[ Home | Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Ann Lynch
T1: lyncha@alpha.montclair.com
Date: 10/8/97
Time: 8:41:55 PM
Remote Name: 130.68.21.200
For many countries patriotism is a very important element. In the U.S. it is a nationwide feeling. We always we are world leaders, the peace makers, the best-don't we? The Vietnam War divided our country. People held and still hold certain views toward that war. One of the biggest is the belief that some of our soiders are MIAS or POWS still stuck in Vietnam. The second paragraph on page five talks about how much our country believes in the POW/MIA issue. How could we not? We see the POW/MIA flags everywhere around us. We see bumper stickers, tee-shirts, and buttons throughout the country. Why is this issue so big? Why does America believe POWs and MIAs are still in Indochina if there is no concrete proof? Is it movies like Platoon and Rambo which supply Americans the proof we need? I feel that we shouldn't assume anything and that we need evidence to support any idea. Another paragraph that grabbed my attention was on page nine. Now I see a downside to believing in the POW/MIA idea. The families of the unaccounted for soldiers are the ones that hurt in the end. It states, "The true act of cruelty is preserving false hope, for it condemns all who care about the missing men to what is described in 1975 as "pure hell". These families have to live with the hope of one day seeing their loved ones again. In reality, however, they have probably been dead for quite some time. The facts on page eleven through twelve really made me see yet another side to this POW/MIA issue. I always believed in the POW "myth" until I read some of the facts listed here. Of course there are going to be some soldiers missing in action but that doesn't mean they are imprisoned and tortured to this day in Indochina. What about all the planes that went down? The book says,"A U.S. Navy study of all fatal non-combat accidents between 1969 and 1975 involving the type of combat aircraft flown in Vietnam showed that in forty-percent of the cases they were insufficient remains for positive identification through autopsy, even though naval investigators arrived on the scene within hours of the crash and the identities of the airmen were already known." So do these men get put on a list to show America that there are missing men who could still be in Vietnam? Is this part of a plan to make America look like the innocent victims? Where should the lying stop? Can there be a positive way to reverse America's belief in this POW/MIA "myth?