The following is excerpted from an article by Laurence Jolidon, dated Sept. 9th, (for the full text of the article visit www.ink-slinger.com) "In a July 17th letter, and at the annual meeting here in June of the National Alliance of Families of the Missing, Robert Jones, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs said his agency - and the entire Defense Department, for that matter - considers Roger Dumas a POW."

"Jones went to great length to stress to the assembled family members that Cpl. Dumas was one of the thousands of unaccounted for men from Korea, that the Chinese - who ran the POW camps in North Korea during most of the war - have been specifically asked about. "I believe the Chinese can provide answers" in the case of Dumas and dozens of other Americans last seen alive as POWs in Communist hands, Jones said...."

"...But when Robert Dumas of Canterbury, CT, asked Jones point blank, "Why did you say my brother was never a prisoner?" Jones gave a reply that might be more appropriate at an Arkansas disbarment hearing. "I did not say that," he replied. "We consider your brother a POW. We have never stated that he is not." "I guess he realized he couldn't back it up," Robert Dumas said later. "It's all there in black and white...."

The article continued; "The status of Corporal Roger Dumas is Prisoner of War," Jones wrote on July 17th. "The Department of Defense, which includes the Army casualty office and DPMO (Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office), considers Corporal Roger Dumas as a Prisoner of War."

"Only two questions appear to remain. First, why did Jones tell Sen. Lieberman he knew of "no evidence" in the Dumas case, and couch the Dumas family effort in terms of a search mainly for monetary reward, when it's clear he knew of a great deal of evidence that was only made public thanks to the family's legal efforts?"

"Jones declined requests to answer further questions on the Dumas case. And secondly, will he write Sen. Lieberman again, as he has Robert Dumas, setting the record straight? "Just in case he forgets," says Robert Dumas, "I'm going to personally make sure Sen. Lieberman's office receives a copy of the second letter he wrote me."

Let's Step Back To - the original letter, dated February 23rd, 2000, to Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, (Yes, it's that Joe Lieberman) Mr. Jones wrote; "...neither my agency nor any other Government agency has uncovered evidence, other than that which was solicited by Corporal Dumas' family, to indicate he was ever captured and held prisoner by communist forces during the Korean War." Flip Flop!

They Didn't Want Us Asking Questions About The Punchbowl - That was the implication of an email sent in January 1998, discussing the possible exhumation of the Vietnam Unknown. In an email, from Thomas Perry of Air Force Casualty addressed to Johnie Webb and Joe Hartsell, dated January 12, 1998, Mr. Perry discussed an opinion expressed by a third party. Mr. Perry stated that it was the opinion of the third party that "if this story hits the airwaves it will cause a lot of problems over the issue of disinterment, not only regarding the Tomb of the Unknown, but regarding the Punchbowl in Hawaii. It will also put the government and past administration in a very bad light..."

After viewing that email, in early 1998, the Alliance did start asking questions, as did Bob Dumas, brother of Korean War POW, Roger Dumas. Thanks to Bob's efforts we learned that there were name associations for well over 100 of the Korean War Unknowns buried at the National Cemetery in Hawaii, commonly referred to as the Punchbowl.

Now, thanks to Larry Jolidon and Ink-Slinger Press, we have the names associated to well over 200 of the Korean War "Unknowns." In three cases, the remains were returned with identification media, one had a wallet, the other a ring and still another a watch. If these were Vietnam cases, at least these three soldiers would be well on their way to identification.

According to Mr. Jolidon's article, (for the full text of the article visit www.ink-slinger.com) - "In late January 1956, some 867 flag-draped caskets - America's "unknowns" from the Korean War - were shipped from Japan aboard the USS Manchester to Hawaii and interred in a group burial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The ceremonies, little noted in the press, were kept deliberately low-key to avoid what an Army directive called "unfavorable publicity" about an "extremely sensitive" subject."

"For the past 44 years, those ceremonies have achieved just what the government intended. Few questions have been raised about the sizable number of caskets entombed in Honolulu, even while the families of more than 8,100 men who didn't return from Korea searched desperately for any scrap of information about their loved ones' fate..".

"...A great deal has always been known about America's Korean War "unknowns." At least 239 of the caskets buried in Hawaii in 1956 contain remains that were among nearly 2,000 sets that Communist forces turned over in 1954 complete with names, military service numbers and burial information from North Korea that exactly matched U.S. records.... "

"...The figure of 239 "name-associated" Korean War cases is not from any specific official document - although such a document may well exist. A Freedom of Information Act request for documents that disclose the names related to cases buried at the Punchbowl is pending with the Pentagon. The names are those that match when official public data on individuals still listed as unaccounted for from Korea are compared with declassified military personnel and graves registration records, including shipping manifests of Operation Glory."

"They include soldiers and Marines, blacks, caucasians, Native Americans, privates, non-commissioned officers and 15 officers, including Capt. Emil Kapaun, a highly-decorated Army chaplain from Kansas so revered by veterans who were prisoners of war with him that some mounted a campaign to have him declared a saint. Eugene Kapaun, the chaplain's brother, said he wished the government had informed the families of the receipt of the "name-associated" remains and all the other information they had when the exchange took place, in 1954. "They never mentioned anything like that," he said."

"The majority of name-associated remains - more than 150 - were tagged "Pyoktong," indicating the Communists had exhumed them from graves at POW Camp 5, one of the largest of the dozens of camps that held thousands of UN prisoners and near the town of Pyoktong on the Yalu River, the boundary between North Korea and China...."

"... In the intervening years, while no further work was done on the 866 left buried in Hawaii, U.S. forensic experts at CILHI have tried to identify other remains more recently exhumed in North Korea. In fact, negotiating with North Korea for remains still in that country's custody has taken precedence over virtually every other aspect of the Korean War POW/MIA issue...."

"....The plan CILHI devised to deal with the Punchbowl remains calls for incremental steps. "The idea," says Holland, "was that we weren't going to dig up 866 men and put them on a shelf in the laboratory." The plan was to "start slowly," he said, by ranking the cases in order based on the likelihood of identification, and disinterring the top two. Once those were identified, two more would be brought to the lab, and so on until all were tested using DNA."

"When the plan was first made public, POW/MIA groups angrily complained that at this rate, the 866 cases wouldn't be resolved until long after most immediate survivors were gone. CILHI's director, Johnnie Webb, said it couldn't be done any faster because his staff includes only four "board-certified" or doctorate-trained forensic anthropologists. But before long, even the slow-paced Punchbowl plan hit another wall."

"On Nov. 19 last year, Webb told a family outreach gathering in Houston that government scientists were having difficulty extracting DNA from the first two Punchbowl remains, which had been disinterred two months earlier, on Sept. 15. Webb said the Korean War remains had been treated with "a great deal of powdered formaldehyde" that he said was suspected of "inhibiting" the extraction of DNA...."

"... In an interview on Aug. 25th, a year after the remains were disinterred, Holland said the situation persists. Zero progress has been made on the Punchbowl remains...."

"Assuming the DNA-extraction problem can be solved, " we'll be able to get back on schedule, which under ideal circumstances you'd be looking at a couple of months per case." The resulting arithmetic isn't favorable for the Korean War's unlucky "unknowns." Two months per case for 866 cases means the work will take 1,732 months, or about 144 years. And that assumes it's possible to find maternal-line relatives from the families involved to supply blood samples. Of course, if all four forensic anthropologists at CILHI were put to work on the task simultaneously, that could be reduced to a mere 36 years."

"Eugene Kapaun said that last year, at the Army's suggestion, he submitted two vials of blood to be used for any eventual DNA testing on remains that might be his brother's. But he said the colonel he talked to "told me I shouldn't get my hopes up." That would certainly be sound advice from the record so far. "

We can understand that certain forensic tool were unavailable in the 1950's, and 60's but the St. Louis records were available up to the early 70's. Why was there no attempt to review the records of the men who had name associations to the Korean "Unknowns?" There are over 200 men with name associations, were all their records destroyed?

The records of Louis P. Mutta, provided to the Alliance by the Mutta family, were burnt at the edges, but far from destroyed. It is interesting to note, the name of Louis Mutta does not appear on the list of remains with name associations. Yet, we know that Louis Mutta is one of the Korean "Unknowns" re-buried at the Punchbowl.

The full list of Korean War "Unknowns" is available at www.ink-slinger.com. We urge all Korean War family members, Veterans, and activists to view this list. You may be related to one of the "Unknowns," you may have served with them or you may have information surrounding the death of one of our Known "Unknowns."

Clinton Is Going To Vietnam - From the Associated Press Sept. 14th by Anne Gearan "President Clinton will visit Vietnam as one of his final foreign tours as president, but will make the politically sensitive trip only after the November elections."

"The White House announced Thursday that Clinton would tack the Vietnam trip to the end of a scheduled visit to Brunei. Clinton is to attend the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, on Nov. 15 and 16 and then go to Vietnam."

"The president believes that ..." consensus has developed in this country over the last few years that the time was right to move forward with this relationship," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Thursday."

"Trade, the continued recovery of remains of U.S. servicemen and studies of the effect of the defoliant Agent Orange will likely be on the agenda, Lockhart said. "But there's just very much symbolic value in the president visiting and going actually to visit the country," the spokesman said....."

Vietnam's Reaction - From Reuters By David Brunnstrom - "Vietnam's communist government and ordinary people Friday welcomed Bill Clinton's plans to make the first ever visit by a U.S. president to Hanoi, America's bitter enemy in a war that is till a painful memory for both countries a quarter century after it ended...."

"...Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said Clinton's would be "the first to Vietnam by a U.S. president," pointedly ignoring Nixon's trip and earlier visits by predecessor Lyndon Johnson. "Vietnam welcomes U.S. President William Clinton's official visit to Vietnam at a time appropriate for both sides," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said in a statement...."

American Legion Reaction... From Reuters By David Brunnstrom " John Peterson, of (the) veterans organization the American Legion, said he was worried the trip would focus too much on economics. "We believe the over 2,000 missing Americans that are still unaccounted for is worth a little bit more than the billions of dollars the trade deal will incur," he told Cable News Network...."

After The November Election - Clearly, the White House feels a consensus has not developed that the time was right for this visit. If the time was right, they would not have to wait until after the election. They feared a backlash over this visit which might effect the coming election. Since Clinton has decided to go to Vietnam, we wish he would have had the guts to go before the election.

Clinton... guts... what were we thinking?

Seizing The Opportunity - Congratulations to Kevin Keister, POW Chairman VVA Chapter 8. Kevin recently has the opportunity to speak with New York's Governor, George Pataki. During that conversation, Kevin secured Governor Pataki's commitment to fly the POW Flag at all shipping Ports of Arrival. The POW Flag will now greet arrivals from many foreign countries. In Kevin's words, "Governor Pataki agreed that the POW Flag should greet all arriving vessels throughout the entire State of New York. After a firm handshake with me, the Governor immediately informed the press and his aide of his decision. Several local television stations were present. I will send out a photo when available." Great Job - Kevin