Vietnam is often called “the war that won’t go away”, largely because of the continuing controversy of the POW/MIA (Prisoners Of War / Missing In Action) issue. Families of those who were POW/MIA in Vietnam organized an activist movement which went on to pursue a question which still haunts America nearly decades later: were soldiers left behind in captivity after the Vietnam War? Once the exclusive domain of a select fraternity of soldiers’ wives, the POW/MIA movement has become both a fixture of American life and a distinct subculture within it.
The Documented Cases: POWs Left Behind
The actual story of Prisoners of War (POWs) left behind in previous wars is quite documented but became obscured by hoax POW pictures, small time scams, and other diversions. This is the story of those POWs left behind in Laos and Vietnam, drawn on facts from government published reports and official testimony from high-level figures such as former U.S. Defense Secretary and CIA Director James Schlesinger who testified under oath that POWs remained behind in
