Chapter 14
Everything about Scott Speicher comes down to choices and the importance of accountability that has shamefully trailed the nation’s POW/MIA issue since its founding. Over the years since Speicher went missing in Iraq there were bad choices made. The worst thing anyone could have done, they did. Most did absolutely nothing. They forgot that a man’s life was sacred. They forgot that one life mattered more than a career, more than admitting a mistake was made. Scott Speicher is dead because of it. Those who did this to him will have to live with their choices. Well-meaning politicians learned enough about Speicher to make headlines at his expense. Then they let him go. American intelligence had a failure of imagination. Then they let him go. The press grew tired of chasing a ghost. Then they dropped the story. Following Speicher’s trail was just too much work. The public was apathetic. If he wasn’t headline news, they weren’t interested. When he was, they didn’t understand the story. There wasn’t a national outcry to go get Speicher. He wasn’t at the top of anyone’s priority list. Should he have been? Absolutely.
That we lost our moral compass with the Speicher case is no surprise. America’s founding fathers knew that morality would face its greatest challenge in this country, where we started with so much enthusiasm for truth and honesty, when faced with the temptations of self-interest and greed. Morality is inextricably tied to our nation’s government. But would it last? James Madison wrote that “to suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.” Certainly this includes respect for the equal rights of every citizen. Rightful government necessarily reflects this proper relationship in its policies and in its dealings with its own citizens and with other nations. Truth and honesty are intimate elements of morality. Thomas Jefferson wrote John Adams in 1823 that “truth being as cheap as error, it is as well to rectify [an error of fact] for our own satisfaction.” One mistake left uncorrected would surely lead to one false consequence after another, he’d told Adams in a letter four years earlier.
Thomas Jefferson told us who we’d become. He also told who we should be. In the text of his first inaugural address in 1801, he said: “the essential principles of our government … form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment,” he said. “They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of [our] civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety.” We never regained the moral high ground in time to save Scott Speicher. Career self-interest, failure of imagination, and money all played a role in Speicher’s demise. These were all predicted long ago. Long before Speicher was born there were thousands of American servicemen who’d faced the same fate. Men who’d become prisoners of war and men who were missing in action. Some knew exactly what fate they’d been dealt. Some knew exactly where men had been taken. But no one did anything then, either, to go get them. Speicher became another name added to a growing list of fighting men who’d been left behind by his country.
There were men who thought he was still alive. But too many of them didn’t act on it. This is true, even today, of those who were important to his investigation, men and women who represented the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, including CIA, DIA, NSA and ONI who forsook Speicher to save a security clearance and a career. There were those who worried if they told what they knew – if they tried to help Scott Speicher – that once they’d left government and military service that security clearance wouldn’t travel with them to the private sector, where some continue to have lucrative contracts with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies for which they once worked. They’d be ostracized for doing right by him. Examples of this are blatant in the Speicher case. These individuals, without question, lost their moral compass long ago. Scott Speicher’s blood is on their hands, not only for the wanton betrayal when he was shot down, but the catastrophic intelligence failure that cloaked his case from day one. The legion that lined up against Speicher embraced a cover-up that made the military a fraudulent and criminal activity – a party to the cabal of officers and “men in clothes” who signed Speicher’s death warrant shortly after his shoot down on January 17, 1991. Military officers – active duty and retired – need to be confronted and held accountable for their decisions and their actions. Civilian and military intelligence officers and personnel who were involved in the case – current and retired – need to be confronted and held accountable for their actions. Government appointed and elected officials – active and retired – need to be confronted and held responsible for their role in the death of Scott Speicher.
And what of Buddy Harris. The drawback for Buddy Harris being granted limited-scope top secret clearance during the course of the Speicher investigation is obvious: he was only shown what the Pentagon and intelligence agencies wanted him to see, when they wanted him to see it. After Admiral Arthur took him off the case, Harris’ ability to access special compartmentalized information (SCI) on his own was gone. Despite his best effort, there was much more to Speicher’s entire case that he was never going to be told by the navy. Once an intelligence agency compartmentalizes information, it can effectively wall it off on a need-to-know basis within its own organization and between other intelligence agencies, even if that other agency has a vested interest in the case. This is what happened with information pertaining to Scott Speicher.
The bottom line here is that no one was ever intended to find out what really happened to Scott Speicher. That senior officer who participated in the decision on the LaSalle was willing to bet money on it. He also stated that the family was “paid off” and was purposefully being fed wrong information – a concerted effort to confuse and discredit that has certainly followed the Speicher case. Researcher Joe Frusci concurred after he dug into the case, gathered information and interviewed participants in the investigation, including Buddy Harris and Tony Albano. “One thing I do agree with,” Frusci wrote later, “is that Buddy and the family are not telling the right information. Whether they are being lied to or know the truth, but just do not say, Buddy did not tell me all he could.”1 Frusci observed that Harris initially stated the remains dated to four-and-a-half years, “then it was six [years], now [it is] somewhere around five years.”2 Certainly, it is not on the basis of what Harris alone has publicly stated and provided to Frusci during his interviews regarding the partial remains that it is possible to narrow Speicher’s time of death. There was corroboration and, ultimately, a photograph provided, that narrowed that time frame further. Thus corroboration and correlation were critical and – in truth – strengthen Harris’ statement of “four-and-a-half years” regarding the condition of the remains and the date blood would have last flowed through Scott Speicher’s body.
Much of the most valuable intelligence information on his case from the time Speicher was shot down through the time he was “discovered” still alive in the desert in 1994 – a surprise only to those who’d left him to die in the desert three years before – was gathered up from all participatory departments and agencies thus making the ubiquitous “we don’t know anything” or “we have nothing” easier to say with a straight face when confronted with a specific question regarding Scott Speicher from his family, Congress or the media. Much of the most valuable information and communication that was in the Speicher file has been pushed to the black, a special access program (SAP) with a code word; some of it has been purposefully erased – all to hide what happened to Scott Speicher from the time he was shot down, to the when, where and how he died. But such a broad effort ultimately falls apart when participants, wrought with guilt and still able to perceive the difference between right and wrong, can’t keep the secret that’s eaten away at them – for some – more than twenty years. The apologies come first, followed by the truth. Are they scared? Yes. Are they still afraid of retribution? Absolutely. They’ve broken the cycle of lies and cover-up. Those who’ve told the truth know that there is no going back once they’ve talked. They also know that there are more who know what happened, but who will never be courageous enough to talk. But what concerns them most are those who know the truth and still fight so hard to keep it from ever being told to the American public. There’s much at stake for those who’ve come forward and it was not a matter each didn’t think about for a long time before they decided to tell what they knew. The guilt they feel is palpable; it is in their voices and it is in the words they’ve written.
Certainly, there are men and women who should be respected for what they did to speak for and act on behalf of Scott Speicher when they were in a position to do so. Vice Admiral Charles W. “Willy” Moore Jr., then NAVCENT and Fifth Fleet commander and later deputy chief of naval operations for readiness and logistics, said he believed Speicher was still alive when he wrote of him on November 18, 2001. He’d known Speicher very well. Moore was Speicher’s weapons training flight instructor in the A-7 Corsair II back in 1981-82. “He is one of the finest young men I have ever served with,” Moore observed, “and I have never had the feeling that he is gone [just then]. I often fantasize about how joyous it would be if he were to find his way out of there.” He’d worked closely on Speicher’s case as Joint Staff J33 (Current Operations). “So I have a keen interest in his whereabouts and welfare,” Moore continued. He had seen all the highly classified intelligence on Speicher during his back-to-back Joint Staff tours of duty from 1993 to 1999.
“There are several others, general officers, staff officers, survival instructors and mission planners, who were also involved and knew some of the amazing and shocking events related to this case,” said Bob Dussault on January 11, 2002. “I think the evidence the government has to deal with [could have been] responded to in two ways. Look at it, giving [Speicher] the benefit of the doubt: assume he is alive until this is proved otherwise or give the info no credibility and believe Speicher is dead and didn’t survive until he walks in the room.” He stressed the need for action. “At this stage of the game for me,” said Dussault, “I must do the right thing for the person and the right thing for the nation. It is the principle of liberty in its simplest form. We must do it for Scott and all our military personnel or we don’t do right by any.” It’s too late to save Scott Speicher but not the rest. “Leaving a single operator forgotten or totally on their own, when they have been taught to expect allegiance, love and recovery efforts by their own country is wrong.”
Barry Hull, Scott’s squadron mate, said it’s an obligation that is part of the deal from day one. “When I hang my ass out and I go across the border, if I get shot down or something happens to me, I absolutely know, there is no question in my mind, that those snakeaters are coming to get me. Those guys are going to do whatever they have to do to get me.” If he had been in Scott Speicher’s position, he said he would’ve thought, “If they in their minds know I’m dead, well, they’re probably not going to come get me now. [But] if it’s three or four years later and they find out something different,” said Hull, “they better get their ass over there. And we had an opportunity to do it and we made a conscious decision not to.”
Hull will live with what happened that night over the Iraqi desert for the rest of his life. He thinks often of what he might have done differently to prevent Scott’s loss. There’s a twinge of guilt that he’s never shaken. Of all of Scott Speicher’s squadron mates, he’s also taken his loss the hardest. “There is not another navy pilot,” he said in the fall of 2001, “that if you get five guys together somebody’s not going to say something bad about him. Somebody’s going to criticize everybody. That’s the nature of the job and the mentality, except with Speicher. He was just a great guy all around and it sounds so phony to say that, but it’s actually true in this situation. He was probably the best pilot in the squadron because he was just a naturally good pilot.”
Everyone who knew him and some who didn’t, in their own way, have missed Scott Speicher. “I almost went down to Arlington today,” said squadron mate Craig Bertolett as the eleventh anniversary of Scott’s disappearance fast approached. He’d done it enough times in the past. “My wife and I invariably reflect on where we were and what we were doing and remember Spike on the evening of January 17.” For others, it cuts to the heart of the code they live by and – have ingrained in their hearts.
There is an unspoken obligation in the U.S. military chain of command that they will leave no one behind enemy lines without making every reasonable effort to recover that service member. Among America’s elite Special Forces, this guarantee is codified and its message is simple. This code applies in peace and war. “The warriors believed they had a responsibility,” said Admiral Stanley Arthur. “You lose one of your own, you go back and find him.” Thus the irony of Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen’s farewell address at Fort Myer, Virginia, on January 17, 2001, ten years to the day after Scott Speicher was lost over Iraq, was hard to miss. He repeated General William Tecumseh Sherman’s words to Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman said to his old friend, “I always knew that if I was in trouble you’d come for me if alive.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff general Henry H. Shelton had given Cohen a fountain pen with Sherman’s words engraved on it. “Mr. Chairman,” he said. “I always knew that if I were ever in trouble, that you would always be there for me as you’ve been for all the men and women who wear our uniform. You are a warrior and you carry the warrior’s code not only on your sleeve, but in your soul.” No one was there for Scott Speicher and he wore the uniform of his country. Where were the warriors when he needed them? By then they knew he was alive. Where was the warrior’s code that said leave no man behind?
Vietnam POW vice admiral James B. Stockdale wrote: “In the end the prisoner learns he can’t be hurt and he can’t be had as long as he tells the truth and clings to that forgiving hand of the brothers who are becoming his country [his fellow prisoners], his family…What does it all come down to? It does not come down to coping or supplication or hatred or strength beyond the grasp of any normal person. It comes down to comradeship, and it comes down to pride, dignity, an enduring sense of self-worth and to that enigmatic mixture of conscience and egoism called personal honor.”3 Certainty for most of the men who knew what had happened to Scott Speicher, men who also knew where he was and what he’d been put through, was when he walked up to you and touched your face and said, “I’m alive.” They’d never admit anything short of this as proof he was alive and wanted to come home. But Scott Speicher beat the odds for years. He left markers on the ground for overhead imagery. He left his initials and dates where he’d been on walls, ceilings and objects that might be found by ground searchers. He left his initials, dates and evader code on the walls of Iraqi prisons, holding facilities and safe houses. He did everything he could to fulfill his promise to come home to Joanne and his children. He’d told her before he left on deployment that he’d be back. “I guarantee it.”
Still, he didn’t make it home. Scott Speicher embraced and lived the Code of Conduct that, in six brief articles, addresses those situations and decision areas that, to some degree, all military personnel could encounter. This is the code that Speicher continued to employ, to think about and to honor while he was absent from his family, his friends and his countrymen. It includes basic information useful to American prisoners of war in their efforts to survive honorably while resisting their captor’s efforts to exploit them to the advantage of the enemy’s cause. Such survival and resistance requires varying degrees of knowledge of the meaning of the six articles of the Code of Conduct (CoC). These are the same powerfully worded guiding principles imbued in Admiral Stockdale and that were key to his survival as the senior ranking prisoner of war of the Vietnam conflict. These were the articles that Speicher carried forward into his own bid to survive and come home to his wife and children and they bear repeating, because they mattered to him, just as they should matter to his senior government and military leadership, and to his immediate chain of command who failed to uphold their end of the Code.
Here they are:
Article I:
I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.
Article I applies to all members of the U.S. military at all times. A member of the armed forces has a duty to support U.S. interests and oppose U.S. enemies regardless of the circumstances, whether located in a combat environment or in captivity. Past experience of captured Americans reveals that honorable survival in captivity requires that a service member possess a high degree of dedication and motivation. Maintaining these qualities requires knowledge of and a strong belief in the following: the advantages of American democratic institutions and concepts; love of and faith in the United States and a conviction that the U.S. cause is just; and faith in and loyalty to fellow prisoners of war. Possessing the dedication and motivation such beliefs and trust foster enables prisoners of war to survive long and stressful periods of captivity, and return to their country and families honorably with self-esteem intact.
Article II:
I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.
Members of the armed forces may never surrender voluntarily. Even when isolated and no longer able to inflict casualties on the enemy or otherwise defend themselves, it is their duty to evade capture and rejoin the nearest friendly force.
Surrender is the willful act of members of the armed forces turning themselves over to enemy forces when not required by utmost necessity or extremity. Surrender is always dishonorable and never allowed. When there is no chance for meaningful resistance, evasion is impossible, and further fighting would lead to their death with no significant loss to the enemy, members of armed forces should view themselves as “captured” against their will versus a circumstance that is seen as voluntarily “surrendering.” They must remember that the capture was dictated by the futility of the situation and overwhelming enemy strengths. In this case, capture is not dishonorable.
The responsibility and authority of a commander never extends to the surrender of command, even if isolated, cut off, or surrounded, while the unit has a reasonable power to resist, break out, or evade to rejoin friendly forces.
Members of the armed forces should understand that when they are cut off, shot down, or otherwise isolated in enemy-controlled territory, they must make every effort to avoid capture – a course of action Scott Speicher took in the Iraqi desert – and that the courses of action available include concealment until recovered by friendly rescue forces [the Bedouins], evasive travel to a friendly or neutral territory, and evasive travel to other pre-briefed areas.
But the service member must also understand that capture does not constitute a dishonorable act if the service member has exhausted all reasonable means of avoiding it and the only alternative is death or serious bodily injury. Scott Speicher understood perfectly and demonstrated that he was capable of staying alive using survival skills while evading, the procedures and techniques of rescue by search and recovery forces, and the procedures for properly using specified evasion destinations.
Article III:
If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.
The misfortune of capture does not lessen the duty of a member of the armed forces to continue resisting enemy exploitation by all means available. Contrary to the Geneva Conventions, enemies whom U.S. forces have engaged since 1949 have regarded the prisoner of war compound as an extension of the battlefield. The prisoner of war must be prepared for this fact.
The enemy has used a variety of tactics to exploit prisoners of war for propaganda purposes or to obtain military information in disregard of the Geneva Conventions. The CoC requires resistance to captor exploitation efforts. In the past, enemies of the United States have used physical and mental harassment, general mistreatment, torture, medical neglect, and political indoctrination against prisoners of war and this continues to be true in the present, including those American service members who hold the status “missing in action.”
The enemy has tried to tempt prisoners of war to accept special favors or privileges not given to other prisoners of war in return for statements or information desired by the enemy or for a pledge by the prisoner of war not to attempt escape. Prisoners of war must not seek special privileges or accept special favors at the expense of fellow prisoners of war.
The Geneva Conventions recognize that the regulations of a prisoners country may impose the duty to escape and that prisoners of war may attempt to escape. Under the guidance and supervision of the senior military person and POW organization, POWs must be prepared to take advantage of escape opportunities whenever they arise. In communal detention, the welfare of the POWs who remain behind must be considered. A POW must “think escape,” must try to escape if able to do so, and must assist others to escape.
The Geneva Conventions authorize the release of prisoners of war on parole only to the extent authorized by the prisoner of war’s country and prohibit compelling a prisoner of war to accept parole. Parole agreements are promises a prisoner of war gives the captor to fulfill stated conditions, such as not to bear arms or not to escape, in consideration of special privileges, such as release from captivity or lessened restraint. The United States does not authorize any military service member to sign or enter into any such parole agreement.
There are several aspects of Article III that service members should understand, including that captivity is a situation involving continuous control by a captor who may attempt to use the prisoner of war as a source of military information, for political purposes, and as a potential subject for political indoctrination. The service member must be familiar with the rights and obligations of both the prisoner of war and the captor under the Geneva Conventions and be aware of the increased significance of resistance should the captor refuse to abide by the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Be aware that the resistance the Code of Conduct is so focused on captor exploitation efforts because such efforts violate the Geneva Conventions. Thus resistance beyond that identified above subjects the prisoner of war to possible punishment by the captor for order and discipline violations. Certain actions by the prisoner of war can be prosecuted as criminal offenses against the detaining power.
Members of America’s armed forces need to be intimately familiar with, and prepared for, the fact that certain countries have reservations to Article 85 of the 1949 Geneva Convention – the Third Geneva Convention – relative to the treatment of prisoners of war. Article 85 offers protection to a prisoner of war convicted of a crime based on facts occurring before capture. Further, the service member should understand that captors from countries that have expressed a reservation to Article 85 often threaten to use their reservation as a basis for adjudging all members of opposing armed forces as “war criminals.” As a result, prisoners of war may find themselves accused of being “war criminals” simply because they waged war against these countries before capture. The U.S. government and most other countries do not recognize the validity of this argument.
Ultimately, service members need to know that successful escape by a prisoner of war can compel the enemy to divert forces that might otherwise be fighting, and thus provides the United States valuable information about the enemy and other prisoners of war in captivity, and serves as a positive example to all members of the armed forces. For all captured individuals, an early escape attempt takes advantage of the fact that the initial captors are usually not trained guards, that the security system is relatively lax, and that the prisoner of war is not yet in a debilitated physical condition.
Article IV:
If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.
Officers and noncommissioned officers shall continue to carry out their responsibilities and exercise their authority in captivity. Informing, or any other action detrimental to a fellow prisoner or war, is despicable and is expressly forbidden. Prisoners of war especially must avoid helping the enemy to identify fellow prisoners of war who may have knowledge of, value to the enemy, and who may be made to suffer coercive interrogation. Strong leadership is essential to discipline. Without discipline, camp organization, resistance, and even survival may be impossible. Personal hygiene, camp sanitation, and care of the sick and wounded are critical.
Wherever located – be it a prison or encampment – prisoners of war should organize in a military manner under the senior military POW eligible for command. The senior prisoner of war – officer or enlisted – in the prisoner of war camp or among a group of prisoners of war shall assume command according to rank without regard to military service. The senior prisoner of war cannot evade that responsibility and accountability. When taking command, the senior prisoner of war shall inform the other prisoners of war and shall designate the chain of command.
If the senior prisoner of war is incapacitated, or is otherwise unable to act for any reason, the next senior prisoner of war shall assume command. Every effort shall be made to inform all prisoners of war in the camp – or the group – of the members of the chain of command who shall represent them in dealing with enemy authorities. The responsibility of subordinates to obey the lawful orders of ranking American military personnel remains unchanged in captivity.
United States government and military policy on prisoner of war camp organization requires that the senior military prisoner of war assume command. The Geneva Convention on prisoners of war provides additional guidance to the effect that in prisoner of war camps containing only enlisted personnel, a prisoners’ representative shall be elected. Prisoners of war should understand that such an elected representative is regarded by U.S. policy as only a spokesperson for the senior prisoner of war. The prisoners’ representative does not have command, unless the prisoners of war elect the senior prisoner of war to be the prisoners’ representative. The senior prisoner of war shall assume and retain actual command, covertly if necessary.
Maintaining communications is one of the most important ways that prisoners of war aid one another. Communication breaks down the barriers of isolation that an enemy may attempt to construct and helps strengthen a prisoner of war’s will to resist. Each prisoner of war, immediately upon capture, shall try to make contact with fellow prisoners of war by any means available and, thereafter, shall continue to communicate and participate vigorously as part of the prisoner of war organization.
As with other provisions of the Code of Conduct, common sense and the conditions in the prisoner of war camp should determine the way in which the senior prisoner of war and the other prisoners of war structure their organization and carry out their responsibilities. American military personnel should recognize that leadership and obedience to those in command are essential to the discipline required to effect successful organization against captor exploitation. In captivity situations involving two or more prisoners of war, the senior ranking prisoner of war assumes command; all others should obey the orders and abide by the decisions of the senior prisoner of war regardless of differences in military service affiliations. Failure to do so will result in the weakening of organization, a lowering of resistance, and, after repatriation, may result in legal proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
Understand that faith, trust, and individual group loyalties have great value in establishing and maintaining an effective prisoner of war organization. Understand that a prisoner of war who voluntarily informs or collaborates with the captor is disloyal to the United States and fellow prisoners of war and, after repatriation, is subject to disciplinary action under the UCMJ for such actions.
Article V:
When questioned, a prisoner of war is required by the Geneva Conventions and the Code of Conduct, and is permitted by the UCMJ, to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. Under the Geneva Conventions, the enemy has no right to try to force a prisoner of war to provide any additional information. But it is unrealistic to expect a prisoner of war to remain confined for years reciting only name, rank, service number, and date of birth. There are many prisoner of war camp situations in which certain types of conversation with the enemy are permitted. For example, a prisoner of war is allowed, but not required by the Code of Conduct, the UCMJ, or the Geneva Conventions, to fill out a Geneva Conventions “capture card,” to write letters home, and to communicate with captors on matters of camp administration and health and welfare.
The senior prisoner of war is required to represent fellow prisoners of war in matters of camp administration, health, welfare, and grievances. The cautionary is this: prisoners of war must constantly bear in mind that the enemy has often viewed them as valuable sources of military information and propaganda that they can use to further their war effort. Accordingly, each prisoner of war must exercise great caution when completing a “capture card,” when engaging in authorized communication with the captor, and when writing letters. A prisoner of war must resist, avoid, or evade, even when physically and mentally coerced, all enemy efforts to secure statements or actions that may further the enemy’s cause.
Examples of statements or actions prisoners of war should resist include giving oral or written confessions; making propaganda recordings and broadcast appeals to other prisoners of war to comply with improper captor demands; appealing for U.S. surrender or parole; engaging in self-criticisms; and providing oral or written statements or communications on behalf of the enemy or harmful to the United States, its allies, the armed forces, or other prisoners of war. Captors have used prisoners of war answers to questions of a personal nature, questionnaires, or personal history to create improper statements such as those listed above.
A POW should recognize the enemy might use any confession or statement as part of a false accusation that the captive is a war criminal rather than a prisoner of war. Moreover, certain countries have made reservations to the Geneva Conventions in which they assert that a war criminal conviction has the effect of depriving the convicted individual of prisoner of war status. These countries may assert that the POW is removed from protection and the right to repatriation is thus revoked until the individual serves a prison sentence.
If a prisoner of war finds that, under intense coercion, he unwillingly or accidentally discloses unauthorized information, the service member should attempt to recover and resist with a fresh line of mental defense. Prisoner of war experience has shown that although enemy interrogation sessions may be harsh and cruel, it is usually possible to resist, if there is a will to resist. The best way for a prisoner of war to keep faith with the United States, fellow prisoners of war, and oneself is to provide the enemy with as little information as possible.
Article VI:
I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.
A member of the armed forces remains responsible for personal actions at all times. Article VI is designed to assist members of the armed forces to fulfill their responsibilities and survive captivity with honor. The Code of Conduct does not conflict with the UCMJ, which continues to apply to each military member during captivity or other hostile detention. Failure to adhere to the Code of Conduct may subject service members to applicable disposition under the UCMJ.
When repatriated, prisoners of war can expect their actions to be subject to review, both as to circumstances of capture and as to conduct during detention. The purpose of such review is to recognize meritorious performance and, if necessary, investigate any allegations of misconduct. Such reviews are conducted with due regard for the rights of the individual and consideration for the conditions of captivity.
A member of the armed forces who is captured has a continuing obligation to resist all attempts at indoctrination and remain loyal to the United States. The life of a prisoner of war may be very hard. Prisoners of war who stand firm and united against enemy pressures aid one another immeasurably in surviving the ordeal. Failure to follow the guidance of the Code of Conduct may result in subsequent disposition under the UCMJ. Every member of the armed forces of the United States may be held legally accountable for personal actions while detained.
As prescribed in federal law, it is the responsibility of the U.S. government and his military chain of command to take care of both the prisoner of war and dependents and that pay and allowances, eligibility and procedures for promotion, and benefits for dependents continue while the prisoner of war is detained even if the enemy does not report the service member as being a prisoner of war and his or her status reflects missing in action. Thus it is important for all members of the U.S. armed forces to have their personal affairs and family matters – pay, powers of attorney, wills, debt payments, and children’s education – kept current through discussion, counseling and filing legal documents before being exposed to risk of capture.
So why does the American armed forces maintain this Code of Conduct – one written so strongly in the language of prisoner of war as a legal status – if there is no longer a prisoner of war designation according to Department of Defense Directive 1300.18? Ask just about any member of the U.S. armed forces about the Code of Conduct and they know at least a little bit about it – if not a lot – depending on their service and what job they do. The Code is a guide that, if followed, can help the service member stay focused on the principles spelled out in each article. But it is also a two-way street that must be honored by the highest level of the U.S. government from the president of the United States as commander in chief to the missing man’s chain of command. Scott Speicher is a case in point. The failure to honor the Code after his shoot-down and to do what was necessary and right to go get him was a failure of leadership but also a crime. They who were responsible for and made the conscious decision that no one was ever going to know what happened to Scott Speicher are party to the Code of Conduct and subject to the articles spelled out for members of the armed forces. No code works without being mutually supported. But it goes off the rails when it is put aside to hide a wrong.
The spirit of the Code continues once the prisoner of war comes home. What should an American prisoner of war do if he returns home and knows that another prisoner of war was last seen alive and had been taken, removed suddenly from the group, and didn’t make it home? The answer is obviously to report the man’s last known status when the repatriated prisoner of war returns home. This was done successfully by Vietnam POW returnees who had such information. The fact is, this was the number one topic on each Operation Homecoming debriefers’ checklist. Hundreds of stories and names were recovered in these sessions and reports gathered about men who were seen and heard from but who abruptly disappeared and never made it back. There were other stories, too, about men who never showed up in North Vietnamese prisons but should have. These scenarios aren’t unique to the Vietnam Conflict. These stories continue today.
What happens when the returnee finds out that his country does nothing with the information he’s provided about a man who didn’t make it home? What is the point of the Code of Conduct if the United States does little to find and recover the service member it left behind? How should a returnee respond? How does the repatriated prisoner of war continue to live by the Code and have honor after the war is done knowing that someone just like him is still there? Does he continue to keep faith with his countryman? To continue to pursue and help him? The spirit of the Code lives until right is done for all. The government fails to achieve honor and fails to live up to the Code if it doesn’t go after the men it leaves behind. Taking the easy road isn’t the way to achieve honor. Honor comes at a price and it comes because someone chooses to do the right thing. Keeping faith goes both ways and that’s where Scott Speicher didn’t get the support he needed.
The Code the military person is supposed to follow in wartime is also a Code for his country to follow at all times – until all missing are brought home, dead or alive. This is what the Code truly means about having faith in your fellow military member when the worst happens – as it did for Scott Speicher – and it includes never giving up on those who are missing and may have been secreted away to imprisonment in another country, one far from where he was originally captured.
If soldiers live by the Code, they also don’t do the math when it comes down to getting back one of their own – alive or dead. Certainly, it’s no coincidence that the most elite U.S. forces – the U.S. Army Rangers, the U.S. Navy SEALs and the U.S. Marine Corps – have their own code when it comes to leaving no man behind. Maybe they know a thing or two about what it means to honor their own and bring him home to his family one. Perhaps they just know what they’d want if they were ever in the same jam. “Maybe they know something the bookkeepers like [Secretary of Defense] Robert McNamara [in Vietnam], so brilliant with numbers, never did,” observed a commentary in the March 8, 2002 Wall Street Journal. “That if an officer wants his men to take his talk of brotherhood seriously, he’d better show them that he takes it seriously himself. And he’s not willing to risk lives to collect his dead, where does he draw the line? With a man he thinks is probably already dead? With a wounded one who likely won’t live yet is holding up the others? With one who might die?”
When air force fighter pilot captain Scott O’Grady was shot down on June 2, 1995, by a Bosnian Serb SA-6, he ejected from his stricken F-16C Falcon over hostile territory. This became known in some circles as the Mrkonjić Grad incident. But to O’Grady, who’d been patrolling the no-fly zone, doing his job, it was life or death. He evaded capture for six days and was rescued on June 8 by U.S. Marines of the 3rd Battalion 8th Marines, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit based on the USS Kearsarge (LHD-3). The lives of more than four dozen people were put at risk to rescue one pilot.
The Wall Street Journal mentioned what happened, albeit briefly, when it observed “the terrible beauty underscored by the return home”…of the body of Aviation Boatswain’s Mate, Handler, First Class (ABH1) (SEAL) Neil Roberts and the six other American soldiers who’d given their lives trying to recover his body from near where he’d died, atop Takur Ghar mountain, Afghanistan. For the U.S. side, the battle proved the deadliest entanglement of Operation Anaconda, an effort early in the war in Afghanistan to rout Taliban forces from the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains.
“Although I sacrificed personal freedom and many other things, I got just as much as I gave,” he wrote his wife in an “open in the event of my death” letter. My time in the Teams [SEAL teams] was special,” Neil Roberts, just 32, wrote. Trying to assuage what he knew would be her grief, he told her, “For all the times I was cold, wet, tired, sore, scared, hungry and angry, I had a blast.”
To his last action, Petty Officer First Class Roberts was true to his SEAL ethos and to the unconditional commitment he made to the navy when he enlisted. His moment of truth came when he was utterly alone, surrounded by a ruthless enemy deep in hostile territory and undoubtedly knew there was no chance of escape or rescue. Never forget that it is sailors just like Petty Officer Roberts and his brother SEAL team members who continue to serve today.
“All the times spent in the company of my teammates was when I felt the closest to the men I had the privilege to work with,” Roberts wrote in the letter to his wife. “I loved being a SEAL. If I died doing something for the Teams, then I died doing what made me happy. Very few people have the luxury of that.”
No commander, we are often reminded, can promise to bring all his men back alive but he can give them his word that no one will be left behind. Joe Galloway, the war reporter who chronicled the landmark 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, the first major battle between regulars of the United States Army and regulars of the People’s Army of Vietnam of North Vietnam (PAVN/NVA) during the Vietnam Conflict, and who later coauthored the critically acclaimed 1992 book We Were Soldiers Once…and Young with Lieutenant General Harold G. “Hal” Moore, would observe later that perhaps there are two parts to this Code:
“Anyone can see what it costs. But maybe you have to be a soldier to understand what it’s worth.”4
1 Joe Frusci e-mail correspondence dated July 1, 2010.
2 Ibid.
3 This was the dedication Admiral Stockdale wrote for the SSC on POW/MIA Affairs’ January 13, 1993 report.
4 Wall Street Journal, “They were soldiers,” March 8, 2002.