After 34 years, POW reunites with rescuer

On July 25, 1970, Warren Messer weighed 80 pounds and had turned blue. His knees were crushed and his feet and fingers were broken. He was struggling to hang on to life in a Cambodian prisoner-of-war camp.

Then he saw the eyes of the U.S. Air Force medic who had come to save his life. Through the years, he never forgot those eyes.

They belonged to Ronnie Scroggs, a Rutherford County, N.C., native. With the help of two other POWs he had rescued, Scroggs carried Messer through the jungle for three days, delivering him to a helicopter that flew him away for medical care.

Messer had been so brutalized that he couldn’t even tell Scroggs that the day of his rescue was also his birthday. In fact, Messer was in such bad shape that Scroggs expected him to die. But when Scroggs’ captain suggested a mercy killing, he couldn’t do it.

“He was laying on the ground ... I saw something in his eyes,” a tearful Scroggs said recently.

Over the years, Messer tried unsuccessfully to find the soldier who saved him. He mistakenly thought Scroggs was in the Navy, so he searched in that direction.

But just over a month ago, fate and an alert Veterans Services Office official intervened.

Messer, 57, who lives in Gaffney, often travels to Spindale, N.C., for counseling at the Veterans Service Office. He is a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Scroggs, 56, also visits the Spindale veterans office regularly, to talk about his benefits or the war, or to spend time with friends.

Veterans Services officer Marie Champion listened to both their stories through the years: How Messer had been rescued on his birthday, and how Scroggs, as a medic, had rescued 18 POWs during the 10 months he was in Vietnam. A light bulb went off.

But she wasn’t sure Scroggs was Messer’s rescuer. So she arranged for them to be at the office at the same time to see what would happen.

“I knew it was him when I saw his eyes,” Messer said. “A dying man sees only the eyes of the person helping him.”

“The last time I saw him, he was blue,” Scroggs said.

Messer said he also remembered Scroggs’ smile, and when Scroggs produced that smile again, the two wept.

“The chances of us seeing each other again was astronomical,” Messer said.

“For about 35 years we’ve blocked a lot of this out. We don’t talk about it too much. ... I have been depressed. Now this has really brought us closure.”

Messer had been in Cambodia doing reconnaissance missions for the Marine Corps when he was captured on Oct. 3, 1968, after being shot four times.

After Scroggs rescued him, it took him more than a year to recover from the physical wounds of his first reconnaissance mission. But Messer later returned to Vietnam to another tour of duty.

In fact, Messer is still in the Marine Corps, in the Foothills Detachment of the Marine Corps League in Shelby, N.C. “I’ll stay in the Marine Corps ’til they pull the flag across me,” he said.

Scroggs returned to Rutherford County and built a career with the Rutherford County EMS.

Messer, who received 17 Purple Hearts, is expected to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor by the end of the year.

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Looks like this Messer guy might have been another John sKerry. From the Spartanburg Hearld Journal this morning..POW tale draws questions
By Lynne Powell | Staff Writers
lynne.powell@shj.com
GAFFNEY -- The brothers of a Gaffney soldier killed in Vietnam say it's impossible to believe the prisoner-of-war tale Warren Messer told in a story that ran in newspapers across the Carolinas on Thursday.

Messer, a 57-year-old Gaffney man, claimed in an interview with The Daily Courier of Forest City, N.C., that he weighed only 80 pounds and was barely hanging onto life when Ronnie Scroggs, who says he is a former Air Force medic, rescued him on July 25, 1970, in

Cambodia.

Messer said he was on a Marine reconnaissance mission when he was captured on Oct. 3, 1968, after being shot four times.

But Frank and Larry Sossamon, the brothers of Ed DeCamp Sossamon, who was killed in action on April 16, 1970, said they distinctly remember Messer visiting their mother's home shortly after their brother's body was flown home on April 20, 1970.

In addition to the Herald-Journal, the story ran in The State newspaper and the Greenville News, among others. The Associated Press in North Carolina distributed the story.

AP news editor Tim Whitmire in Charlotte said that the AP often relays feature stories or stories of interest statewide as member exchanges, with the writer's byline and name of the publishing newspaper.

"We put it out over the wire, but we don't edit it at all," Whitmire said.

"We're a membership cooperative, and every day we rely on the accuracy of our members," he added.

Messer's name does not appear in the Department of Defense database for Vietnam-era prisoners of war and those who were missing in action.

Jean Gordon, a senior reporter at the Daily Courier, said she received several calls on Thursday questioning the truth of Messer's and Scroggs' account. She said she has since checked the federal database and noticed that Messer's name is absent.

Gordon says she had called local Veterans Service Officer Marie Champion for a Veterans Day story suggestion. She said Champion told her she had a couple of guys with a good story, but she didn't think they'd share it. They did.

State and federal offices that provide abbreviated records of servicemen were closed Thursday for Veterans Day, so the Herald-Journal could not verify whether Messer served in the armed forces.

Clarence "Rocky" Byars of Gaffney, a former Cherokee County Veterans Affairs director, said Thursday night that Messer is a veteran of the Vietnam War. Compensation for veterans in Cherokee County is distributed through the office that Byars held for several years.

"I remember him. Never heard anything about him being a POW. And I've never heard of anybody getting 17 Purple Hearts. Certainly not him," Byars said.

Messer's claims undermine the service and sacrifice that many servicemen have given in Vietnam and other conflicts the United States has been involved in, Frank Sossamon said.

"(Messer) was not in Cambodia, he didn't have broken feet and didn't have broken fingers and he weighed a whole lot more than 80 pounds when he came to my mother's house," Frank Sossamon said, speaking to comments attributed to Messer in the story.

Champion, in Thursday's story, was painted as an alert officer responsible for "reuniting" Messer and Scroggs. She, too, had known Scroggs for a while. But Messer had just begun coming to the Rutherford County, N.C., office this summer, she said.

Champion, 54, said she "couldn't imagine why a veteran would lie." Her job is limited to filing claims for benefits, not verifying those claims' authenticity, she said.

"There's a lot of vets who went through a bad time in Vietnam," Champion said. "If these two guys are lying, that makes me mad."

The Herald-Journal was unable to locate Messer on Thursday. Scroggs did not follow through on a pre-arranged interview that evening.

Messer's wife of 25 years, Audrey, said she hasn't seen her husband since he left her in September. She said she became "sick" when a co-worker pointed out the story early Thursday morning.

Audrey Messer said her husband has told her the same POW story she read Thursday morning. She said she now believes the story was concocted.

"He said (in the article) that he was shot. Well he was shot all right, he shot himself in the stomach years ago," Audrey Messer said.

Messer said her husband left in September headed for the VA hospital in Oteen, N.C. Warren Messer had many health problems, she said, and was unemployed.

She said she visited her husband in the hospital, but said she hasn't spoken to him since. She said she's heard he's living somewhere in North Carolina.

"I never believed he had all those Purple Hearts," she said. "He bought some (Purple Hearts) at an Army Surplus store."

Messer is awaiting trial on an assault and battery with intent to kill charge stemming from a Jan. 27 incident where Messer's son, Warren Patrick, claimed his father shot at him twice with a rifle.

Magistrate Frank Crocker issued a warrant the following day, and the charge is pending in General Sessions Court.

Retired Navy Capt. Mike McGrath, a former POW, was one of the first whistle-blowers Thursday. He pointed out that the U.S. pulled off an extremely limited number of rescues in Southeast Asia, primarily of downed airmen, and that Messer wasn't one of them.

The article indicated that Scroggs' captain suggested a "mercy killing" of the bruised and battered Messer.

"This guy's so phony that he can't see straight," said Ted Sampley, a Vietnam veteran and activist in Eastern North Carolina. "The military would never do that -- kill their own. If you go over there to get an American out, you're going to get him out or die trying."

Sampley, a former green beret with his share of enemies in America's veteran community, helped launch the Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry earlier this year. His organization, the Last Firebase Veterans Archive Project, has taken an avid interest in POWs, he said.

"After studying case after case after case, I've never heard of any rescues like that out of Cambodia," Sampley said.
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