# What evidence is there that American POWs were left behind in Vietnam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 2, 2021, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087 "2021-03-02T02:57:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/21 "2021-03-03T04:33:54Z")
[David Hackworth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hackworth) wrote about going to Vietnam in the 1990’s (he met his former NVA adversary, quite a fascinating book) and he said that while he could see circumstances where SpecOps, intel types, and SAC crew (who would know stuff like nuclear attack tactics) were captured and not reported by the Vietnamese (since they would be a very valuable source of information), he doubted any were still kept in the present day, which was the mid 1990’s. He said such men, if any, were likely quietly released in the 1970’s. Vietnamese had no reason to keep them and no incentive to hide their existence. He did say the SpecOps operators tended to get captured fairly regularly and nations had pre-existing mechanism for their release and exchange. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/22 "2021-03-03T08:52:09Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think that the real genesis of the whole POW myth is that unlike previous wars, the US was not left in control of the battlefield at the end of Vietnam, and the perceived large number of MIA. But note that important word _ **“perceived”** _. From the [Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency](https://www.dpaa.mil/Our-Missing/Past-Conflicts/) (on official agency of the U.S. government), there are still 1,585 Americans listed as MIA from the Vietnam War. (To be sure, that number was larger when the whole “there are still Americans being held captive in Southeast Asia” narrative took off.) From World War II, there are a whopping 72,472 American service members still listed as “missing”. But of course, the U.S. _ **won** _ that war, and the notion that Germany, Italy, or Japan were still secretly holding on to American POWs after the war was over simply made no sense. In fact, the map shows 2,396 Americans MIA from World War II _in North America_\*–more than the total number of Americans still MIA from the whole Vietnam War. \*I presume they got too close to what was later known as Area 51, saw the crashed alien spacecraft the “Manhattan Project” was reverse-engineering for radar, the Atomic Bomb, microchips, and Velcro, and the U.S. government itself had to “disappear” them.[/snark] Every war in history has had soldiers (and even more so, sailors) who simply never came back home. It’s why past conflicts have had “Tombs of the Unknown Soldiers”, to give a physical place to remember or mourn for everyone whose loved ones wound up buried in an anonymous mass grave, or were lost at sea, or whose bodies were totally destroyed by high explosives, or whose (now very scattered) remains are still out there in some jungle or desert or wilderness. If anything, the U.S. efforts to “account for” _every_ American with respect to the Vietnam War have been unprecedented in their scale and lengthiness. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/23 "2021-03-03T15:35:30Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > If anything, the U.S. efforts to “account for” _every_ American with respect to the Vietnam War have been unprecedented in their scale and lengthiness. Actually, it’s an ongoing thing for all wars, although in practice it’s mostly WWII, Korea and Vietnam. They’re still finding, identifying and properly burying WWII dead- for example, [they recently disinterred a bunch of unknowns from the US cemetery in the Philippines and are using DNA testing and other modern methods to try and identify them.](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/01/05/effort-underway-to-identify-unknown-world-war-ii-troops-who-were-buried-in-the-philippines/) I’m pretty convinced that the main reason we have all this POW/MIA stuff is basically that after the war, there was no access to those areas where the troops went missing, North Vietnam wasn’t considered trustworthy, being communists and all that, and as a result, there wasn’t the sort of closure that allowed for people to “know” that all the MIA were merely pilots whose remains were scattered across a square mile of remote jungle somewhere, instead of live survivors who were captured and held without our knowledge. We saw the exact same thing writ small with Scott Speicher after the first Gulf War- he was shot down, presumed MIA, but since nobody had a body, and we couldn’t go look in Iraq, there was always that persistent question of whether he was a POW or not. Turns out, he was killed when his plane was shot down, and they finally found his remains about 10 years ago in Iraq close to that location. No actual evidence that he was captured, held, etc… but without a body or a friendly/neutral government to deal with to make sure, people were willing to assume he had been captured. There are even conspiracy-theory type books about it that still claim he was alive, and evaded capture, only to be abandoned by the US or some other nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/24 "2021-03-05T00:34:50Z")
As far as I know, the US is unique in its efforts to identify and bring home its war dead. > The United States wants its dead back so fiercely that it spends more than $105 million a year trying to find, retrieve, and identify them as well as give them a proper burial with full military honors. More than 600 military and civilian personnel work full-time on the POW/MIA effort. > **[NOVA | Missing in MiG Alley | Bringing Home MIAs | PBS](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/warplanes/mias.html)** > > Read about ongoing efforts by the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office to identify and recover the remains of missing American service personnel. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/25 "2021-03-05T00:48:14Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m pretty convinced that the main reason we have all this POW/MIA stuff is basically that after the war, there was no access to those areas where the troops went missing, Don’t forget the con: If you believe hard enough, you’ll pay [Bo Gritz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Gritz) to go looking for them. That kind of thing will definitely keep something going well past the point of logical viability, let alone past the point where it becomes anything other than a sad joke. The other part is politics and culture: If you believe we were stabbed in the back by domestic elements who made us lose the war, finding that those same elements deliberately left POWs to rot would be quite the coup. It would prove you right and them wrong, wouldn’t it? You can’t quite win on the notion that They spit on Our Heroes, but if you had _that_ in your campaign ads, well! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/26 "2021-03-05T03:52:02Z")
> [@19USMC69](#): > > Unless one is found, it can’t be proven. That reflects a very grim truth; the Vietnamese government has no reason for keeping any POW’s alive. If one single POW escaped and made it out of the country, it would be a huge disaster for the Vietnamese government. So if Vietnam kept any American POW’s after the official release in 1973, they had every reason to conceal it. They would have killed all of the unreleased POW’s and secretly buried them. And then killed the guards, the executioners, and the burial crews. This would have happened at least forty years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/27 "2021-03-05T04:27:52Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > As far as I know, the US is unique in its efforts to identify and bring home its war dead. Canada is still burying its war dead from WWI. [[https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2019/05/canadian-soldier-of-the-first-world-war-to-be-buried-in-france.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2019/05/canadian-soldier-of-the-first-world-war-to-be-buried-in-france.html)]([https://Canadian](https://Canadian) soldier of the First World War to be buried in France - Canada.ca) ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/28 "2021-03-05T06:11:42Z")
Australia has [programs](https://www.army.gov.au/our-work/unrecovered-war-casualties) for search and recovery of remains, but perhaps less intensive or well-resourced than the US. They have the same WW1 battlefield scenario plus WW2 Pacific and Vietnam War recovery and identification problems. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/29 "2021-03-05T13:51:30Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > The other part is politics and culture: If you believe we were stabbed in the back by domestic elements who made us lose the war, finding that those same elements deliberately left POWs to rot would be quite the coup. It would prove you right and them wrong, wouldn’t it? You can’t quite win on the notion that They spit on Our Heroes, but if you had _that_ in your campaign ads, well! This was actually a big part of it. The issue was kept alive by those who supported the war but believed that we lost because we were betrayed. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/30 "2021-03-05T13:52:17Z")
It also creates a myth that we didn’t really lose the war. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/31 "2021-03-05T14:05:46Z")
Probably only in scope. Even the Russians and Germans have programs to recover and identify their war dead, although the German effort is mostly centered around recovering and properly burying the dead in Russia now that the Soviet Union is no more. Even in Western Europe, the nations involved in WWI and WWII periodically find things like unmarked mass graves and build new cemetries. [Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fromelles_(Pheasant_Wood)_Military_Cemetery) Where the US has historically differed is that since WWI we’ve engaged in massive post-war efforts to actually repatriate the bodies from those wars, and in Korea, actually began shipping them home immediately. Most countries typically buried their dead where they fell- the UK, for example literally has hundreds of small cemeteries scattered across France and Belgium from WWI, and a lot of larger ones from WWII. In the US’s case, in both WWI and WWII something like 55-60% of families chose to have their loved ones’ remains repatriated and buried in the continental US, with the remainder buried in a handful of very large permanent US cemeteries in Europe, the Phillipines, North Africa or Hawaii. During the Korean war, air transport had advanced to the point where they simply started shipping all dead straight home for burial, and that’s what they’ve continued to this day. ---
**Author:** ![19USMC69](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ac91a4/32.png) [@19USMC69](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/19USMC69)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/32 "2021-03-05T14:43:56Z")
True. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/33 "2021-03-06T07:08:27Z")
I remember reading there’s something that nobody ever seems to bring up regarding the MIA/POW issue. There were a number of American deserters during the Vietnam War who couldn’t really just jump onto a plane and fly back to the United States for obvious reasons. They stayed in South Vietnam and lived civilian lives which was all well and good until the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam, eventually captured them, and wound up with soldiers who were both technically and not-technically POW’s. Nobody knows what happened to them, but it’s pretty much guaranteed the NVA eventually just executed them since none of them (as far as I can remember) even wound up being seen in public again. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/34 "2021-03-06T20:52:27Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > If you believe hard enough, you’ll pay [Bo Gritz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Gritz) to go looking for them This guy should be the standard definition of delusions of grandeur. He’s a total nutjob. I can’t recall the name of the book I read, but basically he got money from people for a rescue mission that he never even really attempted. The whole thing was comical. The part that was really funny was that once he rescued the POWs and got the to, I think Thailand, he would call Clint Eastwood, who supposedly had access to Reagan somehow. Eastwood would tell Reagan, Reagan would fly everybody home. The End. Problem was, he never actually left Thailand. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/35 "2021-03-15T19:30:25Z")
There is a guy who is either ex-Green Beret [John Hartley Robertson](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/american-soldier-found-living-vietnam-1862473) or maybe just “[a 76-year-old Vietnamese citizen of French origin who has a history of pretending to be US army veterans](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/revealed-man-claiming-be-vietnam-veteran-sgt-john-hartley-robertson-who-went-missing-and-was-presumed-dead-44-years-earlier-exposed-fraud-8597350.html).” I think most researchers long ago decided [that was a scam](https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/dna-test-proves-vietnam-man-is-not-missing-army-sergeant-1.282643), but apparently some still believe he is an American, if maybe not the American he claimed to be. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/36 "2021-03-16T12:44:09Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So if Vietnam kept any American POW’s after the official release in 1973, they had every reason to conceal it. They would have killed all of the unreleased POW’s and secretly buried them. And then killed the guards, the executioners, and the burial crews. This would have happened at least forty years ago. I’m just wondering, do you think the US Government would secretly execute and bury inconvenient prisoners of war ? ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/37 "2021-03-16T14:22:18Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > I’m just wondering, do you think the US Government would secretly execute and bury inconvenient prisoners of war ? Vietnam’s retention of American POWs after the official 1973 release was a prerequisite in Little\_Nemo’s scenario. The belief, apparently espoused by Eric Haney, was that Vietnam was trying to use these holdovers as leverage to demand reparations. The alleged refusal to pay such reparations is believed to be the thing that made those POWs inconvenient. Which doesn’t make much sense. If Vietnam were going to keep some POWs as collateral, why would they even go through with the official repatriation off the rest of them? Why not just keep _all_ of the POWs in their custody and be upfront about the conditions of their release? If “inconvenient” refers to “secretly holding POWs to compel remuneration”, then no, I don’t believe the US would ever have such “inconvenient” POWs in the first place, let alone secretly execute them. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/38 "2021-03-16T14:38:00Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > As far as I know, the US is unique in its efforts to identify and bring home its war dead. You guys have nothing on Israel in this regard. Giving the dead a proper burial is a national obsession here - a slightly unhealthy one, in my opinion. The Israeli government has even, on several occasions, exchanged live terrorists for dead bodies of soldiers. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/39 "2021-03-16T16:10:38Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > I’m just wondering, do you think the US Government would secretly execute and bury inconvenient prisoners of war ? No, I don’t. Because I don’t think the United States would illegally hold any POW’s after agreeing to their release. For that matter, I don’t think Vietnam illegally held any POW’s after agreeing to their release either. My point was that if a country was willing to commit one crime by holding POW’s illegally and concealing the fact it was doing so, there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t commit a second crime in order to cover up the first crime. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087/40 "2021-03-16T18:15:56Z")
Not a declared war as such, but you might be interested in the book “By Any Means Necessary: America’s Secret Air War in the Cold War” by William E. Burroughs. A book about the Air Force soldiers who flew close to unfriendly countries’ air borders trying to learn about their military capabilities, radar, weapons, etc Here’s the blurb from Alibris: “For the first time, award-winning historian Burrows shows that during America’s secret air war in the Cold War, others (officers?) were captured by the Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans, and were tortured, imprisoned, and killed, while their loved ones grieved and their government looked the other way.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evidence-is-there-that-american-pows-were-left-behind-in-vietnam/934087.md?page=3)