Get Well Wishes to - Patrick Cressman, brother of POW/MIA Peter Cressman, was admitted to the hospital July 12th. Pat is now undergoing tests. If you would like to send a get well card, the address is: 850 Belcher Road Apt. 1721, Pinellas Park, Fl. 33781. We wish Pat a speedy recovery.

Jackson - Vanick - the vote on H.J. Res. 120, "disapproving the extension of the waiver authority contained in section 402 (c) of the Trade Act of 1974 with respect to Vietnam," is scheduled for the week of July 27th. The National Alliance of Families supports H.J. Res. 120. Vietnam should not be granted further trade concessions. Why reward a nation that oppresses its' people and withholds information on American POW/MIAs? Call your Congressman, toll free, at 1-800-504-0031. If the toll free number is not working call them at 1-202-224-3121. Urge them to vote in support of H.J. Res. 120. (Remember, it is an election year. All 435 Congressmen are up for re-election.)

China - MFN - Congress will consider the renewal of Most Favored Nation Status for China during the week of July 20th. China continues to withhold information on American POWs taken to China during the Korean War. Chinese officials have refused to provide information on POWs Richard Desautels, and Roger Dumas. Both men were taken from the Freedom Village by the Chinese shortly before repatriation. China continues to have one of the worst records on human rights abuse, as witnessed during the recent Clinton trip to China.

POWs and Human Rights, we wonder how any Congressman or Senator could vote to renew MFN for China. Call your Congressman at the numbers shown above. The message -- China does not deserve MFN.

A Vietnamese Evaluation of Relations Between Vietnam and the U.S. - the following excerpts are taken from "Literary Vanguard Magazine #539 July 1, 1998. They were translated from the original Vietnamese and "certified correct" by Donald C. Brewster on June 20, 1998. The article, written by Mat Than, is titled "The Three Kingdoms Explained."

" ... The Hanoi communists have been hard on the Americans over the last 10 years. They have deliberately refused to turn over missing Americans..."

"...They definitely must "beat the Americans" in every diplomatic battle. If they prevail diplomatically then the Americans "must" give them money and in that way they will win on the economic front. Therefore, remaining intransigent with the Americans and forcing them to make concessions will solve all economic and financial problems and ensure the continuance in power of the regime...."

"...Although unwilling to turn over live American POWs even though presented with lots of proof that hundreds were alive when captured, the entire communist apparatus in Hanoi still believes that the Americans are: 'sincere' with them, ready to give them most favored nation status with foreign aid and investment without demanding the POWs in return or without any other conditions!

"...The fantastic thing about the Hanoi intelligencia is that while they are not sincere with the Americans they believe "positively" that the Americans will be sincere with them...."

"...After the Americans lifted the embargo on February 3, 1994, the Hanoi communists and their hunting dogs among the expatriots were convinced that their side would win big, great successes in the diplomatic battles with America. The communist comrades whispered to one another that even though they did not return the POWs, the Americans will 'lose,' just wait and see."

" ...Our party will give what it wishes while continuing to say it has 'given already' because the U.S. is progressing toward foreign aid and investment as usual..."

"...Hanoi has given the Americans fake cake on the MIA issue by not returning even one MIA. Conversely, the Americans still patiently promise everything and give everything - fake cake, including most favored nation fake cake! ..."

"Hearing the definite news that the U.S. would appoint an Ambassador and bestow most favored nation status in April, 1997, Hanoi issued orders that there should be "triple victory parties" at home and abroad. The first victory was the occupation of South Vietnam in 1975. The second victory was that the Americans 'had to accept defeat' and send Ambassador Peterson without any demands or conditions regarding the MIAs. The third victory was that the Americans would have to give most favored nation status along with commercial agreements which would be signed on April 6, 1997..." (As of this date most favored nation status had not been granted to Vietnam.)

Thanks to Mike Benge for providing this article.

Site Salting -- When remains are recovered from Vietnam, they are usually in a very poor and fragmented condition. In most cases they are little more that shards of bone or fragments. Sometimes, nothing more than a tooth is recovered. We are told the poor condition of the remains is due to the highly acidic Vietnamese soil.

If the soil is so acidic as to almost completely destroy human remains, logic would follow that anything less sturdy, buried with the remains, would be destroyed in a much shorter time.

This brings us to the case of Navy Lt. Daniel V. Borah.

In early 1996, rumors began to circulate that remains had been recovered in Quang Tri Province, of a pilot a full flight suit. Soon after, the Borah family was notified that Joint Task Force Full Accounting had recovered remains in a full flight suit, they believed to be Dan Borah.

According to a Vietnamese witness, Mr. Toan, who led JTF-FA investigators to the burial site, the pilot was found dead, in his parachute. He was buried nearby and all identification media was removed. According to Mr. Toan, Daniel Borah was buried in his flight suit on September 24th, 1972.

It would be 24 years, before Mr. Toan led JTF-FA investigators back to the alleged burial site. During the 40th Joint Field Activity, (March 23rd - 31st, 1996) the grave site was excavated. Just as Mr. Toan stated, investigators found remains in a full flight suit. The remains consisted of three long bones, and various chips, shards and nineteen teeth. Due to their poor condition, none of the bones could be used for anthropological analysis.

The Central Identification Laboratory - Hawaii, (CIL-HI) determined that the nineteen teeth matched the records of Daniel Borah. Based on this dental "match" CIL-HI recommended the identification of the remains found, as those of Daniel Borah. CIL-HI ignored the fact that the dental matched was successful only if the teeth were moved to the the other side of the mouth. The resolution of this case was pointed to with pride, as evidence of Vietnamese cooperation to resolve the fate of our Prisoners and Missing.

Now, the rest of the story!

The Vietnamese planned to end the Borah case a full 19 months prior to the actual excavation. In November, 1994, the head of the Defense POW/MIA Office, James Wold visited Vietnam. During his meeting with Mr. Cong, of the Vietnam Office Seeking Missing Persons (VNOSMP), Mr. Wold was told information on 5 cases would be provided by the end of the year. One of those cases was Daniel V. Borah.

Eight months after that promise, on August 14, 1995, Mr. Toan appeared, ready to led U.S. investigators to the purported burial site.

The Discrepancies.....

Dan Borah made voice contact with U.S. aircraft while in his parachute. U.S. planes picked up several short bursted "manual beeper transmissions," from the ground. Dan Borah was not dead in his parachute and he was alive upon landing. Borah's last radio transmission came from the ground. His last words to American forces.... "Gomer, all around..." Dead men don't send "manual beeper transmissions" or report there imminent capture."

What happened to Dan Borah after that, we can't say. We can say without a doubt that the full flight suit purported to hold the remains of Dan Borah did not lie in the acidic Vietnamese soil for 24 years.

The grave site was salted. While little is left of the the bones, the flight suit is in near perfect condition. In the words of Kathy Borah Duez, sister of Dan Borah, "you could put that flight suit on and wear it on the street. The pants would barely fit me. They are too small to be Dan's. Dan tended to gain weight and we joked about him fitting into the cockpit. These pants would never fit him."

Kathy confirmed that all unit designations, patches, and the American flag had been carefully cut from the flight suit. Just as there is no evidence to prove the bone shards are Dan Borah's, there is no evidence to prove the flight suit is Dan's.

The acidic soil of Vietnam, which destroys bones, should have left nothing of the flight suit except perhaps the zippers. Instead, after 24 years in this highly acidic soil, this flight suit looks no worse than if it had been attacked by angry moths, in the back of a closet.

Click here to access photographs of the flight suit.

Rumor Department -- Was that Pat Plumadore visiting Air Force Casualty during the recent meetings in D.C.? Rumor has it, that Army is next on her list. It would have been so much easier if the Marines and CIL-HI, had done the right thing in the Plumadore/Judge/Berry/?/ case. Quite frankly, what Pat is finding is beginning to scare us.

They wouldn't lie, would they -- During all the media attention to the story of Michael Blassie, one point was made very clear by both the Pentagon and AFDIL. That point was confirmed at our meeting by Dr. Mitchell Holland -- mtDNA testing is not used as a primary or sole means of identification.

This was said in spite of the fact that mtDNA testing was used as the primary or sole means of identification for CIL-HI remains 0048-86 in an attempt to pass those remains off as L/Cpl. Mark Judge. Regular readers of Bits 'n' Pieces are very familiar with this case and know that mtDNA test results can be highly questionable, even when the guidelines are followed. When the guidelines are not followed, the test is a disaster.

This brings us to the case of Air Force Capt. Victor Apodaca. In 1996, a family reference blood sample was provided to match against mtDNA extracted from a bone fragment returned by a Vietnamese remains trader in 1989.

In 1997, we learned that "Reference specimens from the Apodaca family have been compared with and matches the sequence from the bone sample associated with REFNO 0727." We also learned that a request had been made for a blood sample from the family of Jon Busch, the pilot of the Aircraft to insure that the bone did not match Busch, also.

As of this date the Apodaca family has not been formally notified of the test results. This could be a good sign if AFDIL and CIL-HI plan to live by their statements that mtDNA is not used as a primary or sole means of identification.

In 1988, the Vietnamese repatriated remains purported to be those of Victor Apodaca. Forensic examination determined "the box contained only non-human bones." In 1989, a remains trader turned in bone fragments, he said were those of Victor Apodaca.

During the 28 - 30 August 1989 Technical Meeting in Hanoi, U.S. representatives provided the following information to the Vietnamese "Apodaca, Victor J. Jr: Quang Binh: recovered from remains dealers. Repatriated to the U.S. twice... The U.S. side reports the remains were animal bones."

By September 1991, some of the animal bones transformed into human bones. According to the report, "remains consist of two portions of left hip bone and one portion of a tallus (foot) bone. The age of the individual represented can only be assessed as adult; nothing else can be determined."

The report ended by stating "CILHI can neither recommend nor rule out the identification of these remains as Apodaca unless additional remains or substantive information becomes available."

To our knowledge, neither substantive information or additional remains have become available. Could CILHI and AFDIL have planned to identify these remains solely on mtDNA test results? Would they have identified these remains, as Victor Apodaca, if the story of the Vietnam unKnown had not drawn national attention. Do they still plan to identify these remains as Victor Apodaca, without substantive information or additional remains? Would they use mtDNA as the primary or sole means of identification, in this case, even when they say they don't?.

They don't learn - Shortly after our meeting, a POW/MIA family got the call, notifying them of a remains recovery . The family was told once mtDNA had been extracted from the bone, the family would be asked to provide one blood sample for testing. The family member cited DoD guidelines and asked why two maternal line samples were not requested. The casualty representative agreed that the guidelines called for two samples, if available. Then he commented that some families don't want to send two samples.

Casualty - Heads Up -- Try telling the families that two samples are recommended for the best testing. It the families knew two samples were best, our bet is you would get two samples. If the family cited above didn't know, no one from Casualty or CIH-HI would have told them. Why??????????????

The Known -- documents obtained from the Reagan Library, the Library of Congress and under FOIA, tell the story and answer the question, "who knew what and when did they know it." With great pride one player points to the fact that the burial at sea for the three remains not chosen, was stopped. We ask, what was the price - Michael Blassie's identity? Had those involved spoken out, no one would have been buried at sea, and Michael Blassie would have been home a long time ago.

Documents dating from November 1981 - July 3, 1998 are now available on our web site. These do not represent all of the documentation on the selection of the Vietnam Unknown. However, they do present a clear picture of how, for political purposes, a Vietnam Unknown was created. The documents are presented in chronological order. Read them carefully, the picture they paint is one of lies, deceit, and political expediency.

As one document states "We simply can't have the public believe we created an unknown for interment." Yet, that is exactly what they did.

Contact us here!