Vietnam Prisoners of War

Great Debates
1

I apologize if someone has already posted this, I did a search but couldn’t find anything.

Yesterday, I was reading these horrible stories about American Soldiers as Vietnam Prisoners of War. The countless stories of brutal treatment & heroism to survive. But almost every website had a section dedicated to those POW’s that were abandoned by their country and still being held captive today.

My question is on the plausibility that there are POW’s STILL alive in Vietnam, still being tortured and is there any hope of finding them and bringing them home. At first glance, it seems like just a desparate hope of family memebers that their loved ones are still alive. Realistically, could a soldier even survive 31 years (or more) of unsanitary captivity, torture and true feelings of abandonment and hopelessness?

Furthermore, would the Vietcong actually bother keeping them alive for that long? What advantage do they have to keep them prisoner for this long? The “war” is long over, there’s no more information to extract from them. If they were going to use them as a bargaining tool, wouldn’t they have done it by now? Are they now 60 year old captors still holding on to the past?

The sheer thought that there might actually be brave soldiers that we’ve abandonded is absolutely horrible, but could it be true???

2

Personally, I can think of no reason to keep them alive, if indeed any were still there after the main group was sent home. I know that I would’ve put a bullet in them long ago, had I been one of their captors. It would cost too much to keep the prisons going and the political liability of keeping them alive would vastly outweigh any benefit. Any groups who are insisting any POWs/MIAs are still held captive in SE Asia, versus there voluntarily, are in my mind preying on the sorrow and needs of the men’s family.

However, is it true that POWs who have not been declared dead are still on the military’s payroll and even get promoted?

3

It seems to me that there is a scale of likelihood that looks like this:

  1. Absolutely
  2. Probably
  3. Possibly
  4. Conceivably
  5. Inconceivably
    On that scale it is probable that the sun will rise tomorrow. That there are US armed forces members captured during the war in Vietnam that are still in the hands of the Vietnamese is conceivable. That there are American deserters who are still in Vietnam, hold up in the Saigon slums is possible.