Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/24/2003 3:14:54 PM PDT by MadIvan
THREE letters scratched into the wall of a prison cell in Baghdad have provided the hardest evidence yet that an American pilot shot down on the opening day of the 1991 Gulf War could still be alive.
The initials “MSS”, found by a US search team at the al-Hakmiyah prison, match those of Lieutenant-Commander Michael Scott Speicher, whose status was changed from “killed” to “missing in action” ten years after the war as a series of clues made the Pentagon reconsider.
There were the satellite images in 1994 that purportedly showed the wreckage of his US navy jet alongside a mysterious, man-made symbol in the sand. There was the recovery from Beduin tribesmen in 1995 of a uniform, slit down the back as if to help to get an injured pilot out. Later there was the word of one Iraqi deserter who said he had driven a US prisoner of war to Baghdad, and of another who claimed to have seen Mr Speicher in captivity.
Mr Speicher is the only US serviceman unaccounted for from the 1991 conflict. His family, in Jacksonville, Florida, are convinced that he is alive, but they have had their hopes raised too many times and refused to comment on the discovery of the initials.
For his wife, Joanne, Mr Speicher’s survival would pose a serious practical problem. Informed by President Bush Sr that her husband was dead, she married one of his best friends in the early 1990s.
Mr Speicher’s friends and family have appealed to the US military to intensify their search efforts. “The American public expects nothing less,” Cindy Laquidara, the family’s lawyer, said. “We recognize that everyone is competing for resources but we believe Scott deserves the maximum.”
Regards, Ivan
I respectfully disagree.
Our military is second to none in all of world history for our efforts to account for all our people. It's not helpful or correct to charge there is favoritism based on sex (or race or rank or other factors).
Boy will that ever be a can of worms when he is found and freed. But better to have to untangle the worms than the other alternative.
Does anyone know if she had any children, with either or both husbands?
...and bring him home safe!
Reminds me of the movie 'Pearl Harbor'.
longjack
We have nearly 2,000 Vietnam MIAs, yet our government declared them ALL KIA nearly a decade ago!
Look up: http://www.powmiaff.org/evidence.html http://www.scopesys.com/powmia/powsearch.html http://www.pownetwork.org/bios.htm That last one will give you detailed biographies of each and every MIA!
1. There is a difference between accounting and recovering.
2. There is a difference between "second to none" and "expending every effort". Saying that the US is better than any other nation, doesn't actually raise the bar all that high.
3. I'm not criticizing our military; I am a US veteran myself. But you must remember that our military is controlled by a very political civilian "leadership" (and I use that term loosely here). As a result politics dictate the actions of our military. Which leads us to...
"It's not helpful or correct to charge there is favoritism based on sex"
4. If you don't realize that the entire US military's policy on women in the service is politicized, then you haven't been in the military in the last fifteen+ years and you haven't been reading the right reports on the subject (which isn't surprising since the mainstream "press" suppresses them). No sex-based favoritism in the military? Ha! It's a much bigger problem than simply favoritism.
On Fox and Friends this a.m. the family attorney said that the most recent report on his being alive came earlier this year. She wouldn't comment beyond that as to where he might be, current status, etc. except to say there is much effort being expended by the US government to find him.
Yes, that's correct. And we have tens of thousands (or more) from WWII, plus far more from earlier wars. It happens. It's part of the horror of war, and it's one of the horrible reasons why this country doesn't go to war lightly. That doesn't mean the U. S. military doesn't care about finding out what happened to our people -- the military in this country cares about accounting for everyone we can learn about.
The U. S. military would do anything to bring back a POW of any race, religion, creed, gender, rank, etc.
I've heard a few people say that the military expends more effort on some POW's than on others. Some wanker in a UK newspaper made a big deal about that exact point about a week ago. And I'm sorry but that sticks in my craw -- that guy doesn't know what the U. S. military is all about.
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