HEROES or HUCKSTERS?
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
I first started talking about POWs while in Vietnam as a Marine. Universally, all of us wanted to head north and get them out. We were under clear orders, fight to the death, never be captured, never leave anyone behind. They will be tortured and slaughtered. This was official USMC policy in Vietnam.
We also knew we could head north to Hanoi any time we wanted and the North Vietnamese could do little to stop us. We watched this twice in Iraq. This was what we were trained to do, not play neighborhood cop or fight unsupported and outnumbered until our casualties reached levels no one is remotely aware of today. We lost as many Marines in Vietnam as in WW2 but with casualty ratios 4 times higher.
Time for us to talk honestly. We knew our POWs were living in hell and it hurt us each day not being able to get them. We lived with this and talked about it often while on combat operations. We also knew that some would do anything to survive and none should be judged. We never imagined that being captured would make a few the heroes of all of us, especially when thousands of Marines, totally forgotten by everyone, fought to the death, their bodies hacked to pieces and left among those they had killed. This is a story that could be told thousands of times but never is. Instead we give medals of honor to POWs who get lost in the woods.
One POW stands out above all others, Colonel Ted Guy. Ted was part of our original group on AOL, an outspoken POW/MIA activist. He was captured only after emptying his pistol into several North Vietnamese and trying to beat the rest of them to death with the empty weapon. He got less mellow as time went on.
Ted told us that many POWs were outright collaborators and how some, some we know particularly well, lied about being tortured and abused. Some POWs openly worked for their captors, informing on escape attempts and receiving privileges and rations in return. Ted gave the names to the military when he returned and requested that these people be court martialed.
Instead, they were given medals, it was all covered up.
Ted asked about POWs being left behind and was shown pages of classified documents proving no living POW was left behind. Later he learned those documents were falsified and that a massive coverup had gone on. From that day forward, he fought to demand an accounting.
When the Nixon/Kissinger tapes, admitting abandoning 200 POWs held by North Vietnam in Laos were released, he felt vindicated. One day after their release, no transcript or copy exists. Ted was an inspiration to us, a WW2 fighter jock, Korean War ace who made every moment for his North Vietnamese captors hell on Earth.
He retired to Arkansas, fished, stayed in touch with friends and wasn’t seen on any corporate boards on standing next to phony politicians like so many other POWs, including some he recommended for prison. Being a POW didn’t make him a millionaire or a hero. He was always a hero.
We are having more POW ceremonies this week. All the POWs suffered, some more than others. Some resisted. Some didn’t. Some collaborated well beyond the breaking point, a secret Ted Sampley spent years telling Americans about. Ted is no longer with us. Many of the Vietnam POWS have died. Hundreds of thousands who served in Vietnam have died. Soon, all of this will be forgotten.
The sacrifice is real. They suffered pain and many lost years of their lives that can never be returned. Some have been compensated a thousand times over, spending a lifetime of collecting for having surrendered to the enemy, something that 58,000 dead didn’t do.
When each of the 58,000 dead, a number most of us now know is well under the actual count, receive every second of publicity that those who surrendered have gotten, then POWs can stand on a podium with honor.
I know what I would have to say. "Remember them, not me."
Many of the POWs have said just that. They don’t make speeches, sit on corporate boards or work on elections. Those were the warriors.
Nixon needed heroes to cover up a haphazard peace agreement. Nixon needed heroes to cover up having abandoned hundreds of living POWs. Nixon needed heroes to take the heat off his own crimes.
In a war that became a "ticket punching" game for our military where only the few saw combat and hundreds of thousands served, some slaving away 16 hours a day or more, it was easier to take a couple of hundred college educated pilots and build them up instead of tens of thousands of maimed and dying filling the roach and rat infested VA hospitals or the tens of thousands of dead.
50,000 more would die within 5 years of coming home. The official count is slightly higher and the VA is only starting to do a comprensive count now, 35 years after the war ended.
POWs should be honored for their service and cared for because of their suffering but not honored for their captivity, not any more than prisoners from the Korean War, or any other. If you want to think about POWs, think about those who surrendered on Bataan and Corregidor to the Japanese. Not many Senators came out of that group.
American soldiers fighting in WW2 thought about them every day, them and the men captured on Wake Island.
It wasn’t the fault of the POWs that they were made heroes, in some way, as an insult to those who died in combat, men Nixon hated as "drug crazed baby killers." That is what he thought of us and what he called us often.
For over 35 years, the Vietnam POWs have been misrepresented as the real heroes of a war whose victims are still dying of abuse and neglect. I would feel better if more of them had stood up for veterans and not money grubbing politicians and big corporations.
It wasn’t their fault that they became Nixons scapegoats. More of them needed to refuse, head back home, fish and speak out. POWs were left behind. An army died and is still dying of Agent Orange. The vast majority of the seriously wounded were allowed to die of substandard treatment, systematically killed by the VA.
When the POWs were made the spokemen for all by a disgraced President,, I only wish more had been able to follow Ted Guys example. My thanks and admiration to those who did. You know who you are.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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