You can't investigate a case from behind a desk.

Russian Memoirs Revisited - the following is excerpted from a February 26, 2000 Associated Press article by Robert Burns "The assertions, while not confirmed, appear to support, and in some important respects strengthen, a case the Pentagon has been building for several years: U.S. servicemen in the 1940s and 1950s were silently swallowed up in the U.S.S.R.'s brutal Gulag system of forced labor, never to be heard from again."

"There has to be something to this,'' said Norman Kass, who helped translate the unpublished personal memoir from Russian and interviewed the author on behalf of the Pentagon agency in charge of prisoner of war and missing personnel affairs.... "

"...The memoir is exceptional because it provides names of individual servicemen. For example, it identifies by name 22 men said to have been held in late 1951 at the Kirovskij mining camp near the Kamenka River in the sub-Arctic pine forests of the Krasnoyarsk region. The memoir's author cites secondhand accounts of area residents seeing the prisoners, ``wearing bare threads and half-frozen, "being led from the Kirovskij camp along a road to an undetermined destination - ``a dead-end...."

"...Kass said that although the events described by the author have not been independently verified, he believes the man is credible... there is no question that he spent many years in the Gulag network of forced labor camps. The man, now in his late 70s, was exiled to Siberia and worked as a permafrost engineer in the early 1950s near the Kirovskij mining camp where the 22 Americans were said to have been held."

"In the translation from Russian, only one of the 22 names can be matched with a missing American servicemen. He is listed in Army casualty records as Chan Jay Park Kim, a Hawaiian of Korean descent. Kim was a private first class in the 24th Infantry Division's 34th Infantry Regiment, captured by North Korean forces on July 8, 1950. On that day, the 34th Infantry collapsed in its defense of the town of Ch'onan south of Seoul, giving the advancing North Korean army entry to most of the rest of southern Korea."

"According to Pentagon records, fellow members of the 34th Infantry who survived captivity in Korea told Army debriefers that once he became a POW, Kim tried to mask his ethnic background by using the name George Leon. It is that name which appears among the 22 on the list from the Soviet labor camp. "

"Army casualty records list Kim as having died in Korea in January 1951, but his body was not recovered.... "

"...Another section of the memoir describes the fate of 10 members of a 12-man crew of a U.S. Air Force B-29 reconnaissance plane, which was shot down by Soviet forces over the Sea of Japan on June 13, 1952. American search and rescue teams recovered no remains from the plane, and in July 1956 the U.S. government appealed to Moscow for information about the crew. The State Department note said an officer believed to have been a member of the crew was seen in October 1953 in a Soviet hospital north of the Siberian port of Magadan. The Soviets replied that no American servicemen were on Soviet territory. "

"The Russian emigre said that in the 1980s he was told by an associate with extensive experience in the far eastern reaches of Siberia that he had learned the names of two of the captured B-29 fliers: ``Bush and Moore.'' The B-29's commander was Maj. Samuel Busch. A crew member was Master Sgt. David L. Moore. The memoir indicates that Busch and Moore were killed - possibly beaten to death - in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk, apparently a short time after their capture. Eight surviving crew members were put in solitary confinement in a prison in Svobodnyi, a city northwest of Khabarovsk near the Chinese border, it said. "

"Charlotte Busch Mitnik, a sister of Samuel Busch, said in an interview that the memoir ``reinforces what I believe'' happened to him and jibes with unconfirmed rumors her family heard shortly after her brother's capture.

Attention Korean and Cold War Family Members You now have "Coin Assist." This means that the U.S. government will provide air fare for two family members to attend the government briefing on the Korean/Cold War POW/MIA issue scheduled for July 27th in Arlington Va. This is just outside Washington D.C. While the government provides air fare all other expenses are the responsibility of the individuals attending. We suggest you call your casualty officer for details. Numbers for the Casualty Offices follows:

From Bits 'N' Pieces July 29, 1995 "Your not going to believe this one! The Department of Navy, on behalf of CIL-HI, is requesting that family member Patricia Plumadore pay $3,147.14 to process her FOIA request. Once payment is received it will take six months to one year to process her request."

"Not only must family members do the governments job - now they have to pay for the privilege."

$3,147.14, Everything Has Its Price - We've all heard that phrase. In this case $3,147.14 is the price levied by CIL-HI and the Navy, to keep the truth from the families of POW/MIA's Kenneth Plumadore, Mark Judge and the families of every man involved in "Operation Kingfisher" on September 21, 1967. (For those unfamiliar with this case or those who need a refresher on this complicated case, visit www.nationalalliance.org/vietnam/plumadore/summary.htm

The funny thing about the truth is that however long it takes the truth eventually surfaces. Some 5 years later the National Alliance of Families filed an almost identical FOIA, for the same information as Pat Plumadore did in 1995. The request was for the DAD numerical list of remains identified by the DaNang mortuary for a three month period, including September, October and November 1967. The FOIA took approximately 1 year to process, but we got the information at a cost of $0.00. That's right NO CHARGE!

So why did the Navy and CIL-HI want to charge a POW/MIA family member $3,147.14? Based on what we discovered in the documentation, we know why this FOIA was priced out of the reach of the average POW/MIA family member.

In the near future, we hope to be able to share the full details with our readers. That's $3,147.14 worth of details.... In the meantime, maybe the Marines and CIL-HI might want to tell us what really happened to the misidentified "McGarvey Remains."

Animal Bones or Human No one has ever explained how bones determined to be animal where finally identified as Air Force Major Victor Apodaca.

Remains purported to be those of Victor Apodaca were returned, by the Vietnamese on July 13th 1988. According to a memo dated 9 March 2000 and signed by Thomas D. Holland, PhD, DABFA, Scientific Director at CI-HI states: "Documents supplied by the S.R.V. indicated that the remains accessioned as CILHI 131-88 were those of "Busch John T." [sic] while those accessioned as CILHI 0132-88 were those of "Apodaca Victor J., Jr....."

"... The latter accession included an identification tag for "Apodaca Victor J. Jr. Subsequent laboratory analysis demonstrated that the remains attributed to Maj. Apodaca, i.e., CILHI 0132-88, were in fact non-human."

The Vietnamese tried again to repatriate remains purported to be Victor Apodaca on April 27th 1989 -A 9 March 2001 report states; "Based on unilateral research, the S.R.V. associated the remains in Box 19 with "Apodaca Victor."

The determination of the remains, from the second repatriation, as human is confusing. Of this second remains repatriation, a September 8th 1989 message regarding "ID Status - Remains from SRV" states Box 19 contained "no teeth and consist of two portions of left hip bone and one portion of a talus (foot) bone. The age of the individual represented can only be assessed as adult. Nothing else can be determined. The box also contained nine non-human mammalian bone fragments and eight unidentifiable bone fragments which may be of human origin."

However, a Sept. 22nd 1989 message states: "Apodaca, Victor J. Jr; 0727 Quang Binh: recovered from remains dealers. Repatriated to the U.S. twice with dog tag. The U.S. side reports the remains were animal bones." (Note this is misleading in that the dog tag was not repatriated with the remains but were handed over with a group of dog tags and had no association with any remains.")

A document located in the file of another servicemen sheds more light on the question of animal or human bones relating to Major Apodaca. Originated by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the message is dated 04 Feb. 1991. Its subject is "Response to Vietnamese Request for Information on Repatriated Remains." The message directed to JCRC (Joint Casualty Resolution Center - predecessor of the Joint Task Force - Full Accounting - JTF-FA) Liaison Bangkok TH, reads as follows:

"1. During the course of the early January information/research meetings in Hanoi, the Vietnamese requested a detailed statistical summary of the status of repatriated remains focusing on identification."

"2. The IAG (Inter Agency Group) requests that JCRC/LNO provide the following information to the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam using the talking points specified below:"

"Begin Talking Points: During the early January information/research meeting in Hanoi the delegation led by Dang Nghien Bai requested and up-to-date statistical account of identification from the remains which Vietnam has repatriated to the custody of the United States from March 1974 to 20 November 1990."

"This document prepared by CILHI, responds to that request...."

Prepared by CILHI, that's important to remember.

The text of the document reads : "During the period from 6 March 1974 to 20 November 1990 remains were repatriated on 32 different occasions."

" A total of 432 boxes containing 451 remains were transferred by Vietnam to the custody of the United States."

" Out of that number, the remains of two hundred and fifty eight (258) U.S. and third country nationals have been identified and accounted for. Bartsch, case number 1433 was a German civilian."

" Seventy one (71) sets or remains were determined to be of Asian Mongoloid origin. Fifty eight (58) of these 71 remains have been returned to Vietnam Thirteen (13) remains will be ready for return to Vietnam during the next repatriation."

" Three remains were determined to be of non-human origin. The VNOSMP associated those three cases with case number 1955 (B-52 incident with four bodies not recovered (BNR), case number 0727 (Apodaca), and case number 0459 (Robertson.)"

So in February of 1990 the CILHI position was that remains repatriated as Apodaca were that they were non- human. Nowhere is there a document stating that anyone at CILHI made an error in their original determination that the bones were non-human. There is no explanation as to how the bones once determined to be non-human became human or how a trained anthropologist could have mistaken them as non-human.

There is more, but we will save it for another time. All we can say is.... it doesn't bode well......

The National Alliance Of Families Thirteenth Annual Forum is scheduled for June 20th - 22nd, 2002. Our forum is conducted to coincide with the Governments annual POW/MIA Family Briefings. We urge all family members to attend this years government briefings, for Vietnam family members. The government will provide free airfare to two family members to attend the briefings. There is no charge or registration fee to attend the government briefings.

This years meeting will be held at the Crown Plaza Hotel (same as last year) Room rates are $106.00 + tax, per night for a single or double room. Parking is $5.00 per night. Transportation to the government briefings will be available. To make your reservations call 703-416-1600. Remember to say you are with the National Alliance of Families to get the special rate.

The Alliance is an all volunteer organization. Our meetings are open to all, without charge. At this time of year, we actively seek contributions to finance our forum. If you wish to contribute, donations may be mailed to: