BARB SWORSKI

When interest in the POW/MIA issue began to swell in the mid 1980’s, Barb Sworski -- a Minneapolis housewife -- decided to become involved in it, for the purpose of helping the MIA families. She began attending meetings of a local POW/MIA organization led at that time by a POW/MIA activist and his wife, who served as Executive Director and Treasurer of the organization.

The group met at the activist’s home initially, then began meeting at VFW and American Legion posts as the numbers grew. Eventually, Barb became a member of the Board of Directors of the organization, but in 1990, she left the organization, discouraged, she said, by their preoccupation with fundraising.

Instead, she volunteered to participate in the fledgling National Alliance of POW/MIA Families, as a co-ordinator.

The Alliance was chronically poor, but with the assistance of Sworski and Lynn O’Shea, and the promotion of a national Veterans’ magazine published by POW/MIA activist Ted Sampley, a movement was started that raised the organization to national prominence. Sworski’s work was not glamorous. In the period before the internet, she operated a fax and phone tree to get information and newsletters to partisans around the country. To gather the information, she was constantly on the phone to individuals around the country who wanted information and organizational help.

Each year, Barb and a few others did the volunteer work to make the Alliance’s convention in Washington D.C. a success. Her travel and lodging expenses for the event were made at her own expense.The convention drew a large crowd of activists and MIA family members, held at the same time as the convention held by the National League of POW/MIA Families nearby.

All of this was done with no pay -- in fact, the cost for almost all of this effort was paid out of her own pocket. Phone bills often amounted to more than $500.00 per month for calls and faxes, plus postage and copy expenses for copying articles that were mailed around the country.

But all of this effort also made her a target for other activists. Shortly after Sworski left the local POW/MIA organization, the Executive Director and his wife told supporters that the Alliance’s Executive Director -- Delores Alfond -- had made a statement suggesting that they were dishonest, and that the statement had made the Executive Director’s wife, emotionally distraught.

Rumors spread rapidly in the veterans and POW/MIA community, and this one was no exception. Supporters of the organization were outraged, and prompted one MIA family member -- a member of the POW/MIA organization's Board -- to write a scathing letter to Alfond. Alfond eventually responded, saying she had never made such a statement, but by then the damage was done, and the correction -- as is so often the case -- got lost in the rumor mill. Once accepted as fact, rumors often refuse to die. As a result, Sworski’s efforts to promote and support the Alliance was met with silence in the veterans community. No veterans posts supported the Alliance, nor did the State leaders of the veterans organizations. Any money raised by the posts, or at the State level, went to the local POW/MIA activist.

In 1993, Sworski decided that she had to do more than just fax and mail documents. In an effort to pursuade more veterans to support her cause, she decided to sponsor a series of speakers, beginning with Jerry Mooney -- the NSA analyst who had disclosed that during the Vietnam War, he had monitored the capture of some POW’s who did not return. Mooney had testified during the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs hearings in 1992, but had not spoken publicly, due to intimidation by his former employer. Sworski pursuaded him to to come to Minneapolis, and speak at a VFW post there. Mooney said he was going to “blow the lid off” the POW/MIA issue, but his lecture -- monitored by a uniformed colonel from the Pentagon who took notes during the lecture -- was essentially a retelling of past information. The turnout was strong, but afterwards, no one invited Sworski to speak at veterans events, and no one solicited support for the Alliance from their posts.

Barb’s second coup was a speaking engagement by Bobby Garwood -- the American soldier who had been a prisoner of the Vietnamese and remained in Vietnam after the war ended. Garwood is a controversial figure who had been court-martialed after he was able to make his existence known to a European businessman and win return to the USA. He agreed to come to Minneapolis, along with his attorney and their wives. They spoke at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Sworski paid most of the expenses, with some help from a VFW post auxiliary. Garwood drew a large crowd, and subsequently spoke at one other event, then declined any additional invitations. Again, the event failed to win Sworski any support for the Alliance.

Eventually, discouraged by the expense she was asked to bear, and the burden it placed on her family, Sworski decided to end her volunteer work for the Alliance. Still interested in the cause, she stays informed, but no longer has a volunteer role.

There are many people like Barb who become involved in the POW/MIA issue, seeking to make a diffference. They seek to become part of a social movement, but soon find that they are part of a political contest over who will lead it, and who will control it. The element within the issue that seeks to exploit the movement for financial gain inflames the facts of the cause to increase their influence, and uses people like Barb, and Delores. Eventually, honest people like Barb Sworski become discouraged and leave, but after months or years of very hard work, and financial sacrifice. Whether they were helping the right people is not the point here. They tried to make a difference, worked hard to accomplish that difference, and made signifiant personal sacrifices for the sole purpose of helping the families learn the truth about their loved ones, and for that the Families should be grateful.

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