Missing POWs in SEA...
 

Reading this still makes me angry.

http://www.unz.com/article/mccain-and-the-pow-cover-up/

MAB32 you are not alone.

As posted elsewhere on this site, I am leading the process to repatriate the remains of our only paratrooper MIA in Angola. After nearly 40 years, we have tracked down his unmarked grave and intend an expedition through four countries at the end of this years rainy season to retrieve his remains.
The most upsetting and surprising element in the process is the unexpected resistance from some of our own leadership. Calls to "let sleeping dogs lie" and pleas to leave well enough alone from people who should know better have bedevilled the project.
On the other hand, the helpfulness of past enemies has been uplifting and many have gone out of their way to help.
I don't know what to make of this and don't know what the moral of the story is, but people who have gained power are often very badly flawed, and judging by the above story, it seem a universal malady.

Warriors understand other warriors, Guy. The politicians will never understand. I hope to one day visit Afghanistan on more peaceful terms. Hopefully not to collect a friend, but just to visit and say "No hard feelings, just doing what we believed in." I saw that respect on the battlefield with us handing over dead bad guys to local towns for burial and we were given the same respect with some dead Frenchmen that were left on the battlefield by their "buddies" (read: French Airborne).

You were put in an awful position to have to leave someone behind. It wasn't by choice, so I hope you never regret that fact. We vow never to do it but there are circumstances where it can happen.

Politicians politicize....men and women of the military pay the dues in their blood.

My country doesn't shame me by refusing to allow the downtrodden masses of other countries to flow in unchecked. However, I am deeply shamed and angry that politicians (and their flag officer accomplices) left our men in the enemies prisons. So little honor in Washington DC.