ENCLOSURE 8 Memo, TAPC-PED-H, 27 APR 94 |
The phrase " ...decided not to delay the identification any longer." seems to imply that the identification of remains was already predetermined and CILHI was just looking for evidence to support their conclusions. From my perspective, it appears they didn't really find any supporting evidence. Mr. Holland covers himself with this classic: " Due to mission deployments, neither the CILHI Commander nor the Deputy to the Commander were available to review this document." Is he saying that if the Commander or his deputy were there the decision may have been different? Or, was he under some pressure to get on with it?
Statements of the two witnesses who went to the crash site seem to be very critical. First, it was the Vietnamese troops who told them and not Laotian troops. This supports the position that POWs captured in Laos were not only known to the Vietnamese, but were controlled by them. Secondly, the Vietnamese troops said they killed six Americans. This is consistent with the entries in the Record of Enemy Shoot Downs kept by the Vietnamese in the Group '559' Document. Although, there is a question of whether five or six were killed, they did not say all eight were killed. What happened to the the remainder of the crew? Did some survive? Has the DoD proven beyond a reasonable doubt that all eight died in the crash?
The Recovery team claims to have found four ID tags belonging to Balamoti, Ganley, and Fellenz. They claim this is conclusive evidence that the crash site is associated with REFNO 1530. The recovered I.D. Tags all appear to be bent or damaged along the right side. It is strange that each tag would sustain such severe damage and the damage would look so similar. Did anyone test these tags? Are they real or manufactured? On June 28 1995, Dolores Apodaca Alfond testified before the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel about the case of her brother, Capt. Victor Apodaca. Part of her testimony dealt with manufactured I.D. tags. She said: "In 1988, the remains of the pilot of Victor's plane were returned and identified. Also returned was ... a dog tag bearing the name Victor J. Apodaca. Based on this mangled and burned dog tag, the U.S. Government made the decision to remove Victor from the discrepancy list." "They ignored the fact that FBI analysis concluded that the dog tag was made of materials other than that specified by the U.S. Government for that time period. Investigators ignored the report which indicated the burn marks came from a source other than a jet fuel fire." "What we did not know until, March of 1994, was the FBI analysis concluded that the damage done to the dog tag was inflicted by a pair of wire cutters being repeatedly used to cause the damage seen here." "We learned of this information, not through official government channels but from an activist who located these documents in the Library of Congress. Evidence proves the dog tag, said to be my brothers, was at best manually damaged to give the appearance of being in a jet crash. At worst it is an outright fake."
The statements concerning the restored pistol serial numbers are pure speculation. The Honolulu Police indicated that the serial numbers were "775667, 77874-, and 501988 or 501989." None of these matched exactly with any of the crew members. To say, "the discrepancy between the restored "501989 and the serial number of the revolver issued to CMSgt Wright, 'SV501089' could possibly represent a simple recording error between a '9' and a '0' in the fourth number in the series" is pure conjecture. And then to say that pistol '775667' could be associated with Ganley because they don't have any record of his pistol number is idiotic. The only reason they assigned it to Ganley was that they presumably found his I.D. tag. Would this be standard scientific practice at any reputable identification laboratory? Would this line of reasoning hold up in a real investigation? I don't think so. The paragraph stating that the JTF-FA and DPMO offices have no information suggesting that any crew member were captured or survived the crash is a lie! One piece of information is the beeper recorded after the crash and the other is the GX2527 distress signal photographed outside Dong Vai prison in 1992.
"Based on the preponderance of the evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that the remains designated CILHI 0208-93C are the commingled remains...". What preponderance of the evidence? CILHI cannot, beyond a reasonable doubt, identify anyone from the remains. They have no supporting dental records, no bone fragments, no pistol serial numbers. What they do have is a mission to dispose of as many cases as possible regardless of the facts of the case. Discrepancies are explained away with hand waiving and 'clerical errors.' Solid evidence is dismissed or denied. What kind of people can dismiss evidence that a fellow soldier, another human being, may be rotting away in some foreign prison camp? How do these people live with their conscience? How do they sleep at night? Would they accept 'commingled remains' for their own brother or son? I hope they would not. |