s©aron continues tor W\\/\s, POVSfs
The \'ie
ended 11
non-profit organi;
to resolve the ca
men still missing
The National
American Prisoner
Southeast Asia, incorporated in 1970, is
trying to obtain the release of all prison
ers, the fullest possible accounting of
the missing and the repatriation of sol
diers’ remains. More than 1,400 families
are members of the league.
Significant strides have been made
over the past two years in negotiations
with the North Vietnamese, says Rose
mary Jersak, one of five regional coor
dinators for the League. More remains
have been returned in the past year
than any time since the end of the war,
and the atmosphere has never been bet
ter for making substantial progress on
the issue, according to the league.
Two years ago, the governments of
North Vietnam and the United States
began their first high-level talks on the
MIA issue. Jersak says these would not
have been possible without Ann Grif
fiths, executive director of the league,
who is credited with starting the high-
level talks between the United States
and Vietnam, as the two countries have
no formal diplomatic relations.
Now the United States and North
Vietnam are in the middle of working
under a two-year plan, which says Viet
nam has to try to account for all the
missing by July. “Try” is the key word in
this open-ended agreement, Jersak says.
If the deadline was firmly set, she says,
July would be the end, even if every
thing was not resolved.
In the latest round of talks, the
fourth this year, four U.S. military spe
cialists went to Hanoi Oct. 29 for techni
cal talks aimed at resolving the status of
those missing in action. Technical talks
between the two nations began in De
cember 1982.
One U.S. goal in the talks is to secure
an agreement on a second U.S.-North
Vietnamese excavation of a warplane
crash site to search for remains. Last
year, the first joint dig produced wreck
age of a U.S. B-52 bomber and bone
fragments. It was regarded as a mile-
of stone in the MIA search effort.
The governments of North Vietnam
and Laos have acknowledged the possi-
blity that some Ameri
cans might be alive in
remote areas, outside
government control
or authority. The two
have now agreed that
accounting for the
missing is a humanita
rian issue and that
they will cooperate in
resolving it.
The peace
agreement signed in
Paris, which ended the
war, states that the
parties involved would
return “captured military personnel
and foreign civilians,” help “each other
to get information about those missing .
. . in action” and work to “facilitate the
exhumation and repatriation of the re
mains (of the dead).”
But because the United States did not
win the war, U.S. authorities have not
had access to the areas where the miss
ing were last seen alive or were thought
to have disappeared or been captured.
Jersak says the only reason North
Vietnam is at the bargaining table is be
cause it is being boycotted by the other
Southeast Asian nations. These nations
have convinced North Vietnam that it’s
in their best interest to release an ac
count of all MIAs.
However, Jersak says, the negotia
tions are very tricky.
She says the United States is doing
anything it can to avoid upsetting the
North Vietnamese, therefore much of
what is happening can’t be made public
because they have requested no public
ity. Jersak says another thing that might
cause North Vietnam to end the talks is
action bv “Rambo types” who go in on
their own and try to find captives.
“We do anything to derail these talks
now, and that’s the end of it,” Jersak
says. “We would never, ever get the
Vietnamese back to the table."
However, until Rea
gan was elected, she
says the league relied
on these Rambos and
secretly raised money
for them.
“They all worked
for us,” Jersak says.
“That’s why we can
bad mouth them now.
We know what loonies
they are.
“Up until we got
Reagan, that’s the
only way we could
have gotten the guys
out. The government wasn’t doing a
thing. The Defense Intelligence Agency
was literally closed down.
“A lot of the families have been
ripped off over the years, they have
paid dearly. But now they see for the
first time real hope that we’re going to
get this thing solved.”
The league sees Reagan as the source
of that hope, and credits him with the
progress it has made in the last few
years. Jersak says Reagan values input
from the league, and had Griffiths in
his office to brief him the first week of
his presidency.
Reagan has declared that the nation’s
highest priority is getting as much infor
mation as possible about Americans
who still are imprisoned, missing or un
accounted for in Indochina.
Jersak says 400 bodies of American
servicemen are believed to be stored in a
Hanoi warehouse.
By Kirsten Dietz
Section Co-Editor
tnam War may have officially
at one private,
is still fighting
ses ot more than 2,400
in action.
League of Familie!
and Missing in
A&M student recalls Vietnam war
The years before Reagan took office
were difficult for the league, jersak
says.
“ Those were eight hard vears when
we went up to Washington and banged
on doors,” she says.
Gongressmen referred to League
members as “those crazies” and "profes
sional MIA wives,” she says.
In 1973, President Richard M. Nixon
said all the prisoners had been sent
home, which Jersak says was “a death
slap” to the League and its goals. Nix
on’s 1975-76 Select Committee on
POW/MIA Mississippi and President
Carter’s 1977 Woodcock (Presidential)
Commission on POW/MIA both issued
reports which said all MIAs and POWs
were dead.
Carter ordered that all cases with an
MIA status be changed to KIA in 1978.
“It never occurred to us that the gov
ernment would abandon us,” Jersak
says.
She contends that the commissions’
reports were not valid, as the findings
were based on the word of the North
Vietnamese rather than on fact. She
says North Vietnam hand-picked all
those who went on the trip.
Currently, the main, but not only,
source of POW/MIA information avail
able to the U.S. government is Indochi
nese refugees.
The lack of political stabiltiy and the
gloomy economic conditions in the
Southeast Asian region has caused a
continual flow of refugees from Laos,
Cambodia and North Vietnam. Inter
views have been conducted with many
of these refugees by both government
and private individuals, and reported
sightings of Americans by these and
other sources continue to reach the U.S.
government. The U.S. goverment has
an established program to follow up on
each report.^
‘I hope I never experience that again’
By Polly Bell tacks by the North Vietnamese. the North Vietnamese, he said. The
„ To do this, the requirements were prisoners were confined in groups of
^ _ changed to include all males 17 or 1,000 and relocated every six months.
My Nam Le once wore a rifle strap, older. Le said he received a cup of rice a
Now he wears a backpack full of books. For nine months, Le said he trained day. If he was good his family would be
His diet, once a cup of rice a day, is now to become an officer in the army. He allowed to visit. They could bring him
three meals daily at Texas A&M s Sbisa said he learned how to fight in the jun- food twice a year as a reward for his
Dining Hall. gle, use a gun and organize the 30 sol- good behavior.
But the nightmares still remain. diers under his command. Le’s most vivid nightmare is of the
“111 remember it (the Vietnam War) After the Paris Peace Talks in Jan- night he stole a canoe and escaped from
for the rest of my life,” Le said. “It was U ary 1973, Le traveled to the Cailay the camp.
really terrible. Province in South Vietnam for five “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “My body
The dead bodies were green and months to try to convince the residents was shaking and my teeth ached. But
smelled putrid. There were so many of of the area that the United States the minute l got in the canoe, I knew I
them (dead bodies) that they were just wanted to help, not harm, them. was free.”
shoved along the sidewalks waiting for After the North Vietnamese took But not every refugee from South
relatives to come and identify them.” over Saigon, they “asked” all South Vietnam had the same experience as Le.
Le, a junior mechanical engineering Vietnamese officers to register for a “re- Tung Pham, a sophomore electrical
major at A&M, was once an officer for education camp. They told officers, in- engineering major, grew up in Saigon
the South Vietnamese army in the Viet- eluding Le, to bring food, money and and said he never’saw the violence of
namWar. clothes for 10 days. the war since it took place mainly in the
Now 34, he was in his first year of law “Most of us joined thinking it was jungle,
school at Saigon University when he was only for 10 days — little did I know I However, he said he did see the im-
drafted into the South Vietnamese would end up there for three years,” Le pact of the communist control on the
army at age 20. said. residents of Saigon.
He said the draft originally applied to He said the camp tried to convert the Pham said the North Vietnamese sol-
males 18 and older who had failed their officers to communism. diers would take businesses and money
college entrance exams. If they passed It was mental torture, he said. “I away from the upper class and put these the communists had destroyed their
the exams, they could continue their ed- hope I never have to experience that people in the country to do hard labor. homes, he said,
ucation. again.”
But in 1972, Le said South Vietnam Every day the officers in the camp Often, Pham said, these people Since the upper class people were not
found it necessary to increase its num- were forced to cut down trees in the couldn’t take it. They would come back used to hard labor, many commited sui-
ber of troops because of increased at- jungle, build houses and grow food for to the city and live on the streets after cide, Pham said.^
My Nam Le