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Vietnam POW Remembers Those Left Behind
By Judy Smestad-Nunn
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| At the Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station POW/MIA remembrance service last week, former Vietnam prisoner of war Frank Anton (center in blazer) speaks of the lost servicemen who must never be forgotten. |
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Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station was the site of the region's largest prisonerof war/missing-in-action remembrance service last week, holding its annual ceremony at the base chapel.
Hosted through a joint effort of the base and the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society, base Commander Captain Phillip L. Beachy made the welcoming remarks to a standing-roomonly crowd gathered inside the chapel.
Held on the third Friday of each September, POW/MIA Recognition Day is commemorated with observances held across the country on military installations, state capitols, schools, churches, veterans' facilities and even on ships at sea.
According to the National League of POW/MIA Families, the focus of this day is to ensure that America remem- bers its responsibility to stand behind those who serve our nation, and do everything possible to account for those who do not return.
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| --Photos By Judy Smestad-Nunn |
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Beachy introduced this year's speaker, Chief Warrant Officer Frank Anton (retired), who was a POW in Vietnam for over five years.
Anton, who piloted a UH-1 Huey gunship helicopter in the central highlands of the former South Vietnam, has written a book about his experiences, Why Didn't You Get Me Out? Betrayal in the Viet Cong Death Camps/ The Truth about Heroes, Traitors, and Those Left Behind.
Anton, a native of New Jersey, had only a couple of months left in his tour of duty when he was shot down in January of 1968 two weeks before the Tet Offensive, generally regarded as the beginning of the bloodiest period of the entire war.
Anton recalled when he and his crew of three set out on a night mission. He described the jungle beneath them that night as, "Lit up like the Fourth of July…there were hundreds of people shooting at two helicopters."
After his helicopter was hit numerous times, the gunship controls froze up and crash-landed in a rice paddy, landing on its side. Having been shot down four times in 10 months, Anton was convinced that American choppers would rescue him and his crew the next morning as they had in the past. Instead, the North Vietnamese captured them at daybreak.
For the next three years, Anton described his existence as a prisoner of war, held in a number of camps located deep in the jungle. They lived in a series of "Hooches," or thatched huts made of bamboo walls and dirt floors. The hooches were open to the elements and to the jungle insects. The prisoners slept on a hard bamboo pallet with no blankets.
Despite starvation, brutal beatings and psychological torture, Anton recalled many acts of bravery and selflessness performed by his fellow prisoners. Some of the POWs died from jungle diseases such as malaria, dysentery, scurvy and beriberi. Some of them lost hope and died, succumbing to their grim reality, especially when the days dragged on and there seemed to be no hope of a rescue.
"They just gave up their will to live, I watched men die who were stronger than I was," he said.
Despite their weakened condition due to starvation, disease and untreated wounds, the prisoners were forced to walk the nearly 500 miles to Hanoi, North Vietnam, where they would spend the next two years.
Housed in two former prisons, which the Americans called "The Plantation," and the "Hanoi Hilton," respectively, Anton was one of 90 prisoners brought up from the south, where they joined the 500 prisoners who had been captured in the north. They were kept separate from each other, but developed a system of communicating within the prison.
Anton said that conditions in the north were much better than those they had suffered in the jungle. Their captors kept them alive because the prisoners were no good to them dead, he added. As Anton found out later, the prisoners were a bargaining chip for reparations after the war ended.
Concluding his speech at the chapel, Anton recalled a similar speech he made in September 1973, when he was asked to be part of a program at Ocean County College. A student asked about soldiers who were unaccounted for and missing, and asked the question, "Were they left?" to which Anton replied, "Sure, absolutely, I believe they were."
Two days later, Anton received a phone call from a two-star general telling him to cease and desist talking about MIAs. "He said, 'We're trying to find them,'" said Anton. "'Talking about them doesn't help.'"
In the 14 years of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, specifically the Vietnam War, more than 2,500 Americans were captured or listed as missing in action. Less than half of them were returned at the end of the hostilities.
In his book, Anton wrote that he found out after the war that the U.S. government knew where the prisoners were at all times, and even produced pictures of them marching to Hanoi. Fearful that the enemy would get to the source of this intelligence-gathering, Anton says the American government looked at the POWs as being expendable.
"MIAs are an embarrassment to our country," he said.
Anton wrote, "Some leaders of my country had adopted a cynical attitude that was beneath the dignity and honor of the USA …someone knew where we were…why didn't they get us out?"
Following Mr. Anton's speech, attendees moved outdoors for the laying of wreaths, a gun salute and "Taps." Afterwards, guests were invited to the POW Room at the Station Information Center in Hangar I at the base.
Developed and maintained by volunteers from the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society, the display room has what has been called the finest collection of POW memorabilia in existence.
For information about the historical society and membership opportunities, visit their Web site at www.NLHS.com.
To purchase a copy of Frank Anton's book, you can e-mail him at Fanton@aol.com.
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