American POWs left in Vietnam

I just finished reading Inside Delta Force (www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271778464&sr=8-1) by Eric Haney. I'm well aware of some of the criticisms of his accounts, but he had a very short section on POWs.

Basically, he says that circa 1981, it came to their attention that there were 100+ living POWs still in Vietnam, so Delta started planning how to extract them. Anyway, after about a year of planning when they were all ready to go, this guy - Bo Gritz (en.wikipedia.org...) appeared on national TV trumpeting the fact that we knew about the POWs and how we were going to go in and get them (even to the point of displaying on TV which weapons we would use in the extraction). Obviously, this effectively completely killed the rescue mission.

So they planned for another year, and again, just when they were about to deploy, Gritz showed up on TV - this time in Thailand - ruining the operation with the same routine.

Haney is convinced that the "powers that be" (military, political, etc.) who had cut a bad deal when we left Vietnam desperately did NOT want the rescue to happen because it would bring to light how we left good men hung out to dry.

Does anyone know or remember anything about this? If Haney's suspicions are true, then it's perhaps the most deflating thing I've ever read about.

My father is a Vietnam Veteran (USMC) and reading stories like these are disheartening for me.

Originally posted by -Blackout-
Haney is convinced that the "powers that be" (military, political, etc.) who had cut a bad deal when we left Vietnam desperately did NOT want the rescue to happen because it would bring to light how we left good men hung out to dry.

Does anyone know or remember anything about this?

Makes you wonder where they got the plot for Rambo II.

Unfortunately, because the idea has been presented in a movie, many will dismiss the idea of POWs left for years in Vietnam as fiction.

reply to post by -Blackout-


Do not be disheartened. No american soldier who bravely fought for the flag must be left behind, even if it was a wrong war. I apologise for not having information, but if i come across any, I will U2U, and if anyone has any information, do help.

If the US and what became the regime in Vietnam were aware of American POW were left behind in that they are playing there cards very coolly , when you consider that the body of former MIA military personal have been found . All the Australian have been accounted for in Vietnam . The only thing that gives me slight pause is that the Soviet Union never got around to freeing some German and Allied POW . Otherwise I am convinced the whole issue is the invention of a bunch of sick American Right wingers who set out to exploit the loved ones of those who were or are MIA .

My great uncle was in Nam, and he told me a similiar story like this years ago,
that there was a very good possibility that there were still POWS over there in small pockets of the jungle. He also told me that someone he knew had escaped a POW camp before the war ended and ended up hiding out in the jungle for a few years before finally being "saved".

I dont remember the circumstances of how he got out exactly.

But basically the guy chose to hide b/c he was unaware of the status of the war.

I have a question that goes to the heart of the whole issue .

What motive did North Vietnam have to retain American POW after the conflict was over ?

The only motive I can come up with is that would have wanted to use the remaining POW as hostages located at strategically important sites to protect them from future US air strikes . The war was so unpopular that North Vietnam leaders must have known that the future use of US air power was unlikely .

reply to post by -Blackout-


You'll want to make sure and read about this book - and get the book andread it if possible.

"AN ENORMOUS CRIME" THE DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF AMERICAN POWS ABANDONED IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

An Enormous Crime is nothing less than shocking. Based on thousands of pages of public and previously classified documents, it makes an utterly convincing case that when the American government withdrew its forces from Vietnam, it knowingly abandoned hundreds of POWs to their fate.

Despite hundreds of postwar sightings and intelligence reports telling of Americans being held captive throughout Vietnam and Laos, Washington did nothing. Even in 1988, a U.S. spy satellite passing over Sam Neua Province, Laos, spotted the twelve-foot-tall letters “USA” and immediately beneath them a huge, highly classified Vietnam War-era USAF/USN Escape & Evasion code in a rice paddy in a narrow mountain valley. The letters “USA” appeared to have been dug out of the ground, while the code appeared to have been fashioned from rice straw.

An Enormous Crime is based on open-source documents and reports, and thousands of declassified intelligence reports and satellite imagery, as well as author interviews and personal experience. It is a singular work, telling a story unlike any other in our modern history: ugly, harrowing, and true.

From the Bay of Pigs, where John and Robert Kennedy struck a deal with Fidel Castro that led to freedom for the Bay of Pigs prisoners, to the Paris Peace Accords, in which the authors argue Kissinger and Nixon sold American soldiers down the river for political gain, to a continued reluctance to revisit the possibility of reclaiming any men who might still survive, we have a story untold for decades. And with An Enormous Crime we have for the first time a comprehensive history of America’s leaders in their worst hour; of life-and-death decision making based on politics, not intelligence; and of men lost to their families and the country they serve, betrayed by their own leaders.

I wish I could put in more of the article but I've got to keep it as short as possible.

Anyway, a few years back the authors of this book handed it to George Bush (President at the time). The then President Bush promised to read it.

Nothing ever came of his read - if in fact he did what he said he'd do.

It's astonishing, and, I believe quite true.

peace

[edit on 3-5-2010 by silo13]