Convince the U.S. government to keep looking for MIAs in Vietnam

Visiting the Wall – 1990

It’s spring in DC, but still cold. Buds are tucked inside tree skeletons and the fact that it’s April doesn’t seem to matter. It’s chilly. It could be October, but it’s not. It’s a day devoid of a season. The sky is blue, but so what? It’s nothing special. There’s no depth to it like in a Maxfield Parrish print. Though cloudless, the sky hangs nearly gray. Even the sunlight doesn’t seem to care. It’s just a day that won’t be remembered for much of anything.

The Vietnam War Memorial stands about 100 feet away. I’m supposed to be impressed and I might be, but I’m not sure. The monument seems to blend into the ambiguity of the weather. It’s cold and gray, season-less, but the people standing there in front of it offer the scene a humanity, something to remember.

Three long-haired, big-bellied, 60 year old hippies, wearing vests covered in buttons, and faded tats skulking from their sleeves, crouch down and watch as one of them rubs a pencil over a piece of paper, transferring a name that they all stare at. Another piece of paper ends up over the name and the act is repeated. They’ll all bring their buddy home with them. I guess it’s significant and since they’re there, I hope it does their souls good.

There are names here I could look up, but I don’t want to. Memorials creep me out, especially the spontaneous kind. I hate seeing loads of flowers, teddy bears and religious items at the roadside where some driver lost his life. For the first day, it’s heartbreaking. After a week, after it rains, after the funeral is over and the next guy is killed, the stuff fades away and it’s an ugly reminder that even grief can decide it has better things to do. This Wall is like that, a constant reminder that men and women died for a nonsensical war. I guess it needs to be here, though. I want it here. I don’t want to forget. I’m not sure that’s it. I don’t know. I really don’t know and that bothers me.

A young couple brings their baby to meet grandpa. It’s odd to think that these names would be grandfathers now. The loving pair reverently introduces the infant to engraved letters. There’s only significance in this act for the parents. Baby hasn’t a clue and won’t for a long time, if ever. Even my nephew, the high school teacher, views Vietnam as a blip in American history set sometime when his dad and I were bickering siblings, but we lucked out. My brother was not healthy enough to be drafted.

I look at the names because I’m supposed to. I don’t want to see them. I want this day to be empty like the sky and the trees and the air. Each name is a dead man. Somewhere he had a family that maybe loved him, maybe not.

The gray of the tall marble sags into the vague gray sky. I walk the length of this memorial and I start to hear scared men calling out. I feel the thunder of explosions around me. My feet drag along in muck tinged with blood. Scared, brave men and I stayed home safe and sound, protesting my country’s involvement. I have no regrets over protesting. It began my journey as a pacifist.

This Memorial wants us to remember, but it’s simply a monument where names get safely tucked away. Put their names on the Wall and we honor their deaths. I guess that’s easier than remembering their lives.

Where is Dan Borah?

58,249 – The Vietnam War Memorial

58,249 died for arrogance
Not their own
Died
Offering their souls
For a glint of an idea
Their names branded on granite

Panel 06E, Line 106
Reuben Harris

Iced gray stone
Tourist fingers running
Over bitter furrows
Hoping to connect
Somehow to connect
Craving warmth
Getting none

Panel 14E, Line 79
Robert Lewis “Doc” Brown

But this immutable testament
Proclaims 58,249
Explosions of death
Ineloquent grief
Insensate to solace

Panel 22E, Line 68
LeGrande Ogden Cole, Jr.

Horror for a last breath
Bliss for a last wish
Rest in peace
Someday we might learn
Lessons you tried to teach
And then we might
Rest in hope

Daniel Vernor Borah, Jr., Missing in Action - still

So, Dan is still missing. I guess it’s not that big a deal to most people. Certainly not much of a deal to John McCain. He doesn’t care about the missing soldiers. Enough about that idiot. I’m an Obama supporter, but he doesn’t address the issues of MIAs either.

Dan is missing. He landed on the ground alive. The remains sent home were not his despite what the government maintains. It’s impossible for those remains to be Dan’s. Totally impossible.

I think about Dan every day. I sent two emails to the mayor of the town where Dan grew up and neither has been answered. I still want to write to his family. I think I’m going to do it.

I haven’t heard from the mayor of Olney and I even sent a follow-up email. I think I’m going to try to contact the Borah Family and tell them about my MIA bracelet.

Dan is missing and I can’t get him out of my mind. I hear people calling John McCain a hero and from what I’ve read, he wasn’t exactly all that heroic in Vietnam. Worse than that – I can excuse nearly anything done there by a POW – is that he has systematically stood in the way of any efforts to find out what has happened to our MIAs there. He killed a bill in committee that was unanimously voted in the affirmative by the House of Representatives. The bill was going to open up all records of all POWs and MIAs in order to try and find out the truth about their treatment and/or whereabouts. He was one of a very few POWs NOT promoted when he got home.

John McCain is a fraud being perpetrated on the American public. It’s in keeping though with the fraud he is helping Vietnam perpetuate regarding men like Dan Borah.

Keep McCain out of the White House and BRING DAN HOME.

McCain has a buddy out there showing off his Congressional Medal of Honor as he stumps for good ol’ John. Here’s the problem George Day got the CMoH when McCain’s father was on the committee awarding them. John helped Daddy make the decision. George Day is the only CMoH winner whose “heroic” acts were NEVER witnessed by other Americans. He is the SOLE witness to his own heroism. The CMoH doesn’t work that way. A person is nominated by those who witnessed the act and whose lives were saved by the act. George Day dishonors every man out there who legitimately won the award. Also, the CMoH is NEVER to be used for personal or political gain. It’s a big no-no.

So, Mr. McCain, your father gets this joker the medal and then you use him for your political purposes. Nice job. What about the men we left behind? Who is out stumping for them? Why doesn’t each one of those men have a CMoH? They earned it just as much as George Day.

Bring home Dan Borah – a real American hero, not some political flunky for a failing Republican party.

I’m watching this with relative interest. I have a love/hate relationship with politics. They just showed a film produced by Steven Spielberg and narrated by Tom Hanks. It was about the military and what is really going on – from the Democrats POV.

Well, I’m kind of a left wing liberal, so the POV wasn’t a problem, but when I heard these veterans talking about what war is like for them, I wanted to cry. That’s not quite true. I’ve got tears in my eyes now.

There is a play called “A Walk in the Woods” and it’s about two arms negotiators. The Soviet negotiator says that both governments don’t want real arms agreements. He tells the American, “Look how much money they give to building weapons! What do they spend on peace? You and me and that’s all.”

I am a pacifist. I hate this useless war in Iraq. I hated the war in Vietnam. I don’t hate our troops, though. This is why Dan Borah still concerns me. We owe him and by sweeping his story under the rug, we sweep away the stories of all our troops.

I sent an email to the mayor of Olney, Illinois. That’s the town Dan Borah grew up in. I asked him for advice on contacting the Borah family.

I really would love to let them know that there are still people who care about Dan and want to know why the United States government is so eager to say he is dead and home when the family has proved he is not.

This goal has become a mission for me. Dan deserves to be at rest at home with his family.

Dan Borah is an American hero. We have to care. There are others, too. Over 1,500 men are still listed as missing. That’s too many. Dan isn’t on that list. He should be and that’s what I want for now. We all should want it.

A couple of months ago, I contacted Dick Durbin, one of Illinois’ two state senators. (The other one is busy right now running for President.) His office sent forms to me so they could get into files using the Freedom of Information Act. I haven’t heard back. I should write again. I have the name and address of the person who is supposedly working on this.

I don’t know why I keep obsessing about Dan Borah. I was a teenager during the war and vehemently opposed our being in Vietnam. I protested and wore bracelets for three men lost over that tiny “S” shaped country. Dan is the only one of the three who’s still missing.

I sort of want to contact his family, but I don’t know if they’d appreciate it or not. What do you think? I know how to do it and I know they still are asking people to wear his bracelet.

Where is Dan?

Here are some more words that Dan’s sister Kathy spoke before the House Subcommittee of Military Personnel on December 14, 1995.

“Congressman Dornan, members of the Committee, Dan was alive on the ground and the PAVN unit in the area reported him captured. He was not dead in his chute as recent Vietnamese witnesses told JTF-FA. Dead men don’t send beeper signals. Dead men don’t remove their parachutes from trees. And dead men son’t report their imminent capture. Never forget Dan’s last words to U.S. forces, ‘Gomers all around.’

It is interesting to note that as the years passed, in the governments rush to close the POW/MIA issue, wording of the case narratives became less forceful regarding Dan’s capture. The October 1989 narrative reads in part:’Borah ejected from his plane and was known captured.’ The key words are known captured.

A March 1991 case narrative states ‘Intelligence indicates that Borah was captured.’ There is a big difference bewteen the words known and indicates. Why the wording change? The answer is easy. Normalization. Wipe off or water down as many cases as possible.

Unknown to us, until 1977, was that fact that Dan’s status was changed from Missing to Prisoner of War. A letter signed by James D. Watkins, Vice Admiral,United States Navy stated ‘LT Borah was placed in a missing in action status. However, the Director of the Personnel Service Division under delegated authority of the Secretary of the Navy on 19 October 1972, determined his status should be changed to captured.’ Our question – on what was that status chage based? To this day that question has never been answered.

In that same letter, Vice Admiral Watkins informed us that Dan Borah was now officially declared dead. Unfortunately, due to the woefully inadequate Missing Service Personnel Act of 1942, the government was allowed to declare my brother dead solely on the passage of time.”

All these changes and so little communication with the family. Something is terribly wrong here.

Where is Dan?

Dan’s family was told that he was shot down without an contact from him after he ejected from his plane. It wasn’t until 1995 that they discovered that wasn’t true. Dan DID make voice contact after landing safely on Vietnam’s soil.

This is a quote by Kathy Borah Duez as she spoke to the house Subcommittee on Military Personnel on December 14, 1995. “According to the Forward Air Controller {FAC}, Dan safely ejected from his aircraft and was alive in his parachute. From his chute, Dan radioed ‘Nail so, Saddleback One in chute.’ According to a case narrative dated June 5th, 1989, for 30 seconds after the chute was down, aircraft personnel monitored several, and this is a quote ‘several short-burst manual beeper transmissions.’ Short bursted manual transmission, puts Dan alive on the ground.

Search and Rescue crews reported seeing Dan’s chute being removed from the trees. Due to the tree canopy, they could not see who removed the parachute. Veidence (sic) leads to the inevitable conclusion that it was Dan who removed the cute. I could not have said that positively 5 years ago, or even one year ago.

Since Dan’s shootdown, we have been told continually that there was no voice transmission from the ground. Every report sent to us stated ‘no voice contact.’ In June of this year, we learned this statement was not true.”

So, for over 20 years, this family thought Dan died four months before the end of the war. Then they find out he was not dead on the ground. In future posts, I’ll tell you about a possible sighting of Dan.