Friday, May 28, 2021

33rd Annual Northeast POW/MIA Network Vigil - June 17, 2021...Hesky Park, Meredith .. Please pass the word.

 

We are excited to have two great speakers for the Vigil this year. Both are family members and have a story to share of living with a family member listed as a MIA. We invite you to come and hear their stories and share them with others. 

Deborah Crosby, the daughter of an American pilot shot down over Vietnam never gave up in her quest to find her father's remains. And now, it is a mission accomplished.  

Deborah Crosby,  was only six when she was sent home from the first grade to learn her father was presumed dead, though his body had not been found during Operation Rolling Thunder.
Lt Cmdr Frederick P Crosby had been deployed on the Bon Homme Richard, an Essex-class aircraft carrier stationed off the Vietnam coast.

Deborah's mother could never talk about that day, but she gave Crosby and her brothers a binder with articles about her father's plane zooming low through the clouds on a bomb damage assessment mission before it was gunned down by North Vietnamese ground forces in 1965. The 31-year-old pilot was armed only with cameras, his daughter said.
'They were coming in low and fast on an enemy who is already spun up because he's already been attacked,' said Karl Zingheim, historian at the USS Midway Museum in San Diego.

'They were bearing the full brunt of the attack so they could bring the intelligence to bring back to the (aircraft) carrier.'
Crosby and her grandmother made a pact to someday bring home her father's remains and bury him in his hometown of San Diego.

In 2016, military investigators found his remains in a fish pond in north Vietnam. Deborah Crosby fulfilled her promise to her late grandmother.


 he was finally given a military burial in San Diego, after a half-century effort to find him by his daughter from Long Island. He's home now





Our second speaker is Col. Patricia Blassie (RET) on May 11, 1972 Lt. Michael Blassie, a 1970 graduate of the Air Force Academy, learned to fly A-37s at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. When he took off from the American base in Bien Hoa that May morning, Blassie, who had arrived in South Vietnam less than four months earlier to join the 8th Special Operations Squadron, had already flown 130 combat missions.

Shortly after starting his initial strike on an artillery position outside An Loc near the Cambodian border, a burst of tracer rounds was seen coming toward Blassie’s plane. His flight commander, Maj. James Connally, described what happened next in a letter to Blassie’s parents: “Mike’s aircraft was hit and began streaming fuel. He must have been killed instantly, because he did not transmit a distress call of any kind. The aircraft flew a short distance on its own and then slowly rolled over, exploding on impact in enemy-held territory.”

Other planes were dispatched to provide cover while an Army helicopter rescue team went in to inspect the wreckage. The team encountered such “a murderous hail of fire” it was forced to leave, wrote Connally.

The day following Blassie’s death, his parents in St. Louis were visited by an Air Force chaplain who informed them that their son had been killed in action, but his body could not be recovered.

That would be the same official explanation the Blassie family would hear for the next 26 years.

In 1994, Patricia Blassie was a captain in the Air Force and living in Marietta, Ga., when she received a phone call from Ted Sampley. The former Army Green Beret told her he had just written an article for the Vietnam veterans’ newsletter he published proving that her brother was buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns.








Doc Jones

Monday, April 12, 2021

POW/MIA flag flies again at White House thanks to boost from Hassan, other senators By By Shawne K. Wickham New Hampshire Sunday News Apr 9, 2021

After nearly a year’s absence, the POW/MIA flag is back atop the White House.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., announced the return of the black and white flag to “its rightful place” on Friday, which is National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day.

In a statement, Hassan, a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, thanked President Joe Biden for restoring the flag to its previous location.

“It is a powerful way to continually remember and pay tribute to the tremendous sacrifice of prisoners of war and missing service members,” she said. “I am thinking of their families and loved ones today and always as we honor their brave service to keep our country safe, secure, and free.”

A 2019 law requires that the flag, which honors American service members held prisoner or missing in action, be flown in designated locations, including the U.S. Capitol, the White House and national cemeteries.

Last May, the POW/MIA flag was moved from atop the White House and placed in a new memorial garden on the White House grounds. The move, which was revealed when the Trump administration posted a 21-second YouTube video on June 18, prompted outrage from some veterans groups.

Earlier this year, Hassan and her Senate colleagues, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., sent a letter to Biden, asking him to restore the flag “to its place of honor” atop the White House. All three were sponsors of the 2019 law.

In a news release, Hassan singled out New Hampshire veteran Bob Jones for his “tireless advocacy” in returning the flag to the White House.

Jones got the word in a call Thursday night from Hassan’s office. “I didn’t sleep all night thinking about it,” he said. “I was so happy.”

“This is really a big deal for all the veterans who care about this issue,” Jones said.


Jones is president of the Northeast POW/MIA Network, an organization that for decades has kept the issue of American service members who were taken prisoner or missing in action in the public eye both in New Hampshire and nationally.

The group has held a weekly POW/MIA vigil in Meredith’s Hesky Park for 34 years, and organizes an annual vigil and memorial motorcycle ride at the same location. The ride was canceled last year because of the health crisis, but it returns this year on June 17.

Jones said he reached out to Hassan’s office for help after the flag was removed from atop the White House because when Hassan served as governor, “she was with us at the vigil.”

He admitted he wasn’t very hopeful the flag would be restored to its more prominent location. “And that’s why we’re so happy and so thankful to this senator for her continuing the battle ...,” he said.

At a Friday press briefing, Jen Psaki, White House press secretary,

credited Hassan and the other two senators for their “true display of bipartisanship” in bringing the request to Biden’s attention.


“In keeping with the president and the first lady’s commitment to honor the sacrifices of all those who serve, including veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors, the president and first lady have restored the POW-MIA flag to its original location on top of the White House residence,” Psaki said. 







































  On Friday, Biden issued a proclamation for National Former Prisoner of War       Recognition Day, “to honor all who have borne the hardships of captivity in service to   our Nation, remember the brave men and women who were held as prisoners in   foreign lands during our Nation’s past conflicts, and recognize those at home who   anxiously awaited their loved ones’ return.” 

National Former POW Recognition Day ~ April 9th


National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day on April 9th honors the courageous men and women who have endured brutal treatment at the hands of their captors. As a result, they’ve also suffered separation from family and displayed incredible endurance and faith during their captivity.

On this day in 1942, the largest number of U.S. Forces were captured by Japanese troops in the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. After battling through extreme conditions and prolonged battles, the captured troops were forced to march 65 miles to the prison camp. Without medical attention, food or water thousands died. The mistreatment continued for those who survived the brutal journey. In the compounds, deep in the unfamiliar jungle, the hardships, brutality, and suffering lasted more than two years for those who could survive.

Since the Revolutionary War, over half a million service members have been captured. This number does not reflect those lost or never recovered. However, each POW endures conditions much like the ones described above. These heroes deserve a day of recognition.