Code-Name Bright Light - Vietnam POWs prisoners of war left behind

American Prisoners of War - POWs
Code-Name Bright Light
At the end of Code-Name Bright Light, former Army captain George J. Veith reports the surprising results of a straw poll he took of former military personnel involved in the effort to liberate American POWs. More than half think that when the United States evacuated Vietnam in 1973, Yanks were left behind enemy lines.
Why Didn't You Get Me Out?
American pilot Frank Anton was a prisoner of the Viet Cong in the jungles of Vietnam for five years -- longer than any other P.O.W. who survived. The hope of rescue sustained him for much of that time.

Hardcover

Code-Name Bright Light:
The Untold Story of U.S. POW Rescue Efforts During the Vietnam War
by George J. Veith
Hardcover (1998)

Paperback

Veith is no conspiracy freak. He believes strongly that the military made a sincere effort to rescue captured troops, and argues his case well, yet he also reveals a troubled operation that did not liberate a single soldier due to a combination of its own incompetence and clever Viet Cong tactics. This important chapter of the Vietnam War has been largely ignored until the late 1990s, partly because so many relevant documents took that long to be declassified. Veith makes a genuine contribution to the historical understanding of the conflict, one that ought to engage those still wondering about men whose fates remain unknown. The New York Times Book Review, Arnold R. Isaacs
Using U.S. and Vietnamese government records plus interviews with military and intelligence personnel, Veith traces U.S. attempts to find and rescue its POWs during the Vietnam War. And it's a rather dispiriting story, because though "the military did their best to recover American POWs" during the war, "they completely failed." Veith claims that the core problems (crippling interservice rivalries, bureaucratic jealousies, and too much consideration for local politics) were in place from early rescue attempts through the formation of the supposedly centralized Joint Personnel Recovery Center (JPRC). All came together to make JPRC's first major recovery operation a bloodbath. The soldiers sent on these dangerous missions displayed Herculean efforts; however, Veith's history also suggests that--for all talk to the contrary--the U.S. government's resolve to get back its POWs was lukewarm. He also posits much information that suggests the military knew considerably more about still-imprisoned Americans than it revealed after Vietnam. Apt to be very controversial.
Brian McCombie Copyright© 1998, American Library Association. All rights reserved

Why Didn't You Get Me Out?
Betrayal in the Viet Cong Death Camps:
The Truth About Heroes, Traitors, and Those Left Behind
by Frank Anton, Tommy Denton
Hardcover (1999)

American pilot Frank Anton was a prisoner of the Viet Cong in the jungles of Vietnam for five years -- longer than any other P.O.W. who survived. The hope of rescue sustained him for much of that time. After the war, however, Anton learned that military intelligence had known where he was all along, but gave orders not to expedite his rescue. Now, after 20 years of silence about the matter, Anton has decided to tell his story

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