Honesty In The Issue
Through the years that I have been involved in the issue, I have come across individuals who entrenched themselves in the POW/MIA issue or movement or whatever you want to label gleaning the fullest possible and honest accounting. The people that I have come across were, for the most part, readily accepted by the community and in several cases they rose to the pinacles of the leadership in this issue.
Bob Keplinger was involved in the infamous Napa Valley Sentinel articles and Alan Goetsch who scammed the families in the early nineties. He was involved with several family members in investigating their cases and giving them false hope. In one of those cases, he involved me and it resulted in a 2 year FBI investigation and ultimately shutting him down. In this particular case, he advised a family member that he had her MIA husbands MRI test results from the Oklahoma City VA Hospital and the MRI was purportedly done in 1987. The only problem was that in 1992 when I called the OKC VA Hospital and inquired as to when they got their MRI machine, the hospital director laughed at me and advised that they still didn't have an MRI machine.
Moreover, Bob was supposedly a former Special Forces member who went back to Vietnam several times. He admitted publicly that he left 2 American POWs behind during one of those trips because he did not have the proper paperwork to get them out. HUH? He was going there with a view towards getting them out, WHY didn't he have the "proper paperwork"?
Every seven years a former POW claims that he is tracking American POWs in SE Asia. First he had a videotape that he was unable to produce to the Senate and then, 7 years later, he came back to the States to announce that he was tracking a large number of POWs and he was readying their liberation. He tells the families that he needs this information to be kept quiet and then goes on the radio the next day and announces it! Dedicated people flew over to SE Asia at their own expense to assist in the operation and there they sat. Recently, I am told, he has made yet another proclamation that he is tracking American POWs and they will be liberated "soon." I don't want to name him because I honestly feel that when he first started this venture, he did so with good intentions. But he has lived in a corrupt environment for all these years, I am presuming that when you live in a corrupt society you start becomming corrupt yourself. What I don't get is why this guy still has credibility with some of the hardest working and dedicated individuals in this issue today.
If he does bring out one POW, I will kiss his behind in Macy's window!
Then you have an escapee where people donated thousands of dollars for his legal fund and others lent him money. He had some medical problems recently and a donation request went out in his name to help defray the medical costs. This guy has multiple homes, cars, boats; could buy and sell me three times over. His response to people giving money in his name? "I never asked for the donations." Yet he didn't reject them either and he allowed others to seek the donations in his name. He's never even attempted to repay those who loaned him money and, in one case, damn near bankrupted the kind hearted lady that lent him her life savings. Yet he is an icon to most in the POW/MIA community.
Then you've got Bob Necci who went to Vietnam on official VVA/Veterans Initiative business and wrote e-mails from Southeast Asia to a virtual unknown in the issue telling that person that:
They were stranded in Hanoi for 3 days due to bad weather. Yet Tom Corey, the VI Team Leader says they missed one flight.
They were in the field in Laos for 3 days. Yet Tom Corey says they were in Laos for a total of 19 hours.
They met with a Lao national who claimed that he was a former advisor to US Forces, that this Lao took them to a crash site claiming that it was not due to be excavated by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting. Bob claimed that the VI then met with JTF personnel who advised that the site was due to be excavated. Tom Corey said that no such meeting with the Lao national took place, that they met with Embassy Personnel and then had dinner at the Ambassador's home, bedded down for the night and left Laos the next morning.
Bob also said that they met with 2 Americans (different locations) and had long talks with each of them; that they missed their families and their home. He even went so far as to say that "Theirs is a terrible price to pay for their decision." Tom Corey said that at no time did any member of the VI Team meet with American civilians and that there was no time to go to two separate locations in Laos because they were in Laos for under 24 hours.
When all of this became public, after privately trying to get answers from Necci for 6 months prior to it going public, he resigned his VVA National POW/MIA Chair, resigned from the Board of Directors of VVA National and one really has not heard from him since. Yet his site is still up and running and other than his resignation, there does not seem to be any consequence to pay.
Going public with all these misdeeds does not make one popular in the issue, let me tell you. There are those in the issue that take the stance that you should not go public because the government uses it against us. I would think that it would only enhance our image that we won't condone lies from our side in the issue. If we demand honesty and integrity from those in government, then why should we do less than that on our side? Why should we not hold the feet to the fire of anyone making claims in this issue without substance?
I am not one for sweeping our dirty little secrets under the rug. The light of truth should shine from our side of the issue. We should not settle for less from those that advocate their support of the POW/MIA issue. To our government, the abandonment of our American POWs since WWI through the Gulf War was their "dirty little secret" that they tried sweeping under the rug. I simply won't allow it because if we continue to sweep our dirty little secrets under the rug, then we are no better than the very government that we demand truth and integrity from.
This is just my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Moonduster Chronicles, Operation Just Cause, our directors, volunteers or membership.
What's your opinion? Let us know by writing to the editor.
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