Rolling Thunder KY 1: The Evidence is Clear

April 3, 1973: Pathet Lao (Laotian Communist) forces declare they are holding more than 100 American POWs and are prepared to give a full accounting of them The U.S. government responds 9 days later declaring they are all dead -- without ever talking to the Laotians about the POWs they admit holding!

1970-1976: After the French pay an unspecified sum of money to the Vietnamese, the communists release POWs captured in 1954! The North Vietnamese had claimed all of them had died.

June 25, 1981: Defense Intelligence Agency Director Eugene Tighe testifies before the House Subcommittee on Asian/Pacific Affairs that live American POWs remain in Southeast Asia.

December 7, 1984: The Washington Times reports that Bobby Garwood, released by Vietnam 1979, saw up to 70 live captive Americans long after the war ended.

June 28, 1985: The Washington Times reports DIA Director Lieutenant General Eugene Tighe testified Hanoi is still holding at least 50-60 live American POWs.

October 15, 1985: The Wall Street Journal reports that National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane says live American POWs remain in Southeast Asia.

August 19, 1986: The Wall Street Journal reports the White House knew in 1981 Vietnam wanted to sell an unspecified number of live POWs for $4 billion. The White House decided the offer was genuine -- and ignored it!

September 30, 1986: The New York Times reports a Pentagon panel estimates up to 100 live American POWs are held in Vietnam alone.

October 7, 1986: CIA Director William Casey says: "Look, the nation knows they (the POWs) are there, everybody knows they are there, but there's no ground swell of support for getting them out. Certainly, you are not suggesting we pay for them, surely not saying we could do anything like that with no public support."

January 1988: A cable from the Joint Casualty Resolution Center states that during General Vessey's visit to Hanoi, "The Vietnamese people were prepared to turn over 7 or 8 live American POWs if Vessey told them what they wanted to hear. All the prospective returnees were allegedly held in a location on the Lao side of the border."

June 10 1989: The Washington Post reports a Japanese monk released after 13 years in a Vietnamese prison had American POW cellmates who nursed him to health.

September 1990: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Interim Report on POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia concluded that despite public assurances in 1973 that no POWs remained in the region, the Defense Department " . . . in April 1974 concluded beyond a doubt that several hundred American POWs remained in captivity in Southeast Asia."

October 1990: Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach admits Vietnam still holds American POWs but is willing to release "as many as 10 live American POWs." His offer, like others before it, is ignored by Secretary of State James Baker III.

February 1991: Colonel Millard Peck, Chief of the Pentagon's Special Office for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action, resigns in protest of being ordered by policy makers in the POW/MIA Inter-Agency Group NOT to investigate live-sighting reports of American POWs!

April 25, 1991: Senator Bob Smith addresses the Senate and reveals that, of more than 1,400 eyewitness sightings of live POWs, NONE has ever received an on-site investigation!

May 23, 1991: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Examination of U.S. Policy Toward POW/MIAs concludes that the U.S. has ignored thousands of American POWs, and left them to rot in Soviet slave labor camps and North Korean and Vietnamese prisons. "Any evidence that suggested an MIA might be alive was uniformly and arbitrarily rejected."

Summer 1991: A flood of new evidence of live POWs pours from Southeast Asia: pictures, handwriting samples, hair samples, blood samples, fingerprints, foot-prints, maps and other physical proof. The Bush administration disregards the evidence and attempts to discredit it by rumor and innuendo. Some of the photos are scientifically validated -- and have never been scientifically disproven!

August 2, 1991: President Bush says "Until we can account for every person missing, we have to run down these leads to prove that nobody is held. " (That's right: Bush sees his duty as proving the Vietnamese hold none of our men or women! ! Who does he work for?)

If any of the above seems hard to believe, then read the following.

POW/MIA Returns From Death

Army MSgt. Mateo Sabog served 24 years. On 25 February 1970, he completed his second tour of duty in Vietnam. Army records indicate "there is no evidence that Sabog used his plane ticket or that his personal effects were claimed in Vietnam."

In 1979 Sabog's brother wrote then-President Carter seeking assistance in finding information about his brother and challenging the Army's determination that he had deserted. The Army convened a board of officers to review all available evidence and to determine an appropriate status for MSgt. Sabog. The board recommended Sabog's status be changed to "Missing - Presumptive Finding of Death."

This change in status was made retroactive effective 26 March 1971, the date he was to report to Fort Bragg. Sabog's family was notified that this recommendation was approved in December 1979.

In July 1993 the Pentagon's office in charge of POW/MIA affairs told the Army that Sabog's name would be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as having died in the war.

On 11 April 1995 the same POW/MIA office in the Pentagon informed Sabog's brothers that remains that the Vietnamese government had indicated were Sabog's had been recovered. These remains included 22 teeth (5 showing possible restorations) along with some bones. The Vietnamese also turned over some personal effects and clothing to the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CILHI) for examination. CILHI did indicate that the bones might belong to Sabog."

In late February 1996, Mateo Sabog used his correct name and social security number to apply for veteran's benefits. When computer records indicated the application was being made in the name of a man who was of officially classified as dead, fingerprints were compared and they proved Sabog was who he claimed to be.

In early March 1996, Mateo Sabog was returned to active duty so he could be admitted to the Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia for evaluation and any needed medical treatment. According to an Army spokesman he's been somewhere for the last 26 years. But he served his country honorably. We will treat him with dignity.

Where has Sabog been and whose bones were returned???

To Date: We are still waiting for these abandoned men and women to come home................

All these facts are a matter of public record and clearly indicate that we have some serious problems in the POW/MIA arena that our elected officials refuse to acknowledge.