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Harvuskong
Seaman
Joined: 17 Oct 2004
Posts: 174
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 Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 2:15 am Post subject: Rambling about the POWS and MIAs and Vets, |
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I travel a lot on I20 and other Texas roads in my job and in my off job time as well.
I have noticed that a lot more trucks and some pick-up trucks and cars have the black and white POW and MIA stickers or decals on the bumpers or trailer tailgates. I am sure that it the Vietnam POW/MIAs that are being remembered.
I believe that there are a lot of people out there that could help force another investigation in the POW/MIA issue in Congress and the Media, hopefully without Kerry being involved. But fat chance that will happen, that is Kerry not being involved.
Danged if I know how to make renewed public interest in the Vietnam POW/MIA issue happen. I think that these site and others could or are helping to get the issue into the public awareness, but, then you have to deal with the major networks that seem to, in my opinon, to avoid the issue.
The WWII Vets are dying by the thousands every day, I think it has been said. I am sure that just about the same can be said about the Korean War Vets as well.
It will be all too soon in the fairly near future that the same thing will be said about the Vietnam Vets.
I hope that all the surviving Vets regardless of which combat area involved, will now begin or have begun to record and document with what ever documents, letters, photos and even joint efforts with those who were there with them, just exactly what actually did happen during their time in combat.
It is in my opinion, particulary important for the Vietnam Vets to do so because of the special dirty treatment that they have been given because of people like Kerry and Fonda and others.
It will be an very tough task, but it is needed to counter and overcome the unfair treatment that the Vietnam Vets have been given in the past and to a certain extent, still continues today.
I will say that for a good number of years, well until the 2004 Election Season, I did not understand or had forgotten that the odd looking to me anyway, Green and Yellow With Red bars or that stripes, stickers were for service in Vietnam.
I have noticed a lot more of them in the last few years. And the stickers/decals seem to be being put up higher up on the bodies of the vehicles that I seen during the 2004 Election. Up higher where they will more likely to be noticed. I think that it is an encouraging sign about the Vietnam Vets.
Perhaps now they will really begin to speak out and really tell their side of the story. Starting with articles and letters to the editors of their local news papers is a good place to start. Moving on up to the regional newspapers is also another good step to make.
It would be big jump to having a local TV show hosted by Vietnam Vets doing the same thing as the news articles.
Well, just some ideas that I had, I hope that they are good enough to get something started that might blast Kerry and his crew of helpers out of the water, so to speak.
Last edited by Harvuskong on Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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NortonPete
PO2
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 385
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| Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:11 am Post subject: Article From my local NJ paper NJHerald |
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Just saw this article.
Sometimes the site isn't up so I'll post it.
| Quote: | OGDENSBURG — Lois Boehl recently came across a worn steel bracelet in her jewelry box bearing the following inscription: "Capt. Dennis Chambers: 8.7.67."
The name and date were very familiar to the Ogdensburg resident, who purchased the POW bracelet more than 30 years ago to support the prisoners of the Vietnam War.
"I wore the bracelet for a long time," Boehl, a math teacher at Ogdensburg Public School, said as she sat in her living room.
"I could never get rid of it," she said. "It was a person, not a bracelet."
Until recently, the name and date of capture were the only information she had of the Air Force pilot she felt a connection to. Then she decided to research his name on the Internet. She found his name on www. pownetwork.org and discovered that Chambers, whose first name was actually Carl, was alive and a commercial real estate agent in Santa Clara, Calif. Another click of the mouse and she was able to see a photo of him for the first time.
"Now I had a bracelet and a face," she said with a smile.
Boehl found a contact number and called Chambers, leaving a message on his answering machine. Within 10 minutes, the Carmel, Calif., resident returned her call.
"He was so charming and so lovely," Boehl recalled. "And he said ... (the bracelets) brought more attention to the POW treatment and improved their treatment."
Boehl then offered to send the bracelet to Chambers, a proposition he gladly accepted.
"I get a bracelet returned about every month," Chambers, 65, said Friday in a telephone interview. In fact, when he first returned home on March 14, 1973, Chambers said, he had a bag full of returned bracelets waiting for him, which he flattened and made into a model airplane.
According to pownetwork.org, the bracelets were made by Voices in Vital America, or VIVA, a Los Angeles-based student organization that began to produce and distribute bracelets with the names of POWs in 1970. The purpose of the steel and copper bracelets was to draw public attention to the treatment of captured soldiers in East Asia, the organization's Web site said.
Chambers, whose plane was shot down in North Vietnam, was a prisoner of war for 2,047 days, he said. During that time, he was stoned by local townspeople and beaten by guards and escaped once, only to be recaptured after 12 hours.
He did not find out about the bracelet program until near the end of his imprisonment, when some recently-captured pilots told him through the cell walls of their prison camp.
The awareness program made the prisoners' lives "much easier." The guards started giving them better food, clothing, blankets, medical treatment and stopped beating them as much, Chambers said.
"They started taking better care of us because a lot of people (in America) were yelling and screaming about the treatment of POWs," he said.
After nearly 5 1/2 years of imprisonment, Chambers was finally sent home to his family.
"There are no words, no facial expressions, no movement of the hands that can adequately describe how it feels to be reborn into the world of the living," Chambers wrote in his biography posted on pownetwork.org. "My undying gratitude goes to all who wore the VIVA bracelets, wrote letters in our behalf, participated in POW/MIA work or included us in their prayers."
Chambers sent a personal thank you letter to Boehl for wearing the bracelet for many years.
"You are a sweetheart for sending it to me," the letter said. "... Again, thank you for wearing the bracelet, it did make a difference."
Since she returned the bracelet to Chambers, Boehl has been trying to contact the family of the man identified on her husband Helmut's bracelet: "CM/SGT Thomas Moore, 10.30.65." Moore is still missing in action and presumed dead.
Still, she is happy to have finally made contact with Chambers, a name that became so familiar to her.
"I'm happy he made it," she said. |
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