Operation Just Cause... ...for as long as it takes
The POW/MIA of the Month for January is Thomas Moore. Thomas Moore is one of the POW/MIA(s) that when you look over the incident report you have to ask, “What is going on here?”
I wish we had the answers but we don't. All we know for sure is it never should have happened and answers are needed and we need Thomas Moore to come home to his family.
THOMAS MOORE
REMARKS: 6512 DIC-ON PRG DIC LIST
Source: Compiled from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S.
Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK.
SYNOPSIS: On October 31, 1965, four U.S. Air Force personnel were captured while traveling by truck from Vung Tau to Saigon. This incident occurred on Route 15 at grid coordinates YS224805, just on the border of Binh Hoa and Gia Dinh Provinces of South Vietnam. The individuals involved in this incident are SSgt. Samuel Adams, SSgt. Charles Dusing, TSgt. Thomas Moore, and TSgt, Jasper Page.
On November 2, 1965, while being taken to a detention camp, Jasper Page,
managed to escape and return to U.S. control. It was reported that Samuel Adams had been shot during the same escape that freed Page, but a defector identified Adams' photo as a prisoner at a later date. CIA's analysis of this identification has been inconclusive. The names of all three appeared on the died in captivity list furnished by the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) in 1973 at the Paris Peace Accords. The list reflected that they had died during December 1965, but no details were given.
When 591 Americans were released at the end of the war in 1973, Adams, Dusing and Moore were not among them; their names were on a list. No bodies were returned to their families, even though the Vietnamese clearly know where to find the three men. Since that time, Vietnam has doled out handfuls of remains as the political atmosphere seemed appropriate, but Adams, Dusing and Moore remain unaccounted for.
The three are among nearly 2500 Americans who remain missing in Indochina. Unlike "MIA's" from other wars, most of these men can be accounted for. Tragically, the U.S. has received over 8000 reports concerning Americans still in Southeast Asia since the end of the war. Experts say that the evidence is overwhelming that Americans were left behind in enemy hands. It's time we brought our men home.
This month we had the privilege of interviewing Diane, the daughter of Thomas Moore. Below are the answers to questions that Diane graciously answered for the Moonduster Chronicle.
Questions: What was it like to be the daughter of a POW?
It is the one thing that I would not wish on my worst enemy. It is to have had to live a life from 11 years old until now thinking that my dad was to come home at the time the POW's were to be repatriated. Learning that he was not, was very hard. To still be the daughter of a POW / MIA, one who did not return, is a continuing legacy, one of wishes, dreams and hopes, that are and have been shattered. It not only affected me, his oldest child, but also carried on into my children. They know more than most kids do about Prisoners of War, and the torture that both men and families have lived, and know the second and third generation must carry the unknown with them.
How has your family adjusted to your Dad not coming back home from the Vietnam Conflict?
Adjustment came from strong family support from my mother who passed away 4 years ago. She taught me to face the real world when I was small. Although the process of dealing with my dad's incident was hard because, as I stated, we thought he was coming home. We had never been lead to believe anything other than that, because he was last seen alive being detained in the jungles by the South Vietcong. As I grew older the adjustment was hard; to watch friends with dads, and granddads with children. After mine were born it has been as tough to adjust to. It is just not something I thing I adjusted to, it is more like a toleration of days passing, years passing and lost time.
How did you get involved in trying to bring your Dad back home?
In the beginning I was active as a young child when we, as families, first started with the petition signing for the POW's and the writing of letters during the Vietnam War. I can remember going with my mother to some of the first league meetings way back when it first was founded by the wives, and meeting Donnie Collins, wife of Thomas Collins, who was from Mississippi where we lived. I learned from mother and Donnie. As I inherited the Primary Next of Kin when mother passed away, I got daddy's files and studied them. The more I read the deeper I was pulled into learning that my dad actually was last seen alive, and that it was only by hear-say that he was killed in captivity. Some things just keep on popping up and I am going to do my best to correct them.
What is the current status for your Dad and what information can you share that is not included in the bio/incident report?
My father is currently listed as POW/MIA/KIA, body not recovered. He was placed in a no further pursuit in 1995, along with others. It was not until last year when I asked for updated files that I found a letter from a former South Vietnamese police officer (who now resides in Hawaii and is a American Citizen) that there are possible grave sites that correlate with dads case site. However there were no follow-up interviews. The man in my dad's incident who escaped has never been re-interviewed since his initial debriefing after his successful escape attempt.
Hopefully, I have had dad's case placed back in a further pursuit status. Our government has told me that the information is to be requested. However it is unknown when. I have asked that Jasper Page be brought back into the circle to see if there is any help he may be able to provide. I keep my fingers crossed that the government is not leading me on again.
Can you give any advice to the other children of the POW/MIA(s) that are waiting for their Dad to come back home?
Hang in there; we can be as strong as we can be if we stick together. Never say never. If you need to breath take a step back, re think, re evaluate and re attack. We all may not get our wishes to get our dads home, but if one dad of one child comes home then it is sort of like getting our own dad back. To the MIA child, we all still have that child-like innocence of hope in us all, and that is ok, they are still our dads, and it is ok to want them home.
Any comments you want to share with the readers about your Dad or the return of the other POW/MIA(s)?
My father, Cmsgt. Thomas Moore, was a wonderful daddy, I am lucky to have been able to have him for the time I did. I have more memories than some because of being a whole whopping 11 years old when he left. Yet memories fade. But what I remember was his smile, and his gentleness, his love of the Air Force and his faith in his country. I remember him taking me to work with him sometimes, and going to flight lines to watch jets, and large cargo planes. He believed in what he did, it was his job, and he was quite professional at it.
My Dad was awarded 18 medals including the Soldiers Medal for Valor, 2 purple hearts of course the POW MIA medal and numerous others.
I am proud to be his daughter, I am proud to be born an Air Force child, and I still love to watch the planes and jets he taught me about. I think I have as much of him with me as any one can. He is my guardian angel.
As for the POW's who came home, I have read many of the books that have been written by them. I have cried and gotten angry at what they were put through. I thank them all for being the greatest men of my time, and for sharing their stories. I can think of no better group of men, and would love to meet them all, to give them a hug and a thank you, from the daughter of one who knows in her heart the fear, the terror, and the pain that they had to endure. To think about my own father as a POW makes me hurt deep into my soul. To think of the ordeals that they went through and to come out to a world that had changed so much and having to adapt again, POW's from Viet Nam are heroes to me. NO one will ever change that in my eyes.
Do I have any wishes or expectations for the year 2000?
YES, revived hope, to have 6 feet of space in Arlington but I wish more to have my dad alive and returned home. I would wish the years that Dad has been away, that we were robbed of, returned to me. If my Dad is not alive then I want him to rest in America, not in Southeast Asia…
I wish for the other children of MIA's to have peace in their hearts, as I wish for in my own heart. I wish for those whose remains have been found and waiting for identification to be positively ID'd and for those families to have peace. I wish for my daughter who is soon to have my fathers first great grandchild to be able to teach the next generation about the man she calls her grandfather, and how he was the hero she knows him as…
I wish for the strength to be able to carry on with this fight… for it surely has gone on too long. For some, the Vietnam War has not ended. The forgotten ones are the children of the forgotten. Ours is a war that we battle every day, inside our minds, inside our hearts, inside our souls, outwardly we carry our heads high, yet we are tired.
Rank/Branch: E6/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 09 December 1929
Home City of Record: Baton Rouge LA
Date of Loss: 31 October 1965
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 10400N 1070000E (YS224805)
Status (in 1973): Prisoner of War
Category: 1
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ford Truck
Other Personnel in Incident: Charles Dusing; Samuel Adams (both POW), Jasper Page, escapee.
