Freshman Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., has proposed a new select congressional committee to investigate the possibility of American prisoners of war left behind in armed conflicts, dating back as far as Vietnam.
The topic is rich in conspiracy theories, yet Walker seeks to explore those concerns and ensure that the federal government has done everything it can in this area.
The Washington Examiner asked Walker why he is pursuing this, and if he thought it was possible that the U.S. still has troops left behind.
“I honestly do not know,” Walker said. “I know there’s a lot of families that still struggle with the fact that the government hasn’t done completely all they can do.”
“[I] do want to make sure as a representative that we do everything we can to bring peace to these families [of missing in action soldiers],” Walker said. “As a former minister, doing my time, doing my fair share of funerals over the years, there’s something about closure that families need.”
“The truth is a lot of these families haven’t experienced the closure they’re looking [for],” Walker said.
Walker emphasized that this would be a relatively inexpensive and worthwhile venture deserving of the government’s time.
“This doesn’t add any additional debt to the budget,” Walker said. “This basically uses the money that is returned to the speaker’s office at the end of the year; it’s budget-neutral. And I think it’s the least that we can do for some of these sons and daughters, and even still, spouses, who still struggle with loss.”
The issue has been explored before, most recently and famously in a 1991-93 Senate Select Committee chaired by then-Sen. John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, and featuring star testimony from Sen. John McCain, who spent six grueling years as a prisoner in Vietnam.
Kerry, McCain and the committee eventually dismissed the notion that the Defense Department abandoned Americans soldiers to the North Vietnamese, or did not do all it could to secure their remains.
The committee and the government’s actions are still controversial with some journalists and observers, however.
Pulitzer-winner Sydney Schanberg has been particularly critical and conducted a massive investigation and wrote in 2008, during McCain’s presidential run, “Maybe Nixon and Kissinger told themselves that they could get the prisoners home after some time had passed. But perhaps it proved too hard to undo a lie as big as this one. Washington said no prisoners were left behind, and Hanoi swore it had returned all of them. How could either side later admit it had lied?”
Schanberg faulted McCain in particular, but said of Chairman Kerry, now secretary of state, and the committee in a 1994 article, “It was dominated by a faction led by … the charismatic John Kerry of Massachusetts. This group wanted to appear to be probing the prisoner issue energetically, but in fact, they never rocked official Washington’s boat.”
The ’91-’93 committee announced its unanimous findings in January 1993: “While the Committee has some evidence suggesting the possibility a POW may have survived to the present, and while some information remains yet to be investigated, there is, at this time, no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.”
That committee was charged with investigating World War II, Vietnam and all Cold War activities.
Walker’s committee would be a House-side update, investigating the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Walker insists the planning for this is in its “preliminary” phase, but hopes that the committee will commence this year. He said he so far has received no pushback on the idea.
