The National Alliance of Families mourns the passing of Kathryn E. Serex, daughter of Lt. Col. Henry M. Serex POW/MIA April 2, 1972 in Vietnam. Ms. Serex, passed on September 8^th, after a long illness.

We offer our deepest sympathy to her mother, Barbara Serex-Lundeen; sister, Jennifer Serex-Helwig; and the entire Serex family.

A Little Bragging - the August 16^th edition of "Bits" containing the revelations of "Buddy" was picked up and published on both "Defense Watch" for SFFT.org and Military.Com. We bring this up because we want to share with you two of the many comments received. For obvious reasons, we are withholding the identity of the first writer.

"Lynn, Just read your article on Scott Speicher on military.com. Please keep up the good work. I am retired from the Navy with 23 years. When I was on active duty, it was common knowledge not to believe anything that came out of the Pentagon. Lies about Agent Orange, body counts in Vietnam and Persian Gulf Syndrome are the Pentagon's legacy."

"Unfortunately, you won't find many people in Washington who are willing to put their careers on the line and tell the truth. It is sad what their actions are doing to the families. Once again, please keep up the good work. May God bless you in your endeavors."

Another comment comes from Don Amorosi of the Northeast POW/MIA Network.

"Lynn, Why are we unable to convey the fact that the "age old" tenet of the USG that it is the obligation of the families and ours to prove that a POW/MIA is alive is INCORRECT AND UNACCEPTABLE?"

"Until comprehensive, believable evidence is offered by the government indicating the death of a missing person, that person must be considered alive; NOTHING ELSE CAN BE ACCEPTED."

"If the USG would devote the time and resources that it expends on debunking and discrediting every source dedicated to an honest resolution of the POW/MIA issue to actively pursuing information afforded them, I believe many would have already returned home."

"My dedication to this issue will not waver, but I am offended when the government I once served treats me like a fool and a criminal."

POWs in Pyongyang - that was the lead in for an August 25^th edition of the Washington Times column "Inside The Ring" by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough. The article states: "We have obtained a Defense Intelligence Agency report that states four American prisoners of war from the Korean War were sighted in North Korea in 1993. A North Korean defector reported seeing the four POWs at the Changkwangsan Hotel coffee shop in Pyongyang in August or September of 1993."

"The POWs were described as being in their 50s or 60s and were under the control of the North Korean military's reconnaissance bureau. They were in the North Korean capital to give a lecture on American "armed power." The POWs were being transported in a Mercedes-Benz."

"The report, declassified at the request of the Coalition of Families of Korean and Cold War POW/MIAs, also said that as of 1990 at least 10 U.S. prisoners, including "an unknown number of black men," were being held by North Korea in the Sungho district of Pyongyang."

"Also, in 1986 two Americans were spotted in Pyongyang teaching "western customs, western lifestyle and English" at a North Korean Communist Party school. The defector stated that he estimates that as many 60 American POWs are in North Korea.."

"The declassified DIA report comes after admissions by North Korea that its intelligence services kidnaped Japanese nationals and held them for decades. Japan's government wants the issue of its abducted nationals to be raised during the six-party talks with North Korea on its nuclear program. American POW activists want the issue of missing American soldiers in North Korea raised at the Beijing talks as well, we are told."

Why We Didn't Stop The Presses - Normally, a column with that headline and the information that followed, would call for a special edition of "Bit" to spread the word. However, in this case we are forced to temper our enthusiasm.

The reason.... this is not the first report we've seen about Americans in a coffee shop. A more detailed report, which seems to be based on the report quoted by Gertz and Scarborough appears in a "Background Paper" titled "Accountability of Missing Americas From the Korean War Live Sighting Reports" prepared by DPMO analyst I.O. Lee, in March 1996.

This "Background Paper" talks of two distinct groups of American's. The first is a "small group of four personnel is comprised of American soldiers who defected to North Korea in the 1960's." [Note: We have written extensively, in "Bits" regarding the supposed "deserters" in North Korea. While we still have questions as to their true status, deserter vs. kidnap victim, today we will use the description of deserter, as it is used in the Background Paper.]

The paper goes on to state: "According to North Korean defectors, PFC Dresnok is married to a North Korean and has a daughter. One of the North Korean defectors met Sgt. Jenkins in a coffee shop in Pyongyang. Sgt. Jenkins told the North Korean defector that he is now ready to return to America...."

Frankly, the odds of two groups of four Americans being sighted and reported in a Pyongyang coffee shop in the same time frame are pretty high.

This does not mean there are no POWs, as listed by the U. S. Government, in North Korea. They are there and the Background Paper addresses this subject.

Mr. Lee discusses Prisoner of War, in detail, saying: "A second, larger group of Americans is comprised of US service members, most likely POWs from the Korean War and possibly Vietnam War era."

Lee goes on to say: "One of the most compelling reports received over the years was a sighting reported to DOD by a Romanian in 17 Feb 1988."

"On October 1979, Mr. Oprica, a former Romanian, now a naturalized U.S. citizen, along with other Romanians employed at a North Korean factory in Pyongyang was on a North Korean Government sponsored sight seeing trip. During this bus trip, the bus driver appeared to be disoriented and drove the bus through a collective farm. During this trip, he observed 7 - 10 Caucasians, including one individual with blue eyes, working in the fields. The workers appeared to be in their 50's Mr. Oprica was told by a female passenger that the Caucasians farmers were American prisoners of war. Mr. Oprica was unable to recall who the lady was and how she determined the Caucasian farmers were American POWs. On 24 Nov 95, another passenger on the bus, Mr. Florin Tomescu was finally located in Romania and interviewed. He confirmed seeing Caucasians working on a farm and the location of the collective farm to be somewhere between Pyongyang and the city of Nampo."

Lee concluded his report saying: "There are too many live sighting reports, specifically observations of several Caucasians in a collective farm by Romanians and the North Korean defectors' eyewitness of Americans in DPRK to dismiss that there are no American POWs in North Korea."

Gertz and Scarborough are correct there are POWs in Pyongyang. Unfortunately, it seems their article focused on the American's whose status could be debated, rather that the "second, larger group of Americans.... comprised of US service members, most likely POWs from the Korean War and possibly Vietnam War era."

No "Secret Report" On Speicher Case - the following is excerpted from an article by Timothy W. Maier, published by Insight, on September 3, 2003. "When someone leaked to the Washington Times last month the so-called "secret two-page Pentagon report" that suggested U.S. Navy aviator Capt. Michael Scott Speicher died when his F-18 Hornet was shot down Jan. 17, 1991, the feisty Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) figured it was a message to back off of his crusade to find out what had happened to the pilot still missing from the Persian Gulf War. An infuriated Nelson slammed the pessimistic news story in the Times, claiming it was full of faulty information, such as labeling as a liar an Iraqi defector who claims to have seen Speicher alive. Nelson demanded to see the Pentagon report."

"But, to his surprise, the Pentagon told him straight out that there is no Pentagon report. After a little more digging Nelson's staff learned that this two-page document, dated June 23, actually was written by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) - which also repeatedly had debunked stories that U.S. servicemen were left behind in Vietnam. "There was nothing new in the report," insists Nelson, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who helped push Speicher's promotion last year to captain. The DIA report rebukes allegations by an Iraqi defector known as "2314" who claims to have given Speicher a ride to a Baghdad hospital. The report says the assessment that Speicher survived the crash primarily is based on information provided by "2314," although Nelson insists there are more witnesses and more intelligence information, such as the recovery of the American pilot's flight suit, which when put together lead to a probability that Speicher survived. The DIA's bleak picture appeared to suggest Speicher probably died in the fiery crash....."

"The DIA report conflicts with an earlier CIA report delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in March 2001. The CIA report stated, "Iraq can account for Lt. Cmdr. Speicher, [but] is concealing information about his fate." It also claimed Speicher ejected with at least an "85 to 90 percent chance of surviving. ... We assess Speicher was either captured alive or his remains were recovered and brought to Baghdad." It was the CIA report that forced president Bill Clinton to change Speicher's status from killed in action to missing in action/captured (MIA) - 10 days before Clinton left office on Jan. 11, 2001. The DIA report also fails to mention that the Iraqi defector, who claimed to have driven Speicher to Baghdad, had passed two lie-detector tests. Instead the report says he will be given a lie-detector test."

"Somebody is leaking disinformation that is incorrect," says Nelson, who made a trip to Iraq in July and visited a cell in Hakmiya Prison in Baghdad where Speicher's initials, M.S.S., were carved into a wall of a prison cell. "He didn't die in the crash. I truly believe that someone is trying to kill the Speicher investigation," the Florida senator insists."

"Sources familiar with the DIA report say the analysis in the two-page document did not come from senior intelligence officials but nonetheless was handed to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The DIA report amounted to field observations but did take into account some recent findings - including one set of the M.S.S. initials etched onto the Baghdad prison wall in cell 46, Insight sources say. The report did not take into account another set of initials that were discovered, M.J.M., which some believe represent his two children, Meghan and Michael, and his former wife, Joanne, who remarried after being told her husband was killed in action. She has declined this magazine's request for an interview...."

"However, the DIA report also notes that an Iraqi prisoner reported to U.S. Marines that he heard two prison guards discussing the "U.S. pilot," providing enough doubt for Nelson to continue his campaign to find or account for Speicher."

"Pentagon sources say Nelson's high-profile approach of holding press conferences and posting pictures on his Website of himself pointing at the initials found in the prison cell have created an adversarial relationship between the senator and the Pentagon. Says one senior official, "Nelson is handling this just as badly as Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) handled the Vietnam MIA issue."

"Asked if he was being a publicity hound, as suggested by senior Pentagon personnel, Nelson snapped, "I am doing this for the family. And I am not going to stop until I get some answers!"

The Speicher Flight Suit - the Maier article also touches on another topic, the Speicher Flight Suit. According to the article Speicher family attorney Cindy Laquidara addressed the "many news stories.... riddled with falsehoods, including allegations that it may not be Speicher's flight suit that was recovered and that he may not have ejected. "It is his flight suit. It's not alleged. It's his," she says, noting that witnesses have identified it as belonging to Speicher. "And he did eject!"

That brings us to our question..... Where Is Speicher's Flight Suit? - the book "No One Left Behind" states the flight suit is missing. We discussed the missing flight suit with our source "Buddy," along with the Maier article. These are Buddy's comments [Note: Buddy's comments appear in Bold Italics.]

"I had not seen the Maier article - it is very interesting and touches on a lot of possibilities. I like the two that there may be an underground prison (previous indications were that he was held three stories down) and that he may be held by Saddam as a trophy. I think both make sense. There continue to be comments about the flight suit and what it should have or did reveal. Have you ever seen any report of analysis of the flight suit?"

When we responded that we had not seen any reports on the flight suit and read that it was missing, we got the following response. "I heard a month or so ago that when the flight suit was being transferred between agencies, they lost it! Have heard nothing since then...., so I suspect it remains missing. I think someone in Government needs to stand up and tell what really happened with it - maybe you can twist an arm or two."

Maybe We Should Be Asking Our Congressmen - How can agencies responsible for locating POWs and MIAs loose such a valuable piece of evidence?

MIA- Solved - That was the title of a program aired recently on the History Channel. The program focused on the Central Identification Laboratory - Hawaii (CIL-HI) and their ability to identify remains recovered from the battlefields of America's past wars. An email even circulated stating that if enough viewers watched the show, it might become a regular series.

We didn't watch the show. However, if it does become a series, we have a few ideas for new episodes.

"The Great Impostor" -- The story of Tadeo Furue. During the 1980's, Furue passed himself off as an anthropologist, and identified the remains of dozens of U.S. Servicemen using his own technique of "morphological approximation." The scientific community found this "technique" had no scientific base and was deemed invalid. Yet, identification based on "morphological approximation" stand.

"The New Math 1 + 0 = 8" -- How CILHI can take the identifiable remains of one man and based on those remains identify 7 other men. This, in spite of the fact, investigators stated there was no evidence to confirm all 8 men were in the plane when it crashed.

"Something From Nothing" - Two empty coffins are buried at Arlington, under the headstones of Spec 4 Joel C. Hatley and Capt. David L. Nelson, based on CIL-HI's "remains identification" or should we say lack of remains identification.

"Ad Lib" - How 1550 unidentifiable bone fragments equaling no more than one man becomes 10 men. Evidence to prove all 10 men were in the aircraft ... None. Survivor's statement put two men out of the aircraft and a third makes voice contact with Search and Rescue. Governments position.... it was the survivor who made voice contact. Survivor says.... not me

"Creative Identifications" - no teeth, no identifiable remains, no mt-DNA testing and circumstantial evidence consisting of, among other generic items, a spring from a ball point pen, CIL-HI identifies two pilots. So egregious is this identification, the Armed Forces Identification Review Board refuses to uphold the identification and the two men are returned to the list of the missing.

"Tooth Fairy Identification" - ½ of one tooth equals 4 men, one or two teeth equal 1 man, or 7 men or 8 men. Only at CIL-HI is the loss of a tooth fatal to both the owner and anyone near him. For the season finale our personal favorite....

"Into the Unknown" - How, in 1984, the head of CIL-HI, Maj. Johnie Webb, knowingly signed documents that stripped Lt. Michael J. Blassie of his identity. With this action, the Blassie remains were interned as the Vietnam Unknown. Blassie served as the Vietnam Unknown until 1998, when results of a two year investigation by Ted Sampley of the Last Firebase Archives Project and CBS News became public.

Why does Johnie Webb still have a job???

Update on H. RES 103 - In addition to Representative Peter King, who introduced H. RES 103, we now have 27 cosponsors. We need an additional 191 cosponsors to reach our goal of 218.

To date the cosponsors, in addition the Representative King, are:

We need a total of 218 cosponsors for H. RES 103 to establish in the "House of Representatives a Select Committee to be known as the Select Committee POW and MIA Affair."

According to the legislation: "The select committee shall conduct a full investigation of all unresolved matters relating to any United States personnel unaccounted for from the Vietnam era, the Korean conflict, World War II, Cold War Missions, or Gulf War, including MIA's and POW's."

A word about this legislation, the faster it is passed, the longer the investigation. If we are reading the legislation correctly, even if passed, this committee will end in January 2005. We really need to push for co-sponsors.

If you need a sample letter, Jennifer Martinez has provided an excellent one. To view it visit

http://www.nationalalliance.org/leg/sample.htm

You can also call your congressional representative at 1-877-762-8762. A listing of all Congressional Representatives, with phone and fax numbers may be found at http://www.nationalalliance.org/leg/list.htm

IMPORTANT: When you send your letter make sure that you refer to the resolution. as H.RES 103, so it is not confused with other legislation with the same number

We need to put out the same type of effort used to pass the Speicher Bill.

We need everyone calling their Congressional Representatives asking that they co-sponsor H.RES.103. If you've already called and faxed, call and fax again! Please make the call, write the letters and send the faxes.

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A Word About Our Schedule For Bit 'N' Pieces - It might be a bit irregular over the next several months. As always we will bring braking news to you as quickly as possible.