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Posted on 11/05/2004 9:22:40 AM PST by cgk
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- First Coast News has learned a body has been found in Iraq and DNA testing is underway.
Multiple sources tell First Coast News Captain Scott Speicher's family has been notified.
They will not disclose the details of why they believe these are his remains only to say they have reason to feel confident these are his remains.
Test results are expected within weeks.
When I sat down with Buddy Harris, who was Speicher's best friend and is now married to Speicher's widow, he told me the family would never give up until they found what happened to him and brought him home.
They may be well on their way to learning the answer and putting this mystery and this man to rest.
From the deck of the USS Saratoga in the Red Sea., a husband and father of two from Jacksonville prepares to fight for the first time. 33 year old Lt. Commander Michael Scott Speicher, also known as "Spike", is ready for take off.
It's 1 a.m. January 17th, Speicher is part of the first mission flown over Iraq during the first Gulf War.
Within hours his squadron is in the heat of battle. The mission is deemed a success.
But when Speicher's unit returns He is the only one who is not accounted for.
From the first moments, fellow pilots and squadron mates believe the highly skilled Speicher ejected and survived.
But within hours the Pentagon announces Speicher is dead, killed in action in a mid-air explosion. There would be no recovery mission.
In 1993, U.S. Intelligence finds an American plane in better condition than expected in a remote desert in Iraq.
The plane's identification numbers confirm it is Speicher's plane.
The cockpit canopy was found some distance from the wreckage, raising the theory that Speicher ejected, survived and was captured.
First Coast News has learned the human remains, thought to be Speichers, were not found at the crash site.
The remains being tested were found in another part of Iraq.
After the initial discovery of the crash site, in an unprecedented move, the Pentagon changed Speicher's status from Killed in Action, to Missing in Action, and then later, Missing Captured.
The president even included Speicher and the fact that he was still in Iraq in a speech he gave to the nation.
Shortly into the second Gulf War, the initials M.S.S were found in a Baghdad prison.
Sources are now telling First Coast News they have information that indicates Speicher was captured after the crash and held as a prisoner for some time before he died.
However, DNA tests performed on the materials used to make the markings failed to confirm those initials found in a cell were made by Michael Scott Speicher.
His friends and family were not discouraged saying they knew the wall had been painted over several times and other things found in other prison cells supported their theory that Scott had been held at that prison.
We were the only local news station in country to sit down and talk with Buddy Harris, Speicher's best friend and now husband to Joanne Speicher Harris.
Buddy told us then that the family would never stop asking the question of what happened to Scott. And they were prepared no matter the answer.
"I cannot foresee a situation where we would just give up and go away.
I won't do it and I know my family backs me on his 100 percent in not giving up."
The family went through this once before.
Several years ago, then President of Iraq Saddam Hussein sent a pound of flesh to the United States claiming it was the remains of Scott Speicher.
The pilot's children at that time provided their DNA so the remains could be tested.
That test proved the remains were not their fathers.
The family has been through a roller coaster of emotions over the years.
They have learned to be very cautious about any new information they receive.
We expect they are taking the same approach with this latest news.
This remains a very big development.
If the tests indicate the remains are the missing the navy pilot Scott Spiechers', they will finally have an answer to the question they've asked for more than a decade.
We contacted the family's attorney, Cindy Laquidara, Thursday night for reaction to this new discovery. She had no comment for us at this time.
Now just two and-a-half months shy of the fourteenth anniversary of Speicher's disappearance, the answer may finally come in the form of DNA.
An American hero... A First Coast son... may finally return home after a very long mission.
© 2004 First Coast News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten, or redistributed.
Agreed.
And for every Klinton and other Rat who gets away with this crap, there is a RepublicRat [RINO] who lets them!
What happened to Scott Speicher?
*Presentation takes awhile to download
Scott Speicher, Prisoner of War
How a Navy pilot wound up listed as killed in action during the Gulf War and why he may still be alive. (**By Cmdr. Robert E. Stumpf, USN (Ret.))
Goes into some explanation as to WHY SADAAM "kept" Speicher alive.
The POUND OF FLESH gesture is/was unconscionable!!
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Then why did they keep their marriage secret in the first years??? Because she would not have gotten the money?
But they changed Scotts kids names to Harris..
But they changed Scotts kids names to Harris..
Which would tend to indicate that Mr. Harris adopted the children, wouldn't it?
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Then why did they keep their marriage secret in the first years??? Because she would not have gotten the money?
I'll make a wild-assed guess & say that maybe they thought it wasn't anybody else's business, that's why. And exactly what is ''the money''?
I dont believe they should take their Fathers name from them.
Money from the Navy...if she remarried it would then go to his sister.
I prayed for years that he might be found alive.
The Navy screwed up, and I hope Scott can forgive them. Bless him. Thank you, Scott.
It's common for a widow to marry (relatively soon) another pilot, usually one close to her late husband. Personally, I see nothing wrong in it at all. Can't speak for the others...
Not only do I see nothing wrong with it, I can see a lot that is right with it. The widow marries someone she has probably known for a good while, someone who her kids know, someone who is much like the dad the kids lost and who knew the dad & who can talk to the kids about their dad and it's a situation where their lifestyle continues on in a familiar pattern and that's just off the top of my head. I know of a situation where the widowed spouses of a brother & sister married one another-- the SIL married a BIL--was a bit of a surprise for the family, but then everybody got to thinking--'What the hell. They've known each other for years. The kids, all cousins, get along. Bully for them!'
Money from the Navy, as in life insurance?
Thanks for the ping Tonk.
I pray dear Lord, bring our brave warrior home.
I dont believe they should take their Fathers name from them.
But you don't have a dog in that hunt. Besides that, you don't know what their reasoning was & apparently you can't see any logic to it. For that matter, I doubt that you can prove that they did ''take their father's name from them''. For all we know, the official papers might read something like Jane Louise Spreicher Harris & John Leon Spreicher Harris. And, in any case, when the kids are legal age, they can change their names to anything they want if they don't like the names they were given.
I dont believe they should take their Fathers name from them.
I'll be damned. Lookee what I found:
A Washington Post profile last week noted that in 1992 Speicher's wife, Joanne--at the time, officially his widow--remarried:
[Her second husband's] name was Albert Harris, but he was known to everyone as Buddy. He had been Scott's closest friend, a fellow Navy pilot. Devastated by Speicher's death, Harris began spending more and more time with the Speicher children, playing the role of surrogate father. And, as he would tell NBC's Tom Brokaw in an interview in February, ''the light kind of came on around the same time as to the possibilities.'' . . .
Together, they had two children, and all four siblings started to go by the last name Speicher-Harris....
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003401
"By the time the Government corrected it's error, and initiated additional searches and investigations over Spike's whereabouts, what was the woman to do, divorce her new husband pending word?"
I've thought about her several times over the years and how awful this must be on her. I hope she finally gets the answers that she needs to heal and move on.
Our prayers are with her and the rest of his family.
Yes and...I know all that. They should not have added Harris..thats how I feel.
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