Welcome Home PFC Jessica Lynch

Along with the Lynch family, we celebrate the successful rescue of PFC Jessica Lynch. To PFC Lynch, we offer our prayers and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Our joy is tempered with sadness as the Department of Defense confirmed, early this morning, that nine of the eleven remains recovered outside the hospital where PFC Lynch was held are American Service personnel.

The full text of the DOD Press Release, dated April 5th, follows:

"The Department of Defense announced today the changed status of eight soldiers from Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown (DUSTWUN) to killed in action. The eight soldier were in a convoy that was ambushed March 23 in Iraq. They are:

Sgt. George E. Buggs, 31, of Barnwell, S.C.

Master Sgt. Robert J. Dowdy, 38, of Cleveland, Ohio

Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, 188 of El Paso, Texas

Spc. James M. Kiehl, 22, of Comfort, Texas

Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata, 35 of Amarillo, Texas

PFC Lori Ann Piestewa, 23, of Tuba City Ariz.

PVT. Brandon U. Sloan, 19, of Cleveland, Ohio

Sgt. Donald R. Walters, 33, of Kansas City, MO.

Buggs was with the 3rd Division Support battalion, Fort Stewart, GA. The remainder were with the 507th Maintenance Company, Fort Bliss, Texas.

The investigation remains under investigation." End DOD Press Release

No identification was announced for the ninth set of remains.

The National Alliance of Families extends our deepest sympathy to the families of these Service Personnel. The sacrifice of your loved ones, will never be forgotten.

To Send Messages of Support To The Families of Our POW/MIAs -- visit http://www.nationalalliance.org

Of Historical Note - The rescue of PFC Lynch is the first successful rescue of a POW in over 50 years. Hard to believe but true.

A New American Hero - Known only as Mohammad, he risked his life, and the lives of his wife and child to secure the rescue of PFC Jessica Lynch. Here is the story in the words of Marine Sgt. Joseph R. Chenelly assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, published by American Forces Press Service.

"MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq, April 4, 2003 -- New heroes have surfaced in the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch. Under the watchful eyes of more than 40 murderous gunmen, the 19-year-old supply clerk laid in Saddam Hospital suffering from several wounds and broken bones. As her captors discussed amputating her leg, an Iraqi man, who for his protection will be identified only as Mohammad, leaned to her ear and whispered, "Don't worry." Lynch replied with a warm smile."

"He was already working with U.S. Marines to gain the critical information needed to rescue one of the first American prisoners of war in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Just a day earlier, the lawyer from Nasiriyah had walked 10 kilometers to inform American forces he knew where Lynch was being held."

"The shocked Marines asked him to return to the hospital and note certain things. He was tasked with counting the guards and documenting the hospital's layout. Knowing the risk, he agreed to help the young woman he had seen only once. "I came to the hospital to visit my wife," said the Iraqi man whose wife was a nurse. "I could see much more security than normal."

"The man asked one of the doctors about the increased security. "He told me there was a woman American soldier there." Together, the two went to see her. Peering through the room's window, Mohammad saw a sight he claims will stay with him for a life: An Iraqi colonel slapped the soldier, who had been captured after a fierce firefight March 23 -- first with his palm, then with his backhand. "My heart stopped," he said in a soft tone. "I knew then I must help her be saved. I decided I must go to tell the Americans."

"Just days earlier, Mohammad had seen a woman's body dragged through his neighborhood. He said "the animals" were punishing her for waving at a coalition helicopter. The brutal demonstration failed to deter him from going to the Marines. The same day he first saw Lynch, he located a Marine checkpoint. Worried he'd be mistaken for an attacker in civilian clothes, he approached the Marines with his hands high above his head.

"[A Marine sentry] asked, 'What you want?'" Mohammad said. "I want to help you. I want to tell you important information - about Jessica!" After talking with the Marines, he returned to the hospital to gather information. "I went to see the security," he said. "I watched where they stood, where they sat, where they ate and when they slept." While he observed Saddam's henchmen, Mohammad said the notorious regime death squad paid his home an unexpected visit."

"His wife and 6-year-old daughter fled to nearby family. Many of his personal belongings, including his car, were seized. "I am not worried for myself," he said. But "security in Iraq (that is still) loyal to Saddam will kill my wife. They will kill my (child)."

"Meanwhile, Mohammad accompanied his friend into Lynch's tightly guarded room. She was covered up to her chin by a white blanket. Her head was bandaged. A wound on the right leg was in bad condition. "The doctors wanted to cut her leg off," he said. "My friend and I decided we would stop it."

"Creating numerous diversions, they managed to delay the surgery long enough. "She would have died if they tried it," he said. Mohammad walked through battles in the city streets for two straight days to get to back to the hospital. His main mission was to watch the guards, but each morning he also attempted to keep Lynch's spirits strong with a "good morning" in English."

"He said she was brave throughout the ordeal. When reporting back to the Marines on March 30, he brought five different maps he and his wife had made. He was able to point to the exact room the captured soldier was being held in. He also handed over the security layout, reaction plan and times that shift changes occurred. He had counted 41 bad guys and determined a helicopter could land on the hospital's roof. It was just the information the Marines needed. American forces conducted a nighttime raid April 1. Lynch was safely rescued. She has since been transported to a medical facility in Germany."

"Mohammad and his family are now in a secure location and have been granted refugee status. He doesn't feel safe in Nasiriyah, but he hopes things will improve as the war against the regime advances. "Iraq is not a safe place while Saddam Hussein is in power," Mohammad said. "He kills the Iraqi people whenever he wants. I believe the Americans will bring peace and security to the people of Iraq."

"Mohammad's wife said she wants to volunteer to help injured or sick American forces in the future. "America came here to help us," he said. "The Marines are brave men. They have been gentle with the Iraqi people. They are taking out Saddam Hussein. For that, we're grateful."

"Mohammad's family hopes to meet Lynch in the future."

We Wonder - Shouldn't the actions of "Mohammad" be covered under the "Bring Him Home Alive Act."

"Never Have... Never Will" - On April 2nd, Newsmax.Com, published an excellent column by John LeBoutillier, titled "Oh Really." In that column LeBoutillier wrote of the Lynch rescue, stating, in part: "The news media are buzzing over the successful rescue last night of Private First Class Jessica Lynch. All news shows are busy interviewing her family members and the families of other prisoners and missing in Iraq."

"It is wonderful news and a good sign that our nation cares so passionately about our missing troops. But our government wants us to forget other POWs left behind from the Vietnam War, the Cold War and even from the first Gulf War."

"Central Command Spokesman Jim Wilkinson said such rescues were part of the U.S. military ethos. "America doesn't leave its heroes behind, " he said. "Never has. "Never will...."

LeBoutillier goes on to say: "Field-level military officers and enlisted soldiers care passionately about recovering each and every missing soldier. It is when you go higher up into senior ranking uniformed personnel and especially into the ranks of 'political' civilians that you run into all sorts of trouble...."

"The United States government, on the POW issue, has lied repeatedly to the families, the media, the Congress and the public. It is the biggest and most disgraceful cover-up in American history...."

We forwarded this excellent column to our email readers. We were surprised by the number of emails we received on CentCom's Spokesman, Jim Wilkinson's comment of "Never has. Never will." As our readers well know, we have and do, leave men behind.

Perhaps now is the time, for us to make clear, just as LeBoutillier did, the difference between the actions of soldiers, in the field, who will not leave a fellow soldier behind, no matter the risk to their own life and the politicians and military who rise so high in rank, that their decisions are based on political expedience, rather than loyalty to our Service personnel.

Having researched many Vietnam cases, we know how often airmen, soldiers, sailors, and marines have put their lives in danger during search and rescue operations for missing soldiers. In the Plumadore incident, which we often write about, we know many of the Marine and Navy casualties occurred, during attempts to retrieve wounded fellow Marines from the field. In many cases we found soldiers didn't even wait for orders before beginning a search for missing personnel.

The Special Forces, Navy Seals, Marines and Airmen involved in the rescue of Jessica Lynch, risked a great deal, without question. While describing the recovery of remains located near the hospital, General Renuart stated, during a CentCom briefing "They did not have shovels in order to dig those graves up, so they dug them up with their hands, They wanted to do that very rapidly so that they could race the sun and be off the site before the sun came up -- a great testament to the will and desire of coalition forces to bring their own home."

We truly believe a soldier in the field would never leave a fallen comrade behind.

Sadly, we also believe that once the fighting ends, and the question becomes political, rather than military, American soldiers are left behind.

Classification, Does It Protect National Security or National Embarrassment - The following story aired on the local NBC Station here in NY, on April 4th. This story is a perfect example of abuse of the classification laws and the governments application of these laws to hide wrong doing and protect those who should be held responsible.

From the WNBC News Web Site "The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Friday whether to review a case it first decided 50 years ago. U.S. v. Reynolds allows the military to keep documents secret if the government claims they involve national security. But was the original ruling based on a lie?"

"Attorney General John Ashcroft cites U.S. v. Reynolds even now as authority to protect secrets in the war on terror. But a half-century after the original case -- which involved the crash of an air force plane -- victims' relatives say it also shows the government can't be trusted to decide what's secret. The B-29 was considered a flying star of World War II. Called the Superfortress - it was a bomber so advanced it was used to drop atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan."

"But on Oct. 6, 1948, the fabled airplane itself dropped out of the sky during a training mission over Georgia. Nine people, including the officer in command and onboard civilian technicians, were killed. But what went wrong was a military secret for 50 years. At the time, Patricia Herring was married to Robert Reynolds, a New Jersey civilian engineer who died in the crash. It wasn't until documents that had been declassified by the Clinton administration recently appeared for sale on the Internet that relatives learned the truth."

"The Air Force tried to completely cover up what had happened to bring the accident about," Herring said. The official cause of the tragedy is that the plane was "not considered to have been safe for flight" in part because fire prevention parts were never installed. That's despite the B-29's history of flaming crashes. "I was angry. A lot of people died that day," said Judy Loether, a daughter of one of the victims. "My dad was a brilliant man. Why was he on a plane that was such a wreck?"

"How was the investigation report sealed so long? Because after the Air Force claimed it contained military secrets, the Supreme Court declined to order it released. Now that the truth's revealed, a Philadelphia law firm that represented relatives right after the crash is back on the case. "This was an irresistible case for our firm," said Wilson Brown of Drinker, Biddle & Reath. "When a named partner's clients come back to you 50 years after the fact and say, "Look what we've found, can you help us?' you can't say no to that."

"At issue is an extraordinary claim: That the military committed a fraud on the nation's highest court, costing victims' families compensation. A victory in the newly refilled lawsuit could bring surviving relatives more than $1 million. But Loether, who now lives in a suburb of Boston, says it's not about the money. "This is not the way I want my government to be," she said."

"New York University law professor Burt Neuborne has worked on cases involving secrets from the Vietnam War and World War II. "Whenever you allow the government to throw a blanket of secrecy over lots of information, you just know as a statistical matter that a lot of information is not going to be about national security."

"Our government, the Air Force, lied in front of the Supreme Court, the highest court of the United States," Loether said. "In doing so, three widows and five little children never saw justice done." The Air Force responds it has "nothing to say to these allegations because they will play out before the United States Supreme Court." That will start at a closed conference of the Justices Friday morning."

National Security or National Embarrassment - What is the reason so many World War II, Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam and even Gulf War I documents remain classified. You decide......

Speicher -- Last week we wrote about an March 3rd Unclassified Summary on the Case of Capt. Speicher that was recently presented to Congress. This presentation was made in compliance with a new law which requires the Dept. of Defense to brief Congress on the status of the Speicher Case, every 90 days.

We would like to thank those who were able to download and forward the March 3rd 2003 summary, from the web site of Senator Bill Nelson.

After comparison with the original March 2001, summary we came to the same conclusion as Senator Nelson and others. The reports are virtually identical.

According to Steve Patterson of the Jacksonville Times Union, - "The five-page unclassified version of the report is a virtually word-for-word repetition of an unclassified report the Central Intelligence Agency produced in March 2001. Two sentences about remains falsely identified as Speicher's, as well as a sentence fragment about his flight suit, were inserted. Otherwise, there were no meaningful changes. The new report was the first filed by the Pentagon under a law requiring regularly scheduled updates of Speicher's whereabouts."

And The Games Continue -- Law requires the Pentagon to present status updates on the Speicher case every 90 days. When the first report is due, Congress is sent a two year old report, with three sentence changes. No mention is made of the new intelligence obtained since the original report was written.

Why wasn't updated information presented to Congress? We hope some Senator is asking that question?

Why Does Johnnie Webb Still Have A Job?????

New U.S. and China Cooperation on POW Issue - from the Department of Defense, March 29th "A Department of Defense delegation has concluded a visit to China to discuss additional cooperation in resolving POW and MIA cases."

"Jerry D. Jennings, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW and Missing Personnel Affairs, led a team of specialists to China this week to explore opportunities with Chinese officials. During his five days in China, Jennings met with U.S. and Chinese officials to emphasize the commitment of the U.S. government to POW and MIA accounting."

"He met in Beijing with officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense Foreign Affairs Office, and the Red Cross Society of China to discuss ways in which the Chinese government could be of assistance."

"Chinese records may well hold the key to helping us resolve many of the cases of American POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the Cold War," Jennings said."

"The government of China has been very cooperative in our investigations of World War II and Vietnam losses, and has on several occasions notified the U.S. government of China's discovery of some loss sites. Both sides suggested ways to enhance cooperation on Korean War cases and acknowledged that we have limited time to achieve this goal. Toward this end, both sides agreed to increase the frequency of contacts," Jennings

added."

"Last year, China hosted teams of U.S. specialists to investigate two WWII aircraft crash sites and one Cold War crash site. Follow-on investigations are to continue at these sites."

"During the delegation's meetings with Chinese officials, the team explored options for gaining information from Chinese archival materials at the national and provincial levels. These records may be helpful to analysts investigating American POWs and personnel who were lost during combat operations."

"Mr. Jennings requested the assistance of Chinese civilian researchers who could conduct archival research on behalf of the U.S. government. Additionally, the U.S. visitors sought information from the Dandong Museum relating to two F-86 pilots who are missing in action from the Korean War."

"U.S. officials also want to resume contact with Peoples' Liberation Army veterans from the Korean War in order to build upon information related to the Chinese operation of POW camps during the war."

The National Alliance Of Families Fourteenth Annual Forum is scheduled for June 26th - 28th, 2003. Our forum is conducted to coincide with the Governments annual Vietnam POW/MIA Family Briefings. We urge all family members to attend this years government briefings. A separate briefing for Korean/Cold War families will be held in July. The government will provide free airfare to two family members to attend the government briefings. There is no charge or registration fee to attend the government briefings and you do not have to belong to an organization to attend these briefings.

This year the Alliance meeting will be held at the Sheraton Crystal City located at 1800 Jefferson Davis Highway, in Arlington Va. Rate for single or double occupancy is $99.00 per night plus tax.

Many of you will remember this hotel from the previous Alliance meetings (1994 - 96). The hotel is located across the street from both the Crystal City Underground Food Court and the Metro Stop. The Sheraton is within walking distance of the hotel hosting the government briefings. The Alliance is working on transportation between hotels for those who prefer to ride. To make your reservations, call 703-486-1111 and remember to say you want the special National Alliance of Families 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: