WAYNE MADSEN/WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

INTRODUCTION:

Donald Trump Was ‘Spot On’ Relating To John McCain’s Military Career & Records

John McCain was a ‘rat’ or ‘stoolie’ telling on other U.S. officers being held captive at the Hanoi Hilton prison.  When McCain first went to congress, members of congress turned their backs on him and did not communicate with him because of this, and also how he disgraced the military and his fellow officers who were severely punished by the North Vietnam guards and commanders of the Communist prison by McCain ratting them out.  I am also led to believe that McCain was referred to as ‘the canary’ by the other officers for telling or squealing on the others.  If you search the internet you will find some of these articles about what McCain did to his fellow officers in captivity and the stories of the other brave officers who reported on McCain upon returning to the United States.  He was also given special treatment by the communists while in prison, because his father was a 4 star Admiral.  Donald Trump was and is CORRECT!

Dr. James P. Wickstro

Navy Releases McCain’s Records

McCain was personally responsible for the deadliest fire in the history of the US Navy. That catastrophe, with 27 dead and over 100 wounded trumps McCain’s record as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/35321150/navy-releases-mccains-records

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USS Forrestal, July 29, 1967 – The worst accident aboard a US Navy surface vessel since WWII

BY WAYNE MADSEN/WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

 

The Navy released John McCain’s military record after a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press. The record is packed with information on McCain’s medals and commendations but little else.  The one thing that the McCain campaign does not want to see released is the record of McCain’s antics on board the USS Forestal in 1967.  McCain was personally responsible for the deadliest fire in the history of the US Navy.  That catastrophe, with 27 dead and over 100 wounded trumps McCain’s record as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

WMR has learned additional details regarding the deadly fire aboard the Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal, on July 19, 1967 in the Gulf of Tonkin.  The additional details point to then-Lt. Commander John McCain playing more of a role in triggering the fire and explosions than previously reported.

On January 16, 2006, WMR reported that according to a US Navy sailor who was aboard the Forrestal on the fateful day of the fire, “McCain and the Forrestal’s skipper, Capt. John K. Beling, were warned about the danger of using M-65 1000-lb. bombs manufactured in 1935, which were deemed too dangerous to use during World War II and, later, on B-52 bombers.  The fire from the Zuni missile misfire resulted in the heavy 1000 pound bombs being knocked loose from the pylons of McCain’s A-4 aircraft, which were only designed to hold 500-pound bombs.”

WMR further reported, “The unstable bombs had a 60-second cook-off threshold in a fire situation and this warning was known to both Beling and McCain prior to the disaster.”   WMR also cited the potential that McCain’s Navy records were used against him by the neo-cons in control of the Pentagon.  “The neo-cons, who have had five years to examine every file within the Department of Defense, have likely accessed documents that could prove embarrassing to McCain, who was on board the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, and whose A-4 Skyhawk was struck by an air-to-ground Zuni missile that had misfired from an F-4 Phantom.”

WMR has been informed that crewmen aboard the Forrestal have provided additional information about the Forrestal incident.  It is believed by many crewmen and those who have investigated the case that McCain deliberately “wet-started” his A-4E to shake up the guy in the plane behind his A-4.  “Wet-starts”, done either deliberately or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft.

In McCain’s case, the “wet-start” apparently “cooked off” and launched the Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that touched off the explosions and massive fire.  The F-4 pilot was reportedly killed in the conflagration.  “Wet starting” was apparently a common practice among young “hot-dog” pilots.

McCain was quickly transferred to the USS Oriskany (the only Forrestal crewman to be immediately transferred).  Three months later, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967.

As WMR previously reported, at the time of the Forrestal disaster, McCain’s father, Admiral John McCain, Jr., was Commander-in-Chief of US Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) and was busy covering up the details of the deadly and pre-meditated June 8, 1967, Israeli attack on the NSA spy ship, the USS Liberty.  [John McCain is one of the best cases against military ‘nepotism’ in American history.]

The fact that both McCains were involved in two incidents just weeks apart that resulted in a total death count of 168 on the Forrestal and the Liberty, with an additional injury count of 234 on both ships (with a number of them later dying from their wounds) with an accompanying classified paper-trail inside the Pentagon, may be all that was needed to hold a Sword of Damocles over the head of the “family honor”-oriented McCain by the neo-cons.

WMR has also been informed by knowledgeable sources, including an ex-Navy A-4 pilot, the “wet-start game” was a common occurrence.  However, it is between “very unlikely” and “impossible” for the Forrestal “wet start” to have been accidental.  “Wet starts” were later rendered impossible by automated engine controls.

Wayne Madsen reports on military and political affairs in Washington at his website, WayneMadsenReport.com.

http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/35321150/navy-releases-mccains-records

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 VIEW VIDEO:

USS Forrestal Mishap July 29, 1967

McCain Lies About Being Tortured As  A  P.O.W.

From: NATIONAL VIETNAM P.O.W. STRIKE FORCE

To: CBS News, 10/12/97

You did not do your homework well enough on “Hanoi John” McCain. If you had read the lengthy article about him in the April 1973 issue of U.S. News and World Report, you would have seen that in none of his quotes did he allege torture, except from the irate civilians at the scene of his crash. Once in captivity, he lived in relative splendor compared to his hapless cohorts who refused to denounce America on the radio and paid for their patriotism in blood, literally. Here are some other facts your sloppy journalism omitted:

(1) USAF Major Overly could not have cared for McCain’s “wounds” for very long; he collaborated and accepted early release in less than five months from shootdown.

(2) Another of McCain’s roommates “disappeared” and was not released at Homecoming I. McCain was kept in the camp for “progressives” (collaborators) and away from “reactionaries” (John Wayne types who spit in the face of their torturers). Other roommates were Day and Flynn, both of whom made propaganda broadcasts along with McCain urging pilots to return to carriers and soldiers to surrender.

(3) McCain returned from communist captivity 10 pounds heavier.

(4) Patricia O’Grady, daughter of a POW/MIA, on a visit to Hanoi to look for her father, was given a tour of the “Hanoi Hilton” prison. They showed her McCain’s cell. It had a writing desk, a large bed, a goldfish bowl, a flush toilet and a nice window of downtown Hanoi out the window.

(5) Both North Vietnamese Generals Giap and Bui Tin met with McCain in his cell. No other returned POWs reported meeting with high-ranking generals. I have a picture of McCain enjoying a large plate of food while talking to a Soviet KGB officer in the Foreign Ministry. A Soviet doctor was rushed to Hanoi to treat his wounds.

(6) In personal conversations I have had with General Bui Tin, he assured me they never touched McCain, saying that since he was the son of the CINCPACFLT Admiral, “He too important”.

(7) McCain said in 1973, he sustained his ordeal with his “love for his wife”. In a matter of months he had dumped her for a woman 1/3rd his age whose father owned the Coors Beer franchise in Phoenix. (His good friend Senator Kerry, about the same time, dumped his wife after fornicating with Jane Fonda.) McCain also has a secret “wife” in Hanoi and an illegitimate son.

(8) McCain would sit beside with army officers at a table when newly-captured pilots arrived and urged them to cooperate.

(9) McCain viciously fought against the formation of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA and then got on it and sabotaged any hopes of finding real answers. He called me and others crooks profiteering on the issue, yet he is the biggest loot recipient of the Keating Five.

(10) If the “Crowned Prince” of the “Plantation” does not stop his outlandish lies about his “torture”, several of his fellow POW’s “will” soon break their “code of silence”. McCain is a brainwashed Manchurian candidate who has fawningly supported Hanoi and the Communist Bloc countries ever since he entered congress. The man is a liar, a traitor and a crook. Any senator who uses the word “scumbag” 20 times a day addressing his employees is not fit to serve.

Also, CBS, you went on to a segment of a Latino who was on death row (wrongfully) in a “miscarriage of justice”. The biggest “MOJ” of this decade would be for traitor and Hanoi lover McCain to continue in office after the 1998 elections.

Joe L. Jordan

USN Squadron VQ-1

Da Nang 1967-68

National Vietnam P.O.W. Strike Force

P.S. McCain is the only returned POW NEVER TO BE DEBRIEFED.

***

Source: CONTACT: THE PHOENIX PROJECT, October 27, 1997, Volume 18, Number 9, Page 10.


John McCain: Traitor

Forbidden Knowledge TV

Feb. 3, 2015

Earl Hopper spent 30 years with the Army in Airborne Special Services and with Army Intelligence and he was a founding member of the National League of Families, dedicated to returning living POWs and MIAs of the Vietnam War.

He and those interviewed allege that the narrative propagated by McCain, of his five and a half years as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam is about as far from the truth as one could possibly imagine.  They allege that McCain, from the very first moments of his capture behaved as a COLLABORATOR and propaganda tool for his North Vietnamese captors.

McCain is described as engaging in no less than 30, and up to 38 anti-American propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi during the period of his captivity.

Far from the image of the dedicated American “hero” sweating it out in a North Vietnamese prisoner’s “hotbox” for five and half years, McCain was observed by fellow prisoners to be receiving special treatment by his captors, who were fully aware of his father’s and grandfather’s 4-star Admiral positions with the US Navy.

Not a single contemporary captive interviewed here ever witnessed McCain’s alleged “torture” at the hands of his jailers and the consensus opinion of the other POWs in McCain’s camps was that McCain was actually NEVER tortured by the North Vietnamese.

McCain’s disgraceful and wholly reprehensible conduct (along with that of John Kerry) during the 1991-93 Senate Committee on POW/MIAs, where McCain made massive efforts to block the release of classified documents and is described here as the person who did the “most harm” to the movement of families who wanted to rescue any remaining loved ones, left behind in Vietnam and Laos.

McCain is described by those interviewed in this clip as perhaps the person who did the most to quash this movement – and they suspect that this was because he didn’t want the truth to be revealed by them.

To them, his actions leave no doubt that McCain is a traitor to this country and its veterans and especially, to the [POWs and MIAs and their families].

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John Mccain Traitor- By Vietnam Vets And Pow’s


 

McCain and the POW Cover-Up

 

By Sydney Schanberg

July 1, 2010

[QUOTING:]

The “war hero” candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.

Eighteen months ago, TAC publisher Ron Unz discovered an astonishing account of the role the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, had played in suppressing information about what happened to American soldiers missing in action in Vietnam.  Below, we present in full Sydney Schanberg’s explosive story.

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John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home.  Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents.  Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain’s role in it, even as the Republican Party has made McCain’s military service the focus of his presidential campaign.  Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War turned their heads and walked in other directions.  McCain doesn’t talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small.  There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a special forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington—and even sworn testimony by two Defense secretaries that “men were left behind.”  This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number—the documents indicate probably hundreds—of the U.S. prisoners held by Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.

Mass of Evidence

The Pentagon had been withholding significant information from POW families for years.  What’s more, the Pentagon’s POW/MIA operation had been publicly shamed by internal whistleblowers and POW families for holding back documents as part of a policy of “debunking” POW intelligence even when the information was obviously credible.

The pressure from the families and Vietnam veterans finally forced the creation, in late 1991, of a Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs.  The chairman was John Kerry.  McCain, as a former POW, was its most pivotal member. In the end, the committee became part of the debunking machine.

One of the sharpest critics of the Pentagon’s performance was an insider, Air Force Lt. Gen. Eugene Tighe, who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during the 1970s.  He openly challenged the Pentagon’s position that no live prisoners existed, saying that the evidence proved otherwise.  McCain was a bitter opponent of Tighe, who was eventually pushed into retirement.

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or sought to discredit is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general’s briefing of the Hanoi politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in 1993.  The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords.  The general, Tran Van Quang, told the politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war’s end as leverage to ensure getting war reparations from Washington.

Throughout the Paris negotiations, the North Vietnamese tied the prisoner issue tightly to the issue of reparations.  They were adamant in refusing to deal with them separately.  Finally, in a Feb. 2, 1973 formal letter to Hanoi’s premier, Pham Van Dong, Nixon pledged $3.25 billion in “postwar reconstruction” aid “without any political conditions.”  But he also attached to the letter a codicil that said the aid would be implemented by each party “in accordance with its own constitutional provisions.”  That meant Congress would have to approve the appropriation, and Nixon and Kissinger knew well that Congress was in no mood to do so.  The North Vietnamese, whether or not they immediately understood the double-talk in the letter, remained skeptical about the reparations promise being honored—and it never was.  Hanoi thus appears to have held back prisoners—just as it had done when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and withdrew their forces from Vietnam. In that case, France paid ransoms for prisoners and brought them home.

In a private briefing in 1992, high-level CIA officials told me that as the years passed and the ransom never came, it became more and more difficult for either government to admit that it knew from the start about the unacknowledged prisoners.  Those prisoners had not only become useless as bargaining chips but also posed a risk to Hanoi’s desire to be accepted into the international community.  The CIA officials said their intelligence indicated strongly that the remaining men—those who had not died from illness or hard labor or torture—were eventually executed.

My own research, detailed below, has convinced me that it is not likely that more than a few—if any—are alive in captivity today.  (That CIA briefing at the Agency’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters was conducted “off the record,” but because the evidence from my own reporting since then has brought me to the same conclusion, I felt there was no longer any point in not writing about the meeting.)

For many reasons, including the absence of a political constituency for the missing men other than their families and some veterans’ groups, very few Americans are aware of the POW story and of McCain’s role in keeping it out of public view and denying the existence of abandoned POWs.  That is because McCain has hardly been alone in his campaign to hide the scandal.

The Arizona senator, now the Republican candidate for president, has actually been following the lead of every White House since Richard Nixon’s, and thus of every CIA director, Pentagon chief, and national security adviser, not to mention Dick Cheney, who was George H.W. Bush’s Defense secretary.  Their biggest accomplice has been an indolent press, particularly in Washington.

McCain’s Role

An early and critical McCain secrecy move involved 1990 legislation that started in the House of Representatives.  A brief and simple document, it was called “the Truth Bill” and would have compelled complete transparency about prisoners and missing men.  Its core sentence reads: “[The] head of each department or agency which holds or receives any records and information, including live-sighting reports, which have been correlated or possibly correlated to United States personnel listed as prisoner of war or missing in action from World War II, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam conflict, shall make available to the public all such records held or received by that department or agency.”

Bitterly opposed by the Pentagon (and thus McCain), the bill went nowhere. Reintroduced the following year, it again disappeared.  But a few months later, a new measure, known as “the McCain Bill,”suddenly appeared.  By creating a bureaucratic maze from which only a fraction of the documents could emerge—only records that revealed no POW secrets—it turned the Truth Bill on its head.  The McCain bill became law in 1991 and remains so today. So crushing to transparency are its provisions that it actually spells out for the Pentagon and other agencies several rationales, scenarios, and justifications for not releasing any information at all—even about prisoners discovered alive in captivity.  Later that year, the Senate Select Committee was created, where Kerry and McCain ultimately worked together to bury evidence.

McCain was also instrumental in amending the Missing Service Personnel Act, which had been strengthened in 1995 by POW advocates to include criminal penalties, saying, “Any government official who knowingly and willfully withholds from the file of a missing person any information relating to the disappearance or whereabouts and status of a missing person shall be fined as provided in Title 18 or imprisoned not more than one year or both.”  A year later, in a closed House-Senate conference on an unrelated military bill, McCain, at the behest of the Pentagon, attached a crippling amendment to the act, stripping out its only enforcement teeth, the criminal penalties, and reducing the obligations of commanders in the field to speedily search for missing men and to report the incidents to the Pentagon.

About the relaxation of POW/MIA obligations on commanders in the field, a public McCain memo said, “This transfers the bureaucracy involved out of the [battle] field to Washington.”  He wrote that the original legislation, if left intact, “would accomplish nothing but create new jobs for lawyers and turn military commanders into clerks.”

McCain argued that keeping the criminal penalties would have made it impossible for the Pentagon to find staffers willing to work on POW/MIA matters. That’s an odd argument to make.  Were staffers only “willing to work” if they were allowed to conceal POW records?  By eviscerating the law, McCain gave his stamp of approval to the government policy of debunking the existence of live POWs.

McCain has insisted again and again that all the evidence—documents, witnesses, satellite photos, two Pentagon chiefs’ sworn testimony, aborted rescue missions, ransom offers apparently scorned—has been woven together by unscrupulous deceivers to create an insidious and unpatriotic myth. He calls it the “bizarre rantings of the MIA hobbyists.”  He has regularly vilified those who keep trying to pry out classified documents as “hoaxers,” “charlatans,” “conspiracy theorists,” and “dime-store Rambos.”

Some of McCain’s fellow captives at Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi didn’t share his views about prisoners left behind.  Before he died of leukemia in 1999, retired Col. Ted Guy, a highly admired POW and one of the most dogged resisters in the camps, wrote an angry open letter to the senator in an MIA newsletter—a response to McCain’s stream of insults hurled at MIA activists. Guy wrote, “John, does this [the insults] include Senator Bob Smith [a New Hampshire Republican and activist on POW issues] and other concerned elected officials?  Does this include the families of the missing where there is overwhelming evidence that their loved ones were ‘last known alive’?  Does this include some of your fellow POWs?”

It’s not clear whether the taped confession McCain gave to his captors to avoid further torture has played a role in his postwar behavior in the Senate. That confession was played endlessly over the prison loudspeaker system at Hoa Lo—to try to break down other prisoners—and was broadcast over Hanoi’s state radio.  Reportedly, he confessed to being a war criminal who had bombed civilian targets.  The Pentagon has a copy of the confession but will not release it.  Also, no outsider I know of has ever seen a non-redacted copy of the debriefing of McCain when he returned from captivity, which is classified but could be made public by McCain.

[In an interview with 60 Minutes in 1997, McCain mentioned the confession his North Vietnamese captors forced him to write: “I was guilty of war crimes against the Vietnamese people.  I intentionally bombed women and children.” The truth, of course, is that what McCain wrote under duress is actually an accurate statement. –https://www.lewrockwell.com/ 2008/ 09/ laurence-]

All humans have breaking points.  Many men undergoing torture give confessions, often telling huge lies so their fakery will be understood by their comrades and their country.  Few will fault them. But it was McCain who apparently felt he had disgraced himself and his military family.  His father, John S. McCain II, was a highly regarded rear admiral then serving as commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific.  His grandfather was also a rear admiral.

In his bestselling 1999 autobiography, Faith of My FathersMcCain says he felt bad throughout his captivity because he knew he was being treated more leniently than his fellow POWs, owing to his high-ranking father and thus his propaganda value.  Other prisoners at Hoa Lo say his captors considered him a prize catch and called him the “Crown Prince,” something McCain acknowledges in the book.

Also in this memoir, McCain expresses guilt at having broken under torture and given the confession.  “I felt faithless and couldn’t control my despair,” he writes, revealing that he made two “feeble” attempts at suicide.  (In later years, he said he tried to hang himself with his shirt and guards intervened.)  Tellingly, he says he lived in “dread” that his father would find out about the confession.  “I still wince,” he writes, “when I recall wondering if my father had heard of my disgrace.”

He says that when he returned home, he told his father about the confession, but “never discussed it at length”—and the admiral, who died in 1981, didn’t indicate he had heard anything about it before.  But he had.  In the 1999 memoir, the senator writes, “I only recently learned that the tape … had been broadcast outside the prison and had come to the attention of my father.”

Is McCain haunted by these memories?  Does he suppress POW information because its surfacing would rekindle his feelings of shame?  On this subject, all I have are questions.

Many stories have been written about McCain’s explosive temper, so volcanic that colleagues are loath to speak openly about it.  One veteran congressman who has observed him over the years asked for confidentiality and made this brief comment: “This is a man not at peace with himself.”

He was certainly far from calm on the Senate POW committee. He browbeat expert witnesses who came with information about unreturned POWs. Family members who have personally faced McCain and pressed him to end the secrecy also have been treated to his legendary temper.  He has screamed at them, insulted them, brought women to tears.  Mostly his responses to them have been versions of: How dare you question my patriotism?  In 1996, he roughly pushed aside a group of POW family members who had waited outside a hearing room to appeal to him, including a mother in a wheelchair.

But even without answers to what may be hidden in the recesses of McCain’s mind, one thing about the POW story is clear: if American prisoners were dishonored by being written off and left to die, that’s something the American public ought to know about. 10 Key Pieces of Evidence That Men Were Left Behind

1.    In Paris, where the Vietnam peace treaty was negotiated, the United States asked Hanoi for the list of American prisoners to be returned, fearing that Hanoi would hold some prisoners back.  The North Vietnamese refused, saying they would produce the list only after the treaty was signed. Nixon agreed with Kissinger that they had no leverage left, and Kissinger signed the accord on Jan. 27, 1973 without the prisoner list.  When Hanoi produced its list of 591 prisoners the next day, U.S. intelligence agencies expressed shock at the low number.  Their number was hundreds higher. The New York Times published a long, page-one story on Feb. 2, 1973 about the discrepancy, especially raising questions about the number of prisoners held in Laos, only nine of whom were being returned.  The headline read, in part, “Laos POW List Shows 9 from U.S.—Document Disappointing to Washington as 311 Were Believed Missing.”  And the story, by John Finney, said that other Washington officials “believe the number of prisoners [in Laos] is probably substantially higher.”  The paper never followed up with any serious investigative reporting—nor did any other mainstream news organization.

2.    Two Defense secretaries who served during the Vietnam War testified to the Senate POW committee in September 1992 that prisoners were not returned. James Schlesinger and Melvin Laird, both speaking at a public session and under oath, said they based their conclusions on strong intelligence data—letters, eyewitness reports, even direct radio contacts. Under questioning, Schlesinger chose his words carefully, understanding clearly the volatility of the issue: “I think that as of now that I can come to no other conclusion … some were left behind.”  This ran counter to what President Nixon told the public in a nationally televised speech on March 29, 1973, when the repatriation of the 591 was in motion: “Tonight,” Nixon said, “the day we have all worked and prayed for has finally come.  For the first time in 12 years, no American military forces are in Vietnam.  All our American POWs are on their way home.”  Documents unearthed since then show that aides had already briefed Nixon about the contrary evidence.

Schlesinger was asked by the Senate committee for his explanation of why President Nixon would have made such a statement when he knew Hanoi was still holding prisoners.  He replied, “One must assume that we had concluded that the bargaining position of the United States … was quite weak. We were anxious to get our troops out and we were not going to roil the waters…” This testimony struck me as a bombshell.  The New York Times appropriately reported it on page one but again there was no sustained follow-up by the Times or any other major paper or national news outlet.

3.    Over the years, the DIA received more than 1,600 first-hand sightings of live American prisoners and nearly 14,000 second-hand reports.  Many witnesses interrogated by CIA or Pentagon intelligence agents were deemed “credible” in the agents’ reports.  Some of the witnesses were given lie-detector tests and passed.  Sources provided me with copies of these witness reports, which are impressive in their detail.  A lot of the sightings described a secondary tier of prison camps many miles from Hanoi.  Yet the DIA, after reviewing all these reports, concluded that they “do not constitute evidence” that men were alive.

4.    In the late 1970s and early 1980s, listening stations picked up messages in which Laotian military personnel spoke about moving American prisoners from one labor camp to another.  These listening posts were manned by Thai communications officers trained by the National Security Agency (NSA), which monitors signals worldwide.  The NSA teams had moved out after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and passed the job to the Thai allies. But when the Thais turned these messages over to Washington, the intelligence community ruled that since the intercepts were made by a “third party”—namely Thailand—they could not be regarded as authentic. That’s some Catch-22: the U.S. trained a third party to take over its role in monitoring signals about POWs, but because that third party did the monitoring, the messages weren’t valid.

Here, from CIA files, is an example that clearly exposes the farce. On Dec. 27, 1980, a Thai military signal team picked up a message saying that prisoners were being moved out of Attopeu (in southern Laos) by aircraft “at 1230 hours.”  Three days later a message was sent from the CIA station in Bangkok to the CIA director’s office in Langley.  It read, in part: “The prisoners … are now in the valley in permanent location (a prison camp at Nhommarath in Central Laos).  They were transferred from Attopeu to work in various places … POWs were formerly kept in caves and are very thin, dark and starving.”  Apparently the prisoners were real.  But the transmission was declared “invalid” by Washington because the information came from a “third party” and thus could not be deemed credible.

5.    A series of what appeared to be distress signals from Vietnam and Laos were captured by the government’s satellite system in the late 1980s and early ’90s.  (Before that period, no search for such signals had been put in place.)  Not a single one of these markings was ever deemed credible. To the layman’s eye, the satellite photos, some of which I’ve seen, show markings on the ground that are identical to the signals that American pilots had been specifically trained to use in their survival courses—such as certain letters, like X or K, drawn in a special way.  Other markings were the secret four-digit authenticator numbers given to individual pilots.  But time and again, the Pentagon, backed by the CIA, insisted that humans had not made these markings.  What were they, then?  “Shadows and vegetation,”  the government said, insisting that the markings were merely normal topographical contours like saw-grass or rice-paddy divider walls.  It was the automatic response—shadows and vegetation.  On one occasion, a Pentagon photo expert refused to go along.  It was a missing man’s name gouged into a field, he said, not trampled grass or paddy berms.  His bosses responded by bringing in an outside contractor who found instead, yes, shadows and vegetation.  This refrain led Bob Taylor, a highly regarded investigator on the Senate committee staff who had examined the photographic evidence, to comment to me: “If grass can spell out people’s names and secret digit codes, then I have a newfound respect for grass.”

6.    On Nov. 11, 1992, Dolores Alfond, the sister of missing airman Capt. Victor Apodaca and chair of the National Alliance of Families, an organization of relatives of POW/MIAs, testified at one of the Senate committee’s public hearings.  She asked for information about data the government had gathered from electronic devices used in a classified program known as PAVE SPIKE.

The devices were motion sensors, dropped by air, designed to pick up enemy troop movements.  Shaped on one end like a spike with an electronic pod and antenna on top, they were designed to stick in the ground as they fell.  Air Force planes would drop them along the Ho Chi Minh trail and other supply routes.  The devices, though primarily sensors, also had rescue capabilities. Someone on the ground—a downed airman or a prisoner on a labor gang —could manually enter data into the sensor.  All data were regularly collected electronically by U.S. planes flying overhead. Alfond stated, without any challenge or contradiction by the committee, that in 1974, a year after the supposedly complete return of prisoners, the gathered data showed that a person or people had manually entered into the sensors—as U.S. pilots had been trained to do—no less than 20 authenticator numbers that corresponded exactly to the classified authenticator numbers of 20 U.S. POWs who were lost in Laos.  Alfond added, according to the transcript, “This PAVE SPIKE intelligence is seamless, but the committee has not discussed it or released what it knows about PAVE SPIKE.”

McCain attended that committee hearing specifically to confront Alfond because of her criticism of the panel’s work.  He bellowed and berated her for quite a while.  His face turning anger-pink, he accused her of “denigrating” his “patriotism.”  The bullying had its effect—she began to cry.

After a pause Alfond recovered and tried to respond to his scorching tirade, but McCain simply turned away and stormed out of the room.  The PAVE SPIKE file has never been declassified.  We still don’t know anything about those 20 POWs.

7.    As previously mentioned, in April 1993 in a Moscow archive, a researcher from Harvard, Stephen Morris, unearthed and made public the transcript of a briefing that General Tran Van Quang gave to the Hanoi politburo four months before the signing of the Paris peace accords in 1973.

In the transcript, General Quang told the Hanoi politburo that 1,205 U.S. prisoners were being held.  Quang said that many of the prisoners would be held back from Washington after the accords as bargaining chips for war reparations.  General Quang’s report added: “This is a big number.  Officially, until now, we published a list of only 368 prisoners of war.  The rest we have not revealed.  The government of the USA knows this well, but it does not know the exact number …and can only make guesses based on its losses.  That is why we are keeping the number of prisoners of war secret, in accordance with the politburo’s instructions.”  The report then went on to explain in clear and specific language that a large number would be kept back to ensure reparations.

The reaction to the document was immediate.  After two decades of denying it had kept any prisoners, Hanoi responded to the revelation by calling the transcript a fabrication.

Similarly, Washington—which had over the same two decades refused to recant Nixon’s declaration that all the prisoners had been returned—also shifted into denial mode.  The Pentagon issued a statement saying the document “is replete with errors, omissions and propaganda that seriously damage its credibility,” and that the numbers were “inconsistent with our own accounting.”

Neither American nor Vietnamese officials offered any rationale for who would plant a forged document in the Soviet archives and why they would do so.  Certainly neither Washington nor Moscow—closely allied with Hanoi—would have any motive, since the contents were embarrassing to all parties, and since both the United States and Vietnam had consistently denied the existence of unreturned prisoners.  The Russian archivists simply said the document was “authentic.”

8.    In his 2002 book, Inside Delta Force, retired Command Sgt. Maj. Eric Haney described how in 1981 his special forces unit, after rigorous training for a POW rescue mission, had the mission suddenly aborted, revived a year later, and again abruptly aborted.  Haney writes that this abandonment of captured soldiers ate at him for years and left him disillusioned about his government’s vows to leave no men behind.  “Years later, I spoke at length with a former highly placed member of the North Vietnamese diplomatic corps, and this person asked me point-blank: ‘Why did the Americans never attempt to recover their remaining POWs after the conclusion of the war?’” Haney writes.  He continued, saying that he came to believe senior government officials had called off those missions in 1981 and 1982. (His account is on pages 314 to 321 of my paperback copy of the book.)

9. There is also evidence that in the first months of Ronald Reagan’s presidency in 1981, the White House received a ransom proposal for a number of POWs being held by Hanoi in Indochina.  The offer, which was passed to Washington from an official of a third country, was apparently discussed at a meeting in the Roosevelt Room attended by Reagan, Vice President Bush, CIA director William Casey, and National Security Adviser Richard Allen.  Allen confirmed the offer in sworn testimony to the Senate POW committee on June 23, 1992.

Allen was allowed to testify behind closed doors and no information was released. But a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter, Robert Caldwell, obtained the portion relating to the ransom offer and reported on it.  The ransom request was for $4 billion, Allen testified. He said he told Reagan that “it would be worth the president’s going along and let’s have the negotiation.”  When his testimony appeared in the Union-Tribune, Allen quickly wrote a letter to the panel, this time not under oath, recanting the ransom story and claiming his memory had played tricks on him.  His new version was that some POW activists had asked him about such an offer in a meeting that took place in 1986, when he was no longer in government.  “It appears,” he said in the letter, “that there never was a 1981 meeting about the return of POW/MIAs for $4 billion.”

But the episode didn’t end there.  A Treasury agent on Secret Service duty in the White House, John Syphrit, came forward to say he had overheard part of the ransom conversation in the Roosevelt Room in 1981, when the offer was discussed by Reagan, Bush, Casey, Allen, and other cabinet officials.

Syphrit, a veteran of the Vietnam War, told the committee he was willing to testify, but they would have to subpoena him.  Treasury opposed his appearance, arguing that voluntary testimony would violate the trust between the Secret Service and those it protects.  It was clear that coming in on his own could cost Syphrit his career.  The committee voted 7 to 4 not to subpoena him.

In the committee’s final report, dated Jan. 13, 1993 (on page 284), the panel not only chastised Syphrit for his failure to testify without a subpoena (“The committee regrets that the Secret Service agent was unwilling …”), but noted that since Allen had recanted his testimony about the Roosevelt Room briefing,  Syphrit’s testimony would have been “at best, uncorroborated by the testimony of any other witness.”  The committee omitted any mention that it had made a decision not to ask the other two surviving witnesses, Bush and Reagan, to give testimony under oath.  (Casey had died.)

10. In 1990, Col. Millard Peck, a decorated infantry veteran of Vietnam then working at the DIA as chief of the Asia Division for Current Intelligence, asked for the job of chief of the DIA’s Special Office for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action.  His reason for seeking the transfer, which was not a promotion, was that he had heard from officials throughout the Pentagon that the POW/MIA office had been turned into a waste-disposal unit for getting rid of unwanted evidence about live prisoners—a “black hole,” these officials called it.

Peck explained all this in his telling resignation letter of Feb. 12, 1991, eight months after he had taken the job. He said he viewed it as “sort of a holy crusade” to restore the integrity of the office but was defeated by the Pentagon machine.  The four-page, single-spaced letter was scathing, describing the putative search for missing men as “a cover-up.”

Peck charged that, at its top echelons, the Pentagon had embraced a “mind-set to debunk” all evidence of prisoners left behind.  “That national leaders continue to address the prisoner of war and missing in action issue as the ‘highest national priority,’ is a travesty,” he wrote.  “The entire charade does not appear to be an honest effort, and may never have been. …  Practically all analysis is directed to finding fault with the source.  Rarely has there been any effective, active follow through on any of the sightings, nor is there a responsive ‘action arm’ to routinely and aggressively pursue leads.”

“I became painfully aware,” his letter continued, “that I was not really in charge of my own office, but was merely a figurehead or whipping boy for a larger and totally Machiavellian group of players outside of DIA …  I feel strongly that this issue is being manipulated and controlled at a higher level, not with the goal of resolving it, but more to obfuscate the question of live prisoners and give the illusion of progress through hyperactivity.”  He named no names but said these players are “unscrupulous people in the Government or associated with the Government” who “have maintained their distance and remained hidden in the shadows, while using the [POW] Office as a ‘toxic waste dump’ to bury the whole ‘mess’ out of sight.”  Peck added that “military officers … who in some manner have ‘rocked the boat’ [have] quickly come to grief.”

Peck concluded, “From what I have witnessed, it appears that any soldier left in Vietnam, even inadvertently, was, in fact, abandoned years ago, and that the farce that is being played is no more than political legerdemain done with ‘smoke and mirrors’ to stall the issue until it dies a natural death.”

The disillusioned colonel not only resigned but asked to be retired immediately from active military service.  The press never followed up.

My Pursuit of the Story

I covered the war in Cambodia and Vietnam, but came to the POW information only slowly afterward, when military officers I knew from that conflict began coming to me with maps and POW sightings and depositions by Vietnamese witnesses.

I was then city editor of the New York Times, no longer involved in foreign or national stories, so I took the data to the appropriate desks and suggested it was material worth pursuing.  There were no takers.  Some years later, in 1991, when I was an op-ed columnist at Newsday, the aforementioned special Senate committee was formed to probe the POW issue.  I saw this as an opening and immersed myself in the reporting.

At Newsday, I wrote 36 columns over a two-year period, as well as a four-part series on a trip I took to North Vietnam to report on what happened to one missing pilot who was shot down over the Ho Chi Minh trail and captured when he parachuted down.  After Newsday, I wrote thousands more words on the subject for other outlets.  Some of the pieces were about McCain’s key role.

Though I wrote on many subjects for Life, Vanity Fair, and Washington Monthly, my POW articles appeared in Penthouse, the Village Voice, and APBnews.com. Mainstream publications just weren’t interested.  Their disinterest was part of what motivated me, and I became one of a very short list of journalists who considered the story important.

Serving in the Army in Germany during the Cold War and witnessing combat firsthand as a reporter in India and Indochina led me to have great respect for those who fight for their country.  To my mind, we dishonored U.S. troops when our government failed to bring them home from Vietnam after the 591 others were released—and then claimed they didn’t exist.  And politicians dishonor themselves when they pay lip service to the bravery and sacrifice of soldiers only to leave untold numbers behind, rationalizing to themselves that it’s merely one of the unfortunate costs of war.

John McCain—now campaigning for the White House as a war hero, maverick, and straight shooter—owes the voters some explanations.  The press were long ago wooed and won by McCain’s seeming openness, Lone Ranger pose, and self-deprecating humor, which may partly explain their ignoring his record on POWs.  In the numerous, lengthy McCain profiles that have appeared of late in papers like theNew York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, I may have missed a clause or a sentence along the way, but I have not found a single mention of his role in burying information about POWs.  Television and radio news programs have been similarly silent.

Reporters simply never ask him about it.  They didn’t when he ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in 2000.  They haven’t now, despite the fact that we’re in the midst of another war—a war he supports and one that has echoes of Vietnam.  The only explanation McCain has ever offered for his leadership on legislation that seals POW files is that he believes the release of such information would only stir up fresh grief for the families of those who were never accounted for in Vietnam.  Of the scores of POW families I’ve met over the years, only a few have said they want the books closed without knowing what happened to their men.  All the rest say that not knowing is exactly what grieves them.

Isn’t it possible that what really worries those intent on keeping the POW documents buried is the public disgust that the contents of those files would generate?

How the Senate Committee Perpetuated the Debunking …

[END OF QUOTING.]

***

READ THE COMPLETE DOCUMENT AT:

www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/mc


 

Incumbent Sen. John McCain Running For A Fifth Term

Rocky Montana

May 27, 2016

The above compendium of the articles about the past behavior of John McCain tell it all.  As McCain is now running for a fifth term as U.S. senator for Arizona, these articles are being posted once again in an effort to inform more Arizona voters and the American people about McCain past behavior.  On November 8, 2016, Arizona voters either reelect John McCain for a fifth term, knowing that he has lied to and deceived the them and the American public throughout his political career, or they will finally do the right thing and run McCain out of office, and replace him with a more honest, honorable and deserving individual.  The U.S. Senate and the Republican Party will do just fine without John McCain.

In review: John “McCain was personally responsible for the deadliest fire in the history of the US Navy.  That catastrophe, with 27 dead and over 100 wounded’ and over $72 million in aircraft damage, eclipses ‘McCain’s record as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.”  McCain has admited: “I’m not a war hero.” , but for nearly 50 years he has allowed falsehoods to be reported about himself by the controlled media and his colleagues in the Washington Establishment.  They have repeatedly claimed that John McCain is a “war hero” and that he was tortured by his captors while “imprisoned” at Hanoi.

Due to John McCain’s duplicity in falsely stating his war record, his captivity record, his cooperating with the enemy (North Vietnamese Communists), and his efforts to cover up the truth about P.O.W.’s left in Vietnam, speaks to the man’s character.  His continued deceit and profiteering dishonors the memory of all legitimate war heros, war captives, P.O.W.’s left behind, and the military men and women who have died in service to our country.  The above articles have been available to the Arizona voters and American public for decades, and yet the incumbent Senator has been undeservedly rewarded with a 34 year political career to date, from 1982 though 2016.  Interested parties can contact John McCain or his staff at: 

Share Your Opinion – United States Senator John McCain 

Washington, DC:  Phone: (202) 224-2235   Fax: (202) 228-2862

Phoenix, AZ:  Phone: (602) 952-2410  Fax: (855) 952-8702        

Prescott, AZ:  Phone: (928) 445-0833   Fax: (928) 445-8594

Tucson, AZ:  Phone: (520) 670-6334  Fax: (520) 670-6637

 

Source: https://lozzafun1.wordpress.com/2016/05/29/navy-releases-mccains-records-mccain-was-personally-responsible-for-the-deadliest-fire-in-the-history-of-the-us-navy/

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258 COMMENTS

  1. Why did the media not report any of this?? I feel bad i voted for him when I lived in Arizona. He was no Hero. What a disgrace he was and now i see why he was so angry.

  2. My father in law CPO A. B Clark served aboard on the US FORRESTAL during the time of the explosion. I want to honor his service. RIP Arthur B Clark.

  3. Thankful for your service Charles Vitelli MD! And for your “story”!I love the comments all written for the purpose of truth. For today I choose to believe and Support President Trump and the USA and it Vets! I pray God’s Blessings on President Trump and the United States of America ??

  4. OMG – this gives new meaning to “The Truth Hurts”. Obviously I have to check these facts
    because the subject is of a dead man who appeared to have held the torch of Liberty and Justice for All is on the line. Initially, I can not even fathom how you must have felt to be sacrificed for a fellow countryman’s comfort and position behind enemy lines… for words can not describe the feeling of sickness I have at this moment sir reading your words. Thank you for your service and we should all remember that the truth will be revealed and will spread like wild fire despite the MSM suppression of such things. I am truly thankful to you for what you have posted here even though the sickness and shame of this fill my thoughts presently – God will even the score, always. Thank you again sir.

  5. I went thru flight training with McCain, he was a smart ass privileged punk and apparently never changed. I totally believe Major Vitelli, why would he tell other than the truth? John is gone but turncoat Kerry continues his “skullduggery” and self serving , he along with the B-tch Fonda can go to hell. Trump may be rude and crude, but he is getting the job done. Those opposing trump because you didn’t get your way, the other looser, Hiliary, need stop acting like spoiled brats and do what is best for the USA.

  6. I don’t know for sure how much of this is true, most of it probably is, I think Schumer’s grandious idea of naming anything after McCain needs to be shelved! I’m not fond of naming things after a person who has passed, there are other ways of “honoring” someone you think they needs to be honored! In this case it needs a lot more scrutiny!

  7. My heart goes out to all the men and women who served our country. My late husband was in VN in 66 to 68. He said there a lot more secret places besides the Hanoi Hilton that our men were being taken to and kept for prisoners. Someone told him some terrible things that were going on over there that our Govt knew about and did NOTHING. We also had a good friend who will remain nameless who was Green Barrett and a lifer in the service. So many things that I have just read in here are things he said about our Govt.
    I believed every word our friend told us. Many moons later this friend was fighting with our Govt to come clean about POW’s who were left behind and the transportation of drugs to be give to our men .He discussed Air America and the drugs he witnessed being delivered to Laos BY OUR OWN GOVT. He was threatened and told to shut his face up. He had surgery during this time at a VA hospital, He became very ill after that and no one could tell him what was wrong. Finally they said it was a parasite he got over in Laos or VN. He was dying a terrible death, and then poof he was gone from us. Before he died he swore that they out this parasite into his body when he had the surgery because they had threatened him. I doubted him then but not now. Not after reading all these things in here. John Mc Cains family loved this man they did not really know him, He betrayed our country and our people fighting for us. He and John Kerry. God save their souls if they ever had one.

  8. the forestal event was supposedly created by a piece of yellow gear’s exhaust hose being to short which in turn put the hot exhaust directed at one of the missles on an aircraft….boom…boom…boom.

  9. Being a Vietnam ( 1967-1970 ), the story of Hanoi Jane makes me sick today. John McCain and Kerry are no different. I served on PBR’s and Swiftboats in the Delta when it was made known that Kerry had slammed a Hatchway on his hand, and put in for a Purple Heart. He was an asshole then, and still is today. If the country new just 10 percent of what our government covered up then and now, would be in shock. Unfortunately, most people today would rather stick the head in the sand. There are to many ” bleeding hearts ” today, so if everything was brought to light, nothing would be done. I did my part, and brought Vietnam home with me ( I suffer from PTSD, and dealing with Agent Orange throat cancer ). People say they love this country, but do nothing to bring these traitors to pay for their crimes. We would send a message if we went back to public hangings, and televise them on National TV.

  10. So John McCain personally killed 130 seamen? I read these stories and think why when he was running for office no one ever heard them?

  11. I believe what you all have said regarding the prison experiences. I’m unsure of the A4 experience. I heard he was an A7 pilot. However, my question is; Knowing that McCain was a traitor and collaborator, from the facts developed from your personal experiences. You stayed faithful as a group while you were POW’s, why didn’t you bring all this out as a group when you came back and resist his election before his death? Were you threatened with prosecution? Why was he allowed to be elected 5 times and run for president, without all this coming out from the people that he most hurt? The Veterans were very vocal in censuring Jane Fonda. What made McCain immune from censure and prosecution under the UCMJ? I’m not faulting you guys, I’m just trying to understand how he got away with his actions.

  12. These article have so many factual mistakes, I cannot surmise how anyone can believe their content at all. Many of you blame John McCain for the past horrors the befell some of our brothers in battle. Think what the military industrial complex, the government and the Pentagon did to so many of us by spraying dioxins over our heads, our fields of action and encampments without telling anyone about its poison effects. Who is the real culprit? McCain and Jane Fonda are little angels compared to the atrocity of what our own government did to so many of its brave soldiers.

    • Not going to disagree with you regarding the article but, doesn’t it seem strange that he became a part of what did that to those soldiers?

  13. You ought to check out his voting in congress to military and veterans, who he stabbed in the back. He was no hero , he was out looking for number one.

  14. ALL OF THIS IS FALSE …
    This statement is coming from a Vet . The Forrestal accident is Taught in Navy/Marine Safety classes . McCain flew the A-4 Skyhawk . In the training film , the rocket CLEARLY comes from an F-4 Phantom on the other side of the deck . McCain’s plane was the one that was hit . The Forrestal Incident completely changed shipboard procedures . Fire Safety , and Flight Line Safety . I’m sure you won’t approve this comment , because it’s the TRUTH , but it’s worth a try to stop this misinformation . I’m hoping My Sailors and fellow Marines will step up and correct this . WE KNOW THE TRUTH abut this accident . It is DRILLED into us .

  15. I have always heard of stories about McCain and gave him the benefit of not believing them. After reading about what Kerry and he did about hiding records about MIA’s the Two Rat’s finally came out of there holes. President Trump was right we Need to drain the swamp in Washington but also Stop watching the fake News which has lied about the war also When are we going to Wake up.

  16. I hope the American people will wake up when they find out that people like McCain and Kerry have caused the American people so much dishonor. They have hidden so much of the records of what happened in vietnam we will never know. President Trump was right when he said we need to drain the swamp. The American people need to wake up.

  17. Thank you for sharing this article and information – many people did not believe me. I was shocked when I read stories about these events in articles a few years ago. It is necessary to expose him for the real things he did in life. Sad but many people suffered and many lost their lives!

  18. Hear McCain’s own words on NVN radio beginning at about 16:00 and 13:50.
    https://www.trunews.com/listen/trunews-08-04-16-john-mccains-1969-tokyo-rose-propaganda-recording-released

  19. This story is a complete fabrication and is designed to cast shadows over the career of a decent officer. Feeding the hatred in your own party again Don?
    As for the story, the writer claims that McCain caused the accident by firing his engines and the backblast striking an F-4 behind him and setting off the Zuni Missile. First, all jet aircraft have their engines pointed over the side for starting. Second, The A4 does not have the ability to start their engines without a compressor which is only connected when the aircraft is in the proper position, with engines pointed over the side, and ready for engine start. Third, the live video from the Forestal shows the two A4’s on the deck being struck from the side by the Zuni missile, as stated in the investigation report. The missile did not come from behind the A4’s.
    Anyone who would re-post such an obvious lie has no honor and is nothing but a worthless Gossip spreading fear and hatred. Clean up your cowardly act.

  20. I was a radio operator in the north central highlands in 1966 and 1967. I was in the field, most of the time at battalion L Z s. With a mos of teletype operator, i had a secret clearance, but I was mistakenly put in an infantry battalion with a prc25 radio. I always felt bad when I came home because I had a fear our men were left behind as prisoners. I hated that feeling. I would have volunteered any time in my life to go back and get them.
    Finally after many years the bad dreams and concerns had diminished. I do wonder if the seven times I have been cut on for cancer, or three aorta surgeries I have had were from agent orange. Now I am hurt that my suspicions of men left behind was true. I can only feel, I should have spoke up and done more. I did nothing. I am so sorry.
    I lack a lot of trust in our government. Trump is my hope, because no one owns him. Don’t miss this chance America to get out of the mess, we allowed to develope. So many can be bought. I was quiet, but that was a mistake.

    • I was in boot camp with the Navy in 79. Standing on the parade ground at 4am waiting for the chow hall to open we got an announcement.

      The Iranians have stormed the embassy. We thought they were messing with us.

      Fast forward to the fleet. Movie night aboard ship. We always got first run films.

      The movie was Apocalypse Now.

      Seems a lot of the crew had come from river boats.

      When the movie was finished. The credits had run out. The screen went white. The film flapped on the reel.

      And nobody moved.

      The only word to describe it is haunting.

      My dad’s Uncle fought in WWl. Three uncles in WWll. South Pacific landings. Tanks with Patton. Bombers over Germany.

      My father received a purple heart in Korea. One week before the ceasefire.

      No country has ever done service to the people who fight for it. But this is beyond simple abandonment.

    • I just happened on this nightmare story while reading comments about John McCain on FB. The story made me sick to my stomach. Gary Stites, I too thank you for you service.

  21. McCain was never a hero. He was a spoiled brat from day one. I honestly can say I am glad he is now deceased. If he had not been a pilot but rather on the ground in Vietnam.
    I surely believe he would’ve been fragged. Kerry & Fonda should be hung as traitors.

  22. And still the country treats him as a hero, if but a small amount of this is true he did not deserve military honors at internment !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  23. FYI, Hensley Distributing is the Anheuser Busch distributor for most of Arizona. Zeb Pearce & Sons is the state’s Coor’s distributor. You might want to correct this error in your article to make it more believable.

  24. God knows what happened and He will have the final say!
    God bless the men who gave all they had for a country that would same day embrace people kneeling at the sound of our National Amthem, talking about becoming socialist how many brave African-Americans gave their lives for this country ?
    But God will have his final words with these people, see the American government don’t believe in God but God knows the hairs on their head and someday they will kneel before him and what are they going to say ?

  25. I often wondered why John McCain always seemed bitter, I believe John McCain hates John McCain, and the guilt he feels inside overwhelms him, it then comes out as hate towards others in the position of authority. John has had to work everyday of his life to keep the truth from coming out, to the point that he was not willing to even help find other POWS/MIAS. In my personal opinion, John McCain is a Traitor to the United States, just like, Kerry, Obama, Brennan, Clapper Bruce Ore, James Comey, Lisa Page, Peter Strozk, Andy McCabe, Eric Holder, Lorretta Lynch, The Main-Stream Media, who propagated for all of them, the DNC, and their Party Members, such as, John Warner, Rep. Schiff/Stalwell and many others. They are all Traitors, and criminals who hate America.

  26. No surprise McCain is the same as all those in Washington!Lets see no votes in 2018? Wonder how many pay checks he has missed?

    • Kenny,this is why Mac-Cain won the elections: https://prepareforchange.net/2018/08/04/largest-voting-machine-vendor-in-us-admits-its-systems-had-remote-access-software-installed/

  27. John McCain’s
    You must live a horrible life. I have heard these things. No wonder you didn’t support our choice for President
    Heaven help you

  28. This is for Maj. Charles Vitelli M.D. Having serviced 64-67 USMC and knowing your name, I’m honored to comment on this article, I was still close to many folks, that were still in when I left active service. They all, without question will back you on everything you stated. The comments also prove your thoughts to be true, I wish someone with a “set” would make a doc/movie with ALL the above facts and do it soon enough that the son of a bitch, will see it and expose him for the bastard he is before dies. If I still could travel, rest assured i would travel to his grave, and piss on it!!!

    • well said max. where have all the good guys gone??? they must love it when we all sit in cyberspace and chit chat….there should be some wall to scale, arrests, and public hangings for the shit that has been done to us collectively.

  29. Would love to see a TRUE documentary about all the traitorus acts of John McCain and John Kerry. The American public should know how these two kept thousands of MIAs-POWs in Vietnam and how they kept any bill from passing that would have maybe saved some if not all them.
    These two are nothing short of POS traitors..

    • Now I understand why McCain did not want President Trump to come to his funeral. This country needs to come to grips with the TRUTH… if there is any hope left to recover from the massive treasons against the American Public.

  30. Judge for yourself but his actions speak louder than words. Government coverups abound. How could we leave over 1000 POW’s in the hands of the NVA to die miserable deaths? It is way beyond incomprehensible.

  31. I was aboard the Forrestal on July 29,1967, it was a pure day of hell. That day changed my whole life. I did not even think the same after that day. It took me a whole year before I could even talk to my wife about it. In my eyes john mccain is no hero. The men whom fought to save our ship and lost their lifes are the real heros. john mcain was not one of them. God bless the familys of the 134 men whom lost their lifes that day. I stood on the flight deck of the Forrestal and watched them carry their bodies off and load them on a c-130 aircraft to fly them back to the states. It was a sad day!

  32. I was on board the USS Virgo AE-30 waiting to go along side and get our mail when the fire broke out, we immediately went to General Quarters!

  33. Maj.Charles Vitelli USMC Recon served Viet Nam 1968-1973 Sniper carried 308. Was prisoner at Hanoil Hilton and what people say about a person known as John McCain he was a prisoner but nothing like the rest. The enemy were so nice to him cause his father and grandfather were Navy Admirals. He had a bed with a mattress and his own writing desk. Very few officers spoke with him for special forces men are trained to escape or die if needed.McCain spoke with the enemy a lot and when an escape was planned he was the enemy’s spoolie and would rat out the escape. It is amazing how he was the only one not debriefed but I think the truth needs to be said for I am stage four cancer ( agent orange )not to mention cause of McCain ratting me out for I am the officer who gave the order to write down their serial number and when they shoot Jane Fonda’s hand to squeeze it tight thinking she would of give them to the Red Cross instead she gave them to the enemy. They brought in there top dog little higher than our Marine Commandant and asked loudly who gave the order no one said anything then he said than we will ration the food for next two weeks. Then John McCain steps out and said the capt Vitelli three from the end with special forces did it. They ask did I and I said YES the took me into the gear locker and beat so bad I snapped loose and snapped his sturman and pulled his heart out,they shot me through me in a hole with no medical attention and there were two rats in the hole where they strung me up they never bit me but when the Viet Cong would hit me with a stick they the rats would jump out and bite them . To me they were guarding Angel’s and when President Nixon brought us home I had to go to Thailand for six months cause I would have been a disgrace for I only weighed 105 lbs 72 bones broken. I believe with all the cover up many POWS were left behind it was s ca and led collateral damage. Just like the United States government only took some responsibility for spraying the delicate AGENT ORANGE. Hopefully we continue to honor our fallen and military personnel by standing for our Natioal Anthem. For many have given their life for those colors. Thank You and God Bless.

    • I sit here in tears. A 53 year old man that is struggling to understand how so many of my countrymen could have endured the atrocities of not a foreign enemy but at the hands of their own. I’m sickened by this, these men that betrayed you and their /our country should be written into history as the Dispicable traitors they truly are. Sir, I thank you for your service and wish you the best. Thank you also for telling us what really went on. I’m so sorry you and others had to go through this. You guys are the hero’s to us all and I hope history will reflect what actually happened.. Again Thank you, Charles C. Drummond USN. 85

    • You may be a doctor, but, I would not go to see you. Your writing is worse than a second-grader. Hanoi Jane should be strung up from the nearest light post, and so should John Kerry. I believe your story, but, it is rather incomprehensible, coming from an M.D.

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