The call of loyalty and the call of friendship compelled author Arlyn Perkey to investigate the fate of Donald L. Sparks–a Vietnam veteran with the high priority status of Missing in Action-Prisoner of War-Last Known Alive. Intertwining his own story with that of his friend Don, Perkey offers a portrait of two naive Iowa farm boys, drafted, sent to Vietnam, and wounded when their squads were ambushed. One returned to the life he had imagined. The other suffered a fate obscured by decades of misinformation, withheld information, and failed communication fostered by bureaucratic protocols and unwarranted paranoia. Last Know Alive pieces together the story of Donald L. Sparks’ struggle to stay alive and return to his beloved Iowa home.
M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America: How and why belief in live POWs has possessed a nation
Almost two decades after the Vietnam War, most Americans remain convinced that U.S. prisoners are still being held captive in Southeast Asia, and many even accuse the government of concealing their existence. But as H. Bruce Franklin demonstrates in his startling investigation, there is no plausible basis for the belief
