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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:27:49 EDT
From:         "John A. MacDougall" <apakabar@ACCESS.DIGEX.COM>
Subject:      MIA Myths Kept Alive by Hollywood (fwd)

Forwarded message:
From apakabar@igc.apc.org Fri Sep  4 18:09:26 1992
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 15:11:04 PDT
From: Indonesia Publications/Task Force <apakabar@igc.apc.org>
Message-Id: <9209042211.AA19967@igc.apc.org>
To: apakabar@access.digex.com
Subject: MIA Myths Kept Alive by Hollywood

/* Written  9:34 am  Sep  4, 1992 by nyxfer@panix.com in cdp:reg.seasia */
/* ---------- "MIA Myths Kept Alive by Hollywood" ---------- */
From: nyxfer@panix.com (N.Y. Transfer)
Subject: MIA Myths Kept Alive by Hollywood



Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit

POW-MIA myth kept alive by Hollywood

By Andy Stapp

"The Vietnam war is not over yet. And the Americans have tried to
win a victory through movies in order to save face," declared
Radio Hanoi in an Aug. 29 commentary. The broadcast continued:
"The fact was made obvious when the advertisement for the film
`Missing in Action' was released with the sensational words: `The
war won't be over until the last American returns home.' "

Radio Hanoi ridiculed the cottage industry that has grown up in
this country churning out grade B films about U.S. prisoners
supposedly still held in Vietnam. "The POW-MIA myth reached its
peak with the introduction of the second installment of the Rambo
series titled "First Blood,' starring Sylvester Stallone, who has
become a contemporary superman," the commentary said. Stallone
wasn't exactly a superperson during the actual fighting over
there. Like born-again war lovers Dick Cheney, Pat Buchanan, Dan
Quayle and Bill "Bomb Belgrade" Clinton, "Rambo" Stallone
adroitly sidestepped the 1960s military draft.

The broadcast concluded by noting: "In reality there are
thousands of homeless American Vietnam war veterans now living on
the streets of the United States. They should not be called
missing in action, but rather missing in America."

Most of the 2,226 members of the U.S. armed forces unaccounted
for in the conflict were ground troops blown to bits. A few are
pilots who were blasted from the air in flames. Some went down
into the South China Sea or over impenetrable jungle.

Of course the Vietnamese endured much more formidable casualties.
Washington would like to erase the memory of what the
Pentagon--with its helicopter gunships, Mylai-style massacres,
free fire zones, Agent Orange, white phosphorus and
napalm--inflicted on that poor Asian nation. Sentimental TV shows
like China Beach can't change the truth of what they did. There
are provinces in Vietnam where not a single square mile escaped
saturation bombing. These areas are cratered like the surface of
the moon. At Vinh, a provincial capital, only one building stood
after the B-52 raids ended in 1973.

And hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese are still missing.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers@igc.apc.org".)

-----
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