. DENNIS & JOYCE ADAMSCHECK

In 1984, Dennis Adamscheck was at a meeting of his local VFW Post 3979 in
Cloquet, Minnesota when someone passed around a cup for donations to the POW/MIA
cause. Dennis looked at the few dimes and quarters contributed and wondered what this
pitiful collection meant. He went home and began looking into the POW/MIA issue. He
began calling and writing to people. Soon, he was corresponding with people around the
world, and providing others with volumes of printed materials about the missing American
POWs.

His contacts included John Noble -- an American imprisoned by the Russians after
W.W.II, Laird Gutterson -- a Minnesotan imprisoned as a POW 5 years by the
Vietnamese, Steve Kiba -- an American Held by the Chinese after the Korean War, Major
Mark Smith -- a former Vietnam POW who sued the President, and Congressman Billy
Hendon.

He began getting documents in the mail from an anonymous source, detailing
information about Americans held back by their captors after the Vietnam war ended, and
after the Korean War and W.W.II. He became convinced that Americans had been left
behind after these wars, and it became his quest to do something about them. He began
by writing a letter to his local newspaper. It was published, and he wrote more, sending
them around the country. He became a clearing house of information that he mailed
around the world at his own expense, until eventually, it almost broke him, and his family
made him stop. Though he inspired many others to take up the cause, he himself became a
victim of the pettiness and corruption that eventually permeated the issue. He started a
movement that raised millions of dollars, but he never saw any of it. Instead, others
harvested the funds, and Dennis was abandoned, and left behind.

Dennis is no Sunday soldier. A former heavyweight prize fighter, the gentle giant spent
four years in the Army airborne as an MP, then returned to prizefighting briefly, and
re-enlisted in the Air Force MP/Security Force. For the next 16 years he lived in isolated
locations around the world guarding nuclear defense installations.

The determination and drive that Dennis poured into the POW/MIA issue also served
him well after he retired from the Air Force. He owned three businesses in Cloquet and a
large log home in the northern Minnesota woods.

There were very few people interested in the POW/MIA issue when Dennis became
active in it. The families had fought a lonely battle for over ten years to bring attention to
their need for answers, but the veterans community had been uninterested. There were a
few individuals working on the issue -- loners like Adrian Fisch in St James, Minnesota,
who had served in Vietnam and sought answers to the fate of his friend who was MIA in
Vietnam. Adrian had been researching the subject since 1968, and was instrumental in
funneling information to many families concerning their loved ones -- information that
hadn’t made it into their files, or was being withheld from them. Billy Hendon had been
retained as a consultant to the secretary of defense Weinberger to scour the DIA files for
evidence of POWs left behind, and after his work was done, he became a lone crusader for
the cause, instrumental in generating support by feeding information to people like Dennis.
Beyond these people there was nothing -- no interest, no information, no support.

After Dennis’s letter was published he began seeking new ways to promote awareness
of the cause. He decided to sponsor a POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremony in Cloquet.
One of his first acts was to call General Sieben of the Minnesota National Guard. He
wanted a military presence for the ceremony. Sieben turned him down. Dennis called
Washington, and a few days later an aide to General Sieben called and asked him what he
needed. The result was incredible.

Thanks to Dennis’s organizational skill and determination, and the help of Cloquet's veterans
organizations, fraternal organizations, individual citizens and members of the Minnesota
Highway Patrol, Carlton County Sherriff's Deparment and the Cloquet Police Department,
thousands of people showed up in this small Minnesota town, dwarfing any event the city had
ever hosted.

Helicoptors with National Guard officials, as well as television helicopters landed and
took off throughout the day from the little park where the event was staged. Six howitzers
manned by National Guard troops fired a salute to the missing men, whose names were
called out during the ceremony. Dennis had shown people what could be done, and he had
shown people that there was a growing interest in the missing men. Others began to take
up the cause.

At this point Dennis was outgrowing his modest personal campaign. He and his wife Joyce formed an
organization -- Minnesota Won’t Forget POW/MIA, Inc., and began raising money to pay
some of the costs of his work. He had T-shirts and caps printed with the organization
logo, and began selling them at Veterans events. He traveled all over the country
speaking and urging people to create awareness of the evidence of the men who were
unaccounted for. At his own expense, and at a cost that almost destroyed him financially,
he provided printed material to other potential activists nationwide.

Eventually, Congressman Billy Hendon urged Dennis to form a national organization
to promote the issue. Dennis did so, and America Won’t Forget POW/MIA, Inc. was
formed. He turned over Minnesota Won't Forget to a group of POW/MIA family members,
along with $2,000.00 worth of merchandise to get them started. But by now, other grass roots
organizations and a few hustlers were well on their way to promoting the cause, and Dennis’s
efforts reached a peak, and leveled off. In his isolated location, he didn’t have the volunteers
necessary to grow.

Others were effective at fundraising and raised large amounts of money to support their
efforts, and some sought to eliminate other fund-raisers like Dennis. Dennis found it more
and more difficult to get financial support -- but that didn’t slow him down. He simply
made up the difference out of his own pocket. One day, complaining to a member of his
VFW post that the post was not doing enough to support the issue, the individual admitted
to Dennis that “someone in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul ( the population center
of Minnesota, and the headquarters for the State veterans organizations) was telling people not
to trustDennis,” and not to give him money. When Dennis was invited to speak before a veterans group
in the Twin Cities a local POW/MIA activist told him to stay out of the Twin Cities area. It hurt
Dennis, but it didn’t slow him down. As demand for his brochures and merchandise mounted,
Dennis met the demand out of his own pocket, providing the material free to anyone who asked
for it, including the shipping costs.

But it eventually caught up with him. One day in 1992, his sons and his wife sat down
with him and told him he had to stop. The money for his efforts had been coming from his
businesses, and the businesses were having difficulty because of it. Dennis sold his largest
business -- a waste hauling company, and turned over a cleaning company to one son. He
sold his dream house in the woods and moved into Cloquet.

Dennis hasn’t abandoned the POW/MIA issue, but he is no longer a leader of it. He is
still in contact with the major personalities who created the first interest in this cause, but
he no longer travels, and no longer speaks on the issue. Perhaps, if Dennis had done
nothing, others would have done what Dennis did. Others would have sought to spread
the word and encourage others, and others would eventually have generated what
eventually became a national movement. However, The fact is, Dennis was there first,
when nobody else cared. He stepped into the breach, and with personal determination,
tremendous drive, and a genuine dedication to the men he had served with, he made a
difference.

. RETURN