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| US ARMY SGT. MATT MAUPIN |
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| POW/MIA CAPTURED IN IRAQ APR. 9th, 2004 |
Hopefully in 2008...
Our POWs will no longer wait...
Until They're All Home
Then I'll Leave It Alone
"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy,"
[Colossians
2: 8]
National Alliance of Families
For the Return of America’s Missing Servicemen
World
War II – Korea – Cold War – Vietnam – Gulf Wars
April 19, 2008
Bits N Pieces
"I told them when we'd go up to the Pentagon,
whether he walks off a plane or is carried off,
you're
not going to leave him in Iraq like you did those guys in Vietnam."
Keith Maupin as quoted by the Associated
Press March 31, 2007
#################
Services for Sgt. Matt Maupin - The remains of Sgt. Matt
Maupin will arrive at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati Ohio, on Saturday April 26th. A procession will escort Sgt.
Maupin to the Union Township Civic Center located at 4350 Aicholtz Road, Cincinnati Ohio. Public visitation will begin
at 11:00 AM and end at 7:00 AM Sunday April 27th.
A memorial service beginning at 1:00 PM will be
held at the Great American Ball Park located at 201 E. Pete Rose Way, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. A private burial
service, at Gate of Heaven Cemetery, will follow the memorial service.
To check for any changed to this
schedule visit http://www.visitclermontohio.com/mattmemorial.html
Our hearts and prayers are with the Maupin family. Those wishing to extend their sympathy
may send condolences to:
Carolyn
and Keith Maupin & Family
c/o The Yellow Ribbon Support Center
700 S Eastgate Blvd. – Suite 430
Cincinnati
Ohio 45245
####################
What Happened to Matt Maupin - On Thursday April 17th, Pentagon officials briefed the
family of Sgt Matt Maupin. In an article for The Enquirer posted at Cincinnati.com Malia Rulon, writes;
“Keith
Maupin said that Pentagon officials told them Thursday that they would have to get a final report from the Armed Forces Medical
Examiner on exactly how and when their son died. “I was given the impression that they believe it was very early on,"
Maupin said. He said Pentagon officials told them that the June 2004 video released on an Arab television station
showing a person in a U.S. military uniform being shot to death "might well have been Matt, but we don't know for sure."
“The Army Medical Examiner's Office in Maryland has had Sgt. Maupin's remains for more than two weeks. They have
been doing forensic tests to determine when and how he was killed. Keith Maupin said they have been told that "because
of all the time that's gone by and the harsh conditions over there, there wasn't a lot of Matt left for them to examine."
The Maupins will get the report when it's finished.”
In the same article Rulon reported; “Two of
the Iraqis identified as being responsible for kidnapping and killing Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin four years ago have been sentenced
to death - though not for Maupin's death, Army officials told the soldier's parents Thursday.
The
article also stated that Keith Maupin stated the Army paid a $200,000 reward for the tip that led to his son’s recovery.
However “The Army did not comment on the reward.”
#################
A Very Impressive 268 –
That is the current number of co-sponsors for H.Res 111. Unfortunately, we are still stuck in the Rules Committee.
Please DO NOT give up. Keep the pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairperson Louise
McIntosh-Slaughter. Send a fax to:
Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Tel: 202-225-0100 or Toll Free at 866-727-4894
Office of the Speaker
Fax: 202-225-8259
H-232, US Capitol
202-225-4188
Washington, DC 20515
And don’t forget Rules Committee Chairperson
Honorable
Louise McIntosh-Slaughter
2469 Rayburn Bldg
Tel: 202-225-3615 or Toll Free at 866-727-4894
Washington D.C. 20515
Fax: 202-225-7822
Remind them that that H.Res 111 enjoys overwhelming bi-partisan support. With 268
Co-Sponsors passage of H.Res 111 is clearly the will of the people.
Not sure if your Congressional
Representative is a cosponsor, visit www.nationalalliance.org/legis/110congress.htm If your Representative is highlighted in red, he/she is a cosponsor. And,
remember if your Congressional Representative is not a cosponsor, keep working on them!
######################
Status
of PWs in South Vietnam – We recently located an interesting memo. Both the recipient and sender are redacted.
However, the content of the memo, dated November 13, 1969 is basically un-redacted. We found this memo interesting
because it acknowledges the possibility that POW camps abandoned in South Vietnam may have been re-activated.
Unfortunately, as the memo indicates abandoned facilities were not “carried as detention facilities.”
This
concept of re-activating a once abandoned camp is one possibility DPMO refused to consider in the case of Army Captain John
T. McDonnell (Vessey 119 Discrepency Case, Project X and one of the 19 New POWs.) According to the memo;
“The
MACV Joint Prisoner Recovery Center investigates on the ground all credible reports of detention sites in South Vietnam.
In some cases evidence of hastily evacuated prison cages have been found and in one case a fatally wounded American soldier
was recovered. These sites investigated on the ground by JPRC are usually left in an unusable state and are not afterwards
carried as detention facilities. In some cases the sites may in fact have been re-used, but this is problematical.
There are also reported sites in Cambodia and Laos. There is little point in attempting to summarize this information,
since interrogation of released and escaped prisoner indicates that the VC move the captives from camp to camp as the tactical
situation demands.”
The memo also discussed a no bomb area assigned to “one detention facility –
a cave in Laos.” We can only assume that strong intelligence reporting indicated this cave was a detention
facility for American POWs in Laos in 1969.
To view the full document, visit the Vietnam section of our website
at www.nationalalliance.org#####################
Government Acknowledges Mis-Identification of World War II Airman - “The
POW/MIA bunch (Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC) gave it all their spin - and boy, can they spin it. They're better
than Bill O'Reilly." Those are the words of Mary Roberts, sister of World War II airman Wesley Stuart.
In
the March 15th edition of Bits we reported how one World War II family exhumed and tested remains returned to them in the
late 1940’s after the Bent Prop Project, a private group researching World War II aircraft losses, located Stuart’s
aircraft with remains inside. This information was provided to the U.S. government but no action was forthcoming.
So,
Mary Roberts took matters into her own hands, exhuming and paying for private mt-DNA testing. The test confirmed the
families long held suspicions that the remains were not those of Wesley Stuart.
On April 17th the Recorder published
a follow up to this story, written by Michael Fitzgerald. Excerpts from his story follow:
[Begin Story]
"They wanted me to go away. Trust me," said Roberts, a Stockton bar owner. "But
I didn't. They don't know Irish people.
Irish people are persistent."
“This latest twist in the story of Wesley Stuart involves an admiral's apology,
an honor guard and Stuart's hope that, far away on a tiny coral island in the Pacific, recently discovered remains may really
be those of her beloved brother.”
“On Sept. 13, 1944, Wesley Raymond Stuart, a lanky, 6-foot-1, blue-eyed,
fun-loving cowboy, who rode bucking broncos in Oakdale rodeos, who played guitar and sang, flew off the deck of the carrier
U.S.S Enterprise, bound for the island of Peleliu. Stuart, 20, a turret gunner in a three-man Avenger light bomber,
never returned.”
“Civilian searchers with the Bent Prop Project found his plane's wreckage in 2005.
They conjecture Stuart's Avenger, crossing over the island's shore, took a direct hit from intense Japanese anti-aircraft
fire. Its bomb and gas tank exploded.”
“Four long years passed, and the war was over, when the Navy
notified the family Stuart's remains - skeletal fragments - had been recovered. To the Stuarts, the delay in identifying
Wesley's remains, and the thin evidence on which identification was based, raised doubts. Stuart's mother disbelieved.”
"How
she knew that, I don't know," Roberts confessed. "Mother's intuition. Something." But the family interred the
remains. "My mother took good care of him. She said, 'It's not my son. But it's someone's son.'"
“Roberts
grew up with the doubt. Long after her parents died, when forensic DNA technology evolved, she asked the Navy to test the
remains. The Navy refused.
"The POW/MIA bunch (Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC) gave it all their spin
- and boy, can they spin it. They're better than Bill O'Reilly," Roberts said.”
“When Stuart's plane
was found in 2005, human remains were found beneath the fuselage. "I thought, 'I have to find out. I have to know,'”
Roberts recalled. So she hired an attorney to handle the legalities of disinterment and sent remains from the mausoleum
to a lab in Pennsylvania along with a sample of her DNA.”
“The specialist called her personally.
"I didn't want your attorney to call you and tell you," she told Roberts. "The DNA didn't match." Roberts said she notified
the Navy, which changed its tune. "No more spin. They came down to earth. ... Let me tell you, it really shook them up."
“An
official from JPAC promised a letter of apology, signed by an admiral, Roberts said. The Navy is sending an honor guard and
"high-ranking official" to Park View Cemetery for a formal disinterment ceremony on April 23.”
“The
unknown soldier will be transported to Honolulu , where experts will try to match the remains to the military's database of
MIAs.”
“Roberts wonders if the remains beneath the fuselage are her brother's. She hopes JPAC will
investigate. But there's another possibility: Could the Navy have mixed up the other two crewmen, sending Wesley's remains
to the family of the airman who long rested in French Camp?” [End Story]
###############
Question –
Ms. Roberts had to hire an attorney, pay for exhumation, and mt-DNA testing at her personal expense ($11,000) to proved remains
returned as her brother where not his, shouldn’t the government repay her expenses?
Why does Johnie Webb
still have his job?
###################
National Alliance of Families 19th Annual Forum is scheduled for June
19th – 21st, 2008. Our forum is conducted to coincide with the Government s annual Vietnam POW/MIA Family Briefings.
We urge all family members to attend this year’s government briefing. The government will provide free airfare to two
family members to attend the government briefings. There is no charge or registration fee to attend these briefings and you
DO NOT have to belong to an organization to attend the government briefings.
This year our meeting will be held
at the Holiday Inn National Airport, located at 2650 Jefferson Davis Highway Crystal City, VA. The special Alliance
rate is $129.00 per night, plus tax. Parking rate under the Alliance is $10.00 per night. Cutoff
date for reservations is May 20th so make your reservations early. There will be no extension on this date.
To reserve your room, call 1-703-684-7200.
The Alliance is an all volunteer organization. Our meetings are open to all,
without charge. At this time of year, we actively seek contributions to finance our forum. If you wish to contribute, donations
may be mailed to:
National Alliance of Families
P.O. Box 40327
Bellevue, WA . 98015
Remember all contributions
are tax deductible.
3472
http://www.rr.com/flash/index.cfm?rev=10322 IRAQI'S TIP HELPED LEAD TO THE REMAINS OF POW/CAPTURED MATT MAUPIN
MARCH, 2008
By TERRY KINNEY - Associated Press
Writer
CINCINNATI(AP) A tip from an Iraqi helped the U.S. military find the remains of an Ohio soldier captured in an ambush
and then shown on Arab television surrounded by armed masked men nearly four years ago, an Army official said Monday.
The
parents of Staff Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin, who lobbied at the Pentagon and even met with President Bush about their missing
son, were told Sunday of the discovery.
The military had received tips through the years from several sources as authorities
continued their search for Maupin.
"This last one proved to be the most accurate as we kept getting closer and closer,"
said Maj. Mark Cheadle, a spokesman for the Baghdad area command. The tip was first reported by the Dayton Daily News.
The
remains were found in northwest Baghdad, Cheadle said, but he could not provide any more details about the tip or when it
was received.
The Army used DNA testing to identify the remains, said Keith Maupin, the soldier's father. The discovery
of a shirt worn by soldiers at the time Matt Maupin was captured also helped the Army focus its search.
On Monday, Defense
Secretary Robert Gates expressed sympathy to Maupin's family.
"This has been especially difficult for the Maupin family
because of not knowing for almost exactly four years. So I want to extend my condolences," Gates said, speaking to reporters
aboard a flight to Denmark.
The Department of Defense also announced an official change in status Monday for Maupin from
missing-captured to deceased.
Maupin was a 20-year-old private first class
when he was captured April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy, part of the Bartonville, Ill.-based 724th Transportation Company,
was ambushed west of Baghdad.
A week later, the Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape showing
Maupin wearing camouflage and a floppy desert hat, sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.
That
June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only
the back of the victim's head and not the execution.
His father, Keith Maupin, still is not convinced that was his son.
"If
that was Matt, I consider that's what God wanted and they couldn't hurt Matt for a long time," Maupin said Sunday. "It just
took them a long time to find him."
A month after his capture, Matt Maupin was promoted to the rank of specialist. In August
2006, he was promoted to staff sergeant.
A three-star general discussed the discovery of the remains with Maupin's parents
on Sunday in Batavia, a Cincinnati suburb where their son grew up.
On Monday, Maupin's parents rode as planned in a parade
observing the opening day of the baseball season. They plan to continue using Matt Maupin's name to promote their scholarship
fund for children of veterans and the Yellow Ribbon Support Center, which has sent thousands of goody packages to soldiers.
"It
was important to be here to let everyone know that we thank them for their support and their love of our family and for standing
by Matt as they are today," Carolyn Maupin said.
Despite a light rain, the Maupins rode in an open convertible and were
greeted with applause and cheers all along the parade route.
"That touched my heart," Carolyn Maupin said. "I don't think
they'll forget him."
The Maupins had lobbied hard for the Army to continue searching for their son and to continue listing
him as missing-captured, fearing that another designation would undermine efforts to find him.
They received regular briefings at the Pentagon, and Bush
met with them whenever he visited Cincinnati.
Keith Maupin said the Army was continuing its investigation.
Four U.S. service members remain missing in Iraq: Capt. Michael Speicher, a Navy pilot, has been
missing since the 1991 Persian Gulf War; Sgt. Ahmed al-Taie, a 41-year-old Iraqi-born reserve soldier from Ann Arbor, Mich.,
was abducted while visiting his Iraqi wife in October 2006 in Baghdad; and Pfc. Byron Fouty and Sgt. Alex Jimenez have been
missing since May 12, 2007.
"After a long wait, we want to offer our most sincere condolences to Carolyn and Keith
Maupin on the loss of their son," said Army Secretary Pete Geren. "I want to say this once again to the families of our other
captured soldiers in Iraq, we will not stop searching for your loved ones."
___
On the Net:
http://www.yellowribbonsupportcenter.comhttp://www.mattmaupin.us___
Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Copenhagen,
Denmark, contributed to this report.
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