war was and for some Americans, still is one of the chief legacies of the Vietnam War. As of May 2020, 1,587 American service members were still missing in Southeast Asia. Intended initially to defoliate vegetation and expose hidden trails used by the NLF, between 1962-1971 the U.S. would dump approximately 19 million gallons of defoliating herbicides over an area constituting 10%-20% of Vietnam's landmass. republish under a Creative Commons License, and we encourage you to I remember the day when David returned to Preston Glenn Airport in his hometown of Lynchburg, VA. John McCain is greeted by President Richard Nixon, left, in Washington, after McCain's release from a prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam. My dads supervisor said he could get me in the National Guard, but I thought that would be shirking my responsibility. "Johnnie" Johnson, a prisoner of war in North Korea, risked his life to secretly record the names of 496 fellow prisoners who had died during their captivity. Im thinking, Im going to die. Top is behind me telling me to switch to auto and fire. When the enemy began firing at us from the ground, I switched to guns and squeezed the trigger. Bow to their captors or take a beating. You may also like: 40 military terms and their meanings. We had very little to eat so people died from starvation, infectious diseases malaria was rampant dysentery. Stacker believes in making the worlds data more accessible through On Dec. 8, 2020, U.S. Army Veteran David Harker will celebrate his 75th birthday. Get more resources at VeteransCrisisLine.net. While out, wed move about 1,000 meters a day and get resupplied every fourth day with c-rations if the helicopters could get through.. Intended as a temporary division, the Geneva Accords stipulated that a general election was to be held two years later that would reunify the nation. He was severely wounded and then captured at Anzio. So, when they let everyone out, and then gave us reading material, they knew it was over. The planes the Pentagon fixed for us did have guns fitted to them, but the guns success rate was about 50 percent. After testimony from high-profile officials like Henry Kissinger, the committee concluded: While the Committee has some evidence suggesting the possibility a POW may have survived to the present, and while some information remains yet to be investigated, there is, at this time, no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.. Because the Korean War never officially endedno peace treaty was ever formally signedthe recovery of American remains is complicated. Bringing citizens and soldiers together to explore military history, military affairs and national security. OPTICS: The Ranks on Capitol Hill: Photos of Congress' veterans on the front lines. Kush and I talk about that all the time were not professional POWs. Facing backlash on the heels of the massacre at My Lai, and million-strong protests of the war, President Johnson slows the pace of U.S. bombing in Vietnamcalling for peace negotiationsand announces that he will not run for reelection. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Im reminded of a phrase I will never forget that was etched on the prison wall by a fellow captive in Vietnam. American POWs bore this suffering until the end of the war. As a number of U.S. advisors watched a movie in the mess hall of the South Vietnamese Army's compound at Bien Hoa, six guerrillas infiltrated the facility and opened fire with automatic weapons. Find her on Twitter@JessicaRotondior at JessicaPearceRotondi.com. Meyers, whose remains were identified due to advances in technology, was declared missing in action in December of 1950 after his unit was involved in combat operations near Sonchu, North Korea.  Over 100 veterans, most of them World War II as well as veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars, marched to demand an accounting of the American veterans in South East Asia on January 24, 1982. At the age of 20, when I was called to serve my country and defend freedom, I hadnt blinked an eye. So, they open the door and it was such a rude awakening when the door opened. Its amazing to think that we could even do it, but we did what we had to do. After he returned from Vietnam, Harker took some time off, but eventually returned to Blacksburg and finished his business degree from Virginia Tech in 1976 and found his way to work as a probation and parole officer. One such argument asserts that our enemies are a bunch of barbarians who launched a devastating surprise attack against us, do not adhere to even the basic rules of civilized human behavior and, therefore, do not deserve civilized treatment. An official website of the United States government. Claim: Sen. John McCain was referred to as "Songbird John" following his imprisonment during the Vietnam War. It was not invented in response to 9/11. However, post-war France was vehement in its aims to reestablish a French empire, with Charles de Gaulle proclaiming that if the U.S. did not back France in its reconquest of Vietnam, they might ally themselves with Soviet Russians. It was an early success for U.S. military forces in the Vietnam Warwith 614 NLF troops killed, 45 U.S. Marines killed, and 203 wounded. When the draft notice came, Harkers father, an electrical engineer took the news hard. Theres an old Air Force saying that you should never bail out over an Naval Academy My father-in-law was a squad leader in the German armys Infanterie Lehr Regiment during World War II. I think of all the love behind it every time I drive it.. 312-374-9333, Tuesday Saturday Fairly straightforward, right? Worse still, reports of the horrible conditions and torture that many faced haunted the American people. Admittedly, harsh interrogation techniques do produce answersfast answers. I Spent Seven Years as a Vietnam POW. The Hanoi Hilton

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