POW

By VVAW

To Peace and anti-war organizations of the American people, United States of America.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
"I am an American POW, I came to Vietnam as a 26 year old army flight surgeon. I was happily married to a lovely wife with a wonderful family and the world was mine. Now I am a 30 year old POW. Of course my opinions about this war are prejudiced by the fact that I want to go home; to return to my loved ones and the practive (sic) of a gratifying profession. This, despite my unenviable position, I deeply believe that this tragic war is the most detrimental event in our history since our civil war. For the first 5 months of my capture, I refused to make any public statement against the war despite numerous interviews with and urgings by NLF cadre. I felt that it was not in the interest of my country to do so. Now I ask for the opportunity to make statements and write letters. I have been brainwashed. Not by any physical tortures, or abstruse psychological methods, but by a confrontation with factual evidence, and most of it originated in the USA. I have been brainwashed by the 1954 Geneva Accords, by LIFE magazine, by NEWSWEEK, by American documentary films of demonstrations, of the Winter Soldier Investigations, by statements from senior statesmen like Fulbright, Mansfield, Harriman, Clifford and so forth. The recent disclosure of the secret Pentagon report by conscious-stricken defense analyst was the last of a long series of laundry agents. Now I fell that it is in the best interest of my country to make public statements, write letters and appeals, and to do everything possible to stop this war; this terribly destructive force that has caused so much death and suffering; that has shaken American society to its foundations and has placed an indelible blot of shame upon the flag I yearn to see. All of us who love America are deeply hurt by the stories of atrocities, the reports of Vietnam veterans casting their medals upon the steps of the Capitol, the image of a government which deceives and misrepresents its people.

We hate this war, the greatest atrocity, not only for keeping us from our loved ones, but more important because it has hurt our country, it has shamed our honor, it has desecrated our ideals and has converted the American dream to a horrible nightmare. More and more our people and our representatives in Congress realize how damaging the war has been. They know that rapid and total disengagement is the proper solution so that we may redirect our energies to the solving of internal problems; many of which were created and aggravated by this tragic war. It is incumbent upon you our citizenry to take firm and positive action by every means to pressure the administration into an admission of the dismal failure of its policy, and a total withdrawal from Viet Nam. Then we may begin the task of rebuilding our image, our honor and our ideals. In the years to come, VietNam will be remembered as the pace where America payed (sic) a high price to learn that it could not do anything it wished, It will be remembered as a tremendous waste of our money and blood, If the tragedy of VietNam is to have any redeemable feature, it will be that here finally the will of an enlightened American citizenry, forced power to yield and conscience and reason to finally prevail.

Sincerely, Harold Kushner, M.D.
Captain, USAR
ser# 02320775

Editors note: All evidence point to his being captured by P.R.G. Forces and currently being held in the south.

To the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, c/o the White House, Washington, D.C.

Mr. President:
"I have served in Vietnam and in doing so I was wounded, like so many other Americans that have served in Vietnam. I was wounded three and one half years ago and am still in Vietnam today. Yet, Mr. President, I have been captured by the Liberation Armed Forces of Vietnam. Mr. President, I like so many Americans have fought for your policies and your predecessors' policies. Policies that I and they never really understood. Well, Mr. President, for a long time now, I have had my own ideas of why the administration is involved in Indochina. And those ideas are: The US government is trying to dominate the world; the US is trying to obtain its goals by stepping on any country and by killing anyone gets in its way. This is American democracy according to the administration and the monopolies that prop it up. This is something that I do not support. I no longer want to fight for you or anyone like you, in fact, I won't ever again fight for your kind of American democracy. I will fight for my real American people and country, not you. Mr. President, because you don't represent the real America. If you wholeheartedly believe in your own policy, come to Vietnam, Mr. President and take my place. I'm not going to support you or your policies. Mr. President, according to the Constitution, I have the right to speak out a against (sic) you and your policies if you and they are leading our country astray. And for sure, you and your policies have led our country astray. The Vietnam war, is just one proof of what I have just stated. Mr. President, I am acting on what I have seen, and what my conscience has told me to do. I can no longer support the killing of innocent Vietnamese men, women, and children, or the destruction of their beautiful country. My conscience tells me it is wrong to kill or harm anyone. The Bible tells me it is wrong; the laws of the United States say it is wrong. Most important, my mother and father have taught me that it's wrong to kill or harm anyone. I was blinded by lies. I have killed innocent people and I have helped to destroy the country that they loved so much. I am ashamed Mr. President, so ashamed that I can no longer call myself an American. I have shed my blood for your completely wrong policies. Mr. President, I would like to talk to you personally, but because of your and your Administration's policies, of repression and persecution, I would never get the chance to exercise my civil rights that are guaranteed to me under the Constitution of the United States. It's a fact you or one of your followers would have me locked up because I am doing the right thing according to the Constitution and my conscience. Do you thing it's right for me to fear my own government? Do you think it's wrong to try and end an unjust war? Especially when it goes against the American peoples' will? When it only benefits a few rich people. You know what I am talking about now. Your war is only benefiting a few people in the US. I, like so many other captured servicemen, have taken it unto myself unilaterally to help bring an end to this war. Because of the pressure and influence that you have exerted on your followers, I would be considered a traitor. I would be tried under the unconstitutional military laws. However, we love our country and people and I think we love them ore than you do. This is why I have chosen to fight on until our country is set straight again."

John A. Young Spec. Forces
SP/4 U.S.A.
A Captured US Serviceman
Against the War in Vietnam

Editors Note: All evidence point to his being captured by P.R.G. Forces and currently being held in the south.