Operation Just Cause... ...for as long as it takes
From Karl Kristiansen
I think I would have a picture of a beautiful sunset over a tropical isle. I'm afraid at the rate we (man) is going, a thousand years from now, that may be as close as they get to something like that.
If I could leave only one item in the time capsule I would leave the book "KISS THE BOYS GOODBYE by Monica Jensen-Stevenson so that future generations might know how our government betrayed its POW/MIAs.
I would leave an American Flag..may she forever proudly wave!
I would leave a POW Flag so that they can see how we forgot our own.
I would leave a copy of the OJC Mission Statement and Explanation:
To achieve the fullest possible accounting of the POWMIA issue through respectful but persistent petition of our elected and appointed officials. Our members adopt a man still unaccounted for in SE Asia, then write, fax, call and email their senators, representatives and the White House, asking these officials to advise them as to what is being done to determine the fate of their adopted POW.
Our goals - what we are asking of our government - are:
1. The timely, honest and thorough investigation of all live-sighting reports;
2. The repatriation of any surviving POWMIAs (or, in the event they do not wish to return, an opportunity for the families to hear it for themselves from their loved one);
3. Recovery of ALL recoverable remains and a strong statement from our government regarding the warehousing of remains by the Vietnamese.
We are NOT asking anyone to raise the dead. We accept that many or most of those listed as missing may have died in action or in captivity. We are NOT asking anyone to recover unrecoverable remains. The remains of a pilot shot down in flames in 1968 over the South China Sea, whose wingman watched the plane sink below the surface or explode in a fireball, can reasonably be deemed unrecoverable.
As an organization, Operation Just Cause does not hold the position that there was a government conspiracy to abandon American Fighting Men in SE Asia. However, substantial evidence exists that men were inadvertantly (or otherwise) left behind in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They are not all home.There is good reason to believe that some could still be alive and we have not done everything possible to bring them home or to resolve the questions for their families.
If these men were not abandoned, then the effort to account for them surely has been.
Our primary goal is to correct that oversight.
If I could leave one thing it would be a Bible. I think the Bible has all the answers to every problem, has more love and promises and is the most powerful book ever written.
I would leave my father's POW bracelet and a red rose.
I would leave a POW/MIA flag.
