INVESTIGATORS CAN SEARCH THREE SITES IN VIETNAM TO HELP RESOLVE POW/MIA ISSUES

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE 

Vietnam Opens Sites to Joint POW/MIA Investigators

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

HANOI, Vietnam, June 4, 2012 - The Vietnamese government will open three areas to help resolve the fate of Americans missing in action from the Vietnam War, DOD officials said here today.

Following a meeting at the Defense Ministry, Vietnamese Defense Minister Phoung Quang Thanh announced his government would allow American personnel to examine three areas once off limits.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta thanked the Vietnamese leader for all the support Vietnam has provided over the years. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command's Detachment 2 based in Hanoi has conducted 107 field searches for Americans missing in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government has fully supported these efforts with personnel and information, said Ron Ward, a casualty resolution specialist with the detachment.

The three sites Vietnam opened to exploration are in the central part of the country. The first site is in Quang Binh province and involves the crash of an Air Force F-4C Phantom II jet in 1967 with two personnel aboard. Detachment specialists located the site in 2008, but now they will be allowed to examine it, Ward said.

The second site is in Kontum province and involves the loss of an Army private first class in January 1968 during the Tet Offensive.

The third site is in Quang Tri province and involves the loss of a Marine F-4J Wild Weasel aircraft. One of the crew of two punched out of the aircraft and was rescued.

Panetta said these efforts are important to troops serving today, because they know the military means that it will leave no man behind.

To date, the command has repatriated and identified 687 remains in Vietnam. A total of 1,284 Americans remain missing. Of these, 586 cases are in the category of "no further pursuit" -- meaning there is conclusive evidence the individual perished but it not possible to recover remains.

POWs REMEMBERED BY WISCONSON NATIONAL GUARD

FROM:  WISCONSIN NATIONAL GUARD PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE
NEWS: Wisconsin National Guard members march in memory of POWs
Date: April 9, 2012
Wisconsin National Guard Public Affairs Office
Twenty members of the Wisconsin Army National Guard's 157th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade headquarters and 32nd Military Police Company - joined by dozens of service members from the U.S, Poland and Ukraine - recently honored the victims of the Bataan Death March by walking in their footsteps, as it were, in a memorial endurance event in Kosovo.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Christopher Hudson, a Wisconsin National Guard member assigned to Task Force Falcon, played a key role organizing the 13.1-mile march at Camp Bondsteel on March 26, complete with gravel, paved roads and large hills. He also took part in the heavy category which required participants to carry at least 35 pounds on their backs.

"Participating in the Bataan Memorial March was a fitting way to pay tribute to all the heroic service members who made the ultimate sacrifice defending the Philippine Islands during World War II," Hudson said. "All those who entered and took part did so out of sheer preservation and determination - not unlike the Soldiers who marched in the actual Bataan Death March."

Ninety-nine members of the Janesville-based Company A, 192nd Tank Battalion, Wisconsin National Guard, fiercely defended the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines for more than three months alongside fellow American and Filipino forces, until disease, lack of supplies and hunger compelled their surrender to the Imperial Japanese Army seven decades ago today (April 9).

The Janesville Soldiers who served in one of two National Guard tank battalions - comprised of companies from Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri - deployed to the Philippines shortly after the United States entered World War II. Approximately 76,000 prisoners endured the harrowing "Bataan Death March," an 80-mile forced trek to Balanga, the capital of Bataan. Prisoners of war who did not die of exhaustion, wounds or illness were stabbed, beaten or killed along the way - between 5,000 and 10,000 Filipinos and as many as 650 Americans before reaching Camp O'Donnell, where the death toll continued to mount. Only one third of the Janesville unit survived until their liberation three years later.

Wisconsin honors the service and hardship of these and other prisoners of war every April 9, designated since 2001 asPrisoner of War Remembrance Day.