..............................................................THE PLAYERS................................................................

The people involved in the POW/MIA issue can be divided into several groups of diverse individuals.
On the surface, they have nothing in common, yet they are drawn into a relationship together supporting a
common cause. Each derives something from the issue that he/she desperately needs. All of them -- all but
one -- share a common quality; they are all vulnerable. The remaining group preys on them.

The Vietnam War was a bad experience, for the nation, and for the men who fought there. It was
America's first failure to be victorious on the battlefield. No one knew what that meant, in real terms.
In all previous wars, American forces held the enemy capital, and release of American POWs, and
accounting for the missing, was reasonably easy. We could go wherever we wanted to go, and do
whatever we wanted to do. We could find out whatever we wanted to know. But in Vietnam, that was
turned around. The enemy held his Capitol. It was the Americans who had to humbly ask for information
about our missing. We still ask today, and we are still awaiting answers that we know they can provide.

In previous wars, the American public and its fighting forces had been conditioned to believe that there
were rules in war. They were conditioned to believe that their own forces fought with a dignity and honor
that the enemy did not follow. They were conditioned to believe that America always did what was right.
When the enemy held the field at the end of the Vietnam War, Americans expected that the rules of warfare
would be applied to their own missing and prisoners of war, just as they had been told that America had
conducted itself in previous wars. In reality, there is only one rule in warfare: survival. It is the defining rule
that dictates the conduct of the war. When the war ends, the victor makes the rules, and the victor is the
one who holds the field.

At first, no one wanted to talk about the war.

Gradually, a few people began to raise questions about some of the men left behind, unaccounted for.
Some were known to be prisoners during the war. To be sure, the Pentagon expected that many more
men were indeed held prisoner, and cutting the line to set America adrift from Vietnam was an emotional
experience for those who fought there, and left friends there. They wanted to believe that it was not their
intention to leave men on the battlefield. It was their own nightmare when they had served there, and
many survived by pledging their loyalty to each other. They could not live with the possibility that they may
have been partially responsible for men captured and left behind, and so, they began a quest to make sure that
every man had been accounted for, to be sure that no man had been left in the hands of the enemy.
For some, it was a quest to preserve their own sanity. Their obsession made them vulnerable.

Then, there were the families of the missing men.

They had not been scarred by the horrors of battle. The war was a television show. It became real when
the casualty officers knocked on their door with the news that their loved one was missing. Still, it was not
yet reality. It was a dream, because in many cases, there were no remains to confront, no details of the fate, and no closure. For many families, it would be up to ten years before they learned that their loved one was not
among the prisoners listed by Vietnam at the end of the War. Children had grown up. Wives had become
older. Parents had become elderly. When the war ended, they did not want to accept the odds; they wanted
answers. They too, could not walk away from the battlefield; they could not desert their loved one. In effect,
they were trapped in an emotional nightmare. They came from all walks of life, all educational backgrounds.
They had not chosen to be family members of the missing. They were unprepared to lobby the Pentagon and the Congress, and public opinion, but they banded together in the attempt to do so. Their diversity, and their fear,
made them vulnerable.

Another group attracted to the issue is also composed of vulnerable people, and perhaps, the least likely to
become involved in the issue. Their vulnerability is derived from a variety of reasons, but all seek meaning to
their lives. Some are recently divorced or the victim of an unhappy home life, some have difficulty establishing meaningful relationships with other people. Some are simply lonely. Their lives seem pointless. The POW/MIA issue seems to be a cause that cries out for them, that no one else seems to be responding too.

The bare facts of the POW/MIA issue are compelling. It appears to be a Government conspiracy that a sleeping
public is unaware of. These people are not just interested in it, they commit their lives to it, and in doing so, they
become vulnerable. Roles are found for them in the forefront of the issue, and suddenly, they are doing something important. They have become important. Many provide a genuine, and sincere service to the families, and to the
cause of the missing in general. Some, including many sincere and dedicated volunteers, are simply manipulated by
the predators involved in the issue, for the purpose of promoting the paranoia that sells bracelets and T-shirts.

The more extreme individuals in this group are often referred to as the "wanabe's" -- those who pretend to be
Vietnam veterans, former POW's, or MIA family members, in order to get attention.

A fourth group is less vulnerable, but vulnerable nonetheless. They are not socially crippled. They are not trapped
in the issue like the family members. But, they share some of the weaknesses of both groups. They are Vietnam veterans.

Most are too aware of what war means. They know the brutality with which wars are conducted, and they view
the enigma of missing men with very cold reasoning. In war, men die. Some die in large battles. Some die isolated
and lost. Some die quickly, in battle. Some die slowly, in the hands of the enemy. Sometimes there are bodies,
sometimes there is a momentary pink mist enveloped in a massive explosion. The older the veteran, the
more likely he is to be skeptical. They are found in the nation's VFWs and American Legion halls. They are found
in the active-duty military, including the highest levels of the Defense Department, and those involved in the search
for the missing. They may decided they owe a responsibility to their missing comrades, and support the memory of
the missing men, and the plight of the families who seek their fate. They may support various views, and various personalities within the issue. They may support the Defense Department they fought for, or they may buy into the conspiracy theory. In doing so, all of them share one thing; they commit themselves to that view, and those
personalities. Once committed, most do not see, and do not want to see anything that might suggest that they made a mistake. They are, after all, only human.

The final group of people involved in the issue preys on the former groups. They may enter the cause for good
reason, but somewhere along the way, they betray it. Each shares one quality: a willingness to use the vulnerability
of the vulnerable groups, to achieve a personal need. For some, the need is greed. The POW/MIA symbol is public domain. There is a tremendous market for pins, bracelets, and clothing with the emblem. It is a largely cash business.
What may start as an effort to create public awareness of the MIA's eventually becomes a struggle to eliminate competitors -- other veterans and family members who threaten their market in some way.

For other predators, the needs are less obvious, but hardly petty. Some simply seek attention, including some
politicians. Others want to manipulate government policy and are more than willing to use public sympathy for the missing as a means to do it. There are, in this shadowy world, powerful men in government and the military, more than willing to take advantage of these vulnerable people if it will provide guns for rebels, guns to kill rebels, or American troops to eliminate an enemy that the elected government is willing to tolerate. The vulnerable groups are an army of volunteers. The predatory group uses them, in some cases fleeces them, then discards them.

POSTSCRIPT:
This outline of POW/MIA players would not be complete without mention of a very critical group of veterans on whom this issue focuses -- the former POW's. They comprise as much a mix of individuals and characters as you might expect from any slice of humanity -- including some saints, and some scoundrels. Many of the dullards who personally identify with this cause go into cardiac arrest at the thought of criticising one of these former POW's; to them I have a very simple answer: Senator John McCain. These same individuals who want to lynch anyone who dares criticize a POW are the same people who persecute Senator McCain in the most vile ways.

The truth is, these former POW's have only two things in common: they are Vietnam vets, and they were captured, held as POWs, then released. Some were held for eight years or more. Many went on with their lives after returning home. Some excelled spectacularly, like Senator McCain. Others sank into emotional turmoil. A few were drawn into the POW/MIA issue, but they are no less suspect than any other individuals in this issue, and some have proven themselves to be as callous, and as predatory, as the worst of the POW/MIA activists.

Senator McCain is an enigma. Those in the DOD, those who have worked closely with him investigating this issue, say McCain is a good guy, not a bad guy. Publicly, McCain has no patience with the POW/MIA issue, or the people involved in it. He is a feisty individual, and he doesn't mince words. He advocates relations with Vietnam, while at the same time saying he will always remember them as the people who tortured him.

One other individual POW deserves mention here: Perhaps no other POW did more to get family members of MIA's caught up in the POW/MIA jungle than Major Mark Smith. Smith and his associate, Sargent Melvin McIntyre filed a lawsuit against the President alleging that the President had failed to take action to rescue POW's in Laos that Smith had learned of while training Thai troops in the early 1980's. This lawsuit gave the POW/MIA issue a credibility and publicity that it had only hoped to create prior to this time. Some POW/MIA family members had emotional breakdowns. Some traveled to Laos only to be rebuffed. Others were approached by the lowest of con artists and were fleeced while being fed phony information about their loved ones.

Smith's lawsuit was eventually thrown out, and Smith disappeared back into the jungles of Thailand and Laos. For eight years very few people heard from him. His isolation can be demonstrated by the list of people he stayed in contact with, because while the issue grew to have a life of its own, Smith maintained contact with a few individuals who say Smith would occasionally call and ask for money, but beyond that, there was little communication.

By his own account, Smith was busy operating with anti-Lao Guerillas operating out of Thailand. Eventually, Lao troops failed to stop at the Thai border in pursuit of these forces, creating a brief but hot war betweeen the two countries. The result was that Thailand deported the leaders of the rebel group, and shortly after that, Smith came back to the United States.
For about a year, Smith toured the POW/MIA groups, speaking and soliciting help for his friends back in Thailand. He didn't want money; he said he needed vitamins, and people launched vitamin drives for Smith's troops. Finally, Smith sent out an "urgent" fax to all the POW/MIA groups, saying that three anti-government groups had launched a coordinated offensive against the Government of Laos, and appealed for money to support them. This author is personally acquainted with three individuals who were in the area of Laos where Smith said the fighting was taking place. These individuals said there was no fighting, not even rumors of fighting. Life in that part of Laos was normal.

Since then, Smith has returned to an old story that was spread in the late 1980's, preaching that American POW's are living openly in restricted areas of Laos, and cannot leave.

There are a few things that can be noted with certainty about Smith. He was an Army Green Beret who was wounded, captured, and reportedly chained in a hole in the ground for almost a year by his Lao captors. He was promoted to Major while a POW, but according to most DOD sources, he had no future in the Army, and his career was essentially over when he filed his lawsuit. He claims that he was operating an intelligence network while in Thailand for the Army, but the Army says his network was nothing more than a collection of rumors being spread by the same disreputable people who were fleecing the families. They say his "network' was unofficial at best. Smith was associated with some high level right-wing officers known for their eagerness to support further fighting in SouthEast Asia -- not to free POWs, but to kill communists.

Finally, one glaring inconsistency must be pointed about about Smith's involvement in the POW/MIA issue. After 20 years of on-the-ground activity in Laos, after 20 years of intimate involvement with forces allegedly operating throughout Laos, Smith has failed to produce one piece of evidence that Americans exist alive in Laos. Even today, he claims that Americans are living openly in restricted areas, yet his jungle forces have not been able to produce one photo, recording, fingerprint, strand of hair or fingernail clipping for DNA analysis, from a POW. That should speak volumes about what Smith is really about, yet a cult of followers exists who breath his every word as if it comes from a Saint.

There can be no denying that Smith has devoted what remained of his life after the Vientam War, to getting even with the forces who held him and tormented him. But time and again he has shown that his talk of POWs is riddled with inconsistencies. A former POW he may be, but he is no Saint. He no doubt has an agenda, but it apparently does not involve POWs.

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