Are You Honest?

Okay, gang, here's the deal. I challenge the owners of the "MIA activist" sites listed below to put on their page a link to my MIA Facts Site -- and leave it there.

Why am I doing this?

Why not? Seriously, readers of this site should go to their favorite search engine and search for "POW-MIA." You will get uncounted thousands of returns, each of which will link you to a remembrance page, to a page telling you all about how live US POWs remain in SEAsia, to this page and that page, all of them spouting the same nonsense.

I have approached some of these folks about putting on their page a link to mine. If you want to read a really revealing story about how the "MIA activists" do not dare let another point of view be heard, read my article entitled "Censored."

So, What's the Challenge

My Challenge

Below are links to several of the more popular MIA activist sites. I challenge the webmasters of these sites to put the following on their site.

MIA Activist Links

Gunny Fallon's Operation Just Cause: http://www.ojc.org The Gunny has a link to the MIA Facts Site. Check it out on his page of links at: http://www.ojc.org/links/links.htm

The National Alliance of Families: http://www.nationalalliance.org/ No link to the MIA Facts Site. In fact, they actively delete my entries in their guestbook. See below.

POW Forum : http://www.ojc.org/powforum See the note below dated 1/29/99..

Major Mark Smith's Site : http://www.rossie.com/zips.htm Mark Smith is not afraid of the truth -- he has a link to the MIA Facts Site on his site.

Rolling Thunder of New Jersey: http://www.designerwebs.com/rthunder/ Dave Murray cannot even spell honest -- no link to the MIA Facts Site.

The Advocacy and Intelligence Index: http://www.aiipowmia.com/ Has a link to my site. Thank you.

+++The site that was on this line was removed at the webmaster's request. Seems as though she can't handle a dose of facts.+++

Okay, folks, there are just a few of the "MIA activist" sites. I will add more to the challenge list as time goes by.

Let's see if any one of them has the intellectual honesty to link to my site.

If you are the webmaster or author or whatever of any of the sites listed above, and if you do link, just and I will modify this article to congratulate you publicly on having the intellectual honesty to let the facts be known. (Of course, I will check your site from time to time to make certain that the link stays there.)

However, until the links are there, the rest of the world will now wonder just exactly what it is that you are afraid of that you do not give your readers the opportunity to see the facts of the matter.

What are you folks afraid of?

Mr. Gary G. Wright, Jr., son of missing USAF LTC Gary G. Wright, Sr., has established a web page in honor of his father. Gary put on his page a link to my page, along with some gentlemanly comments about me. In July 1999, Gary sent me an e-mail, telling me about the link. For some reason, I never acknowledged Gary's action. I owe Gary an apology for not acknowledging him and I make that apology to him here and now. Gary and I met a couple of times while I was on active duty and we spoke on the telephone a few times. Click here to visit his site in tribute to his father.

LTC Wright's loss is one of the more difficult because it falls into the category of "off the scope" cases. LTC Wright and his crewmember, 1LT Fred Wozniak, launched from Udorn, Thailand, 17 Jan 67, on a photo recce mission near Hanoi. I do not recall the details of the case -- I believe that they made one radio contact with Udorn -- but they were never heard from again, hence the term "off the scope." There is no crash site to investigate. Where were they lost? shot down over the target? crashed going in? crashed coming out? shot down going in? shot down coming out? (I retired in early 1995; there may have been more information developed on the Wright-Wozniak loss since I retired.)

The webmaster of the POW Forum has informed me that he did, in fact, already have a link to the MIA Facts Site. First, my apologies to him for missing the link. I looked around the site and did not see it. Went back, and there it is. Second, it is refreshing to see that, in spite of some serious differences of opinion, at least one gentleman understands that we can disagree without being disagreeable. He has asked that I not use his name as he does not want the focus on him, rather on the issue.

Update:
Don't know how long it has been there, but, on Major Mark Smith's Zippo's Corner web site, there is, big as life, a link to my site. (6/12/99)

Update:
Webmaster of the The Advocacy and Intelligence Index: http://www.aiipowmia.com/ has a link to the MIA Facts Site. Thank you.

Update:
On October 17, 2000, I made an entry into the guestbook of the National Alliance web site at http://www.nationalalliance.org/. In my entry, I listed the URL for the MIA Facts Site and I invited people to visit my site. I checked the guest book a few minutes later and my entry was there. Now (October 18), my entry has been deleted. The same thing happened one year ago. What is the National Alliance afraid of? Why do they not want people to know about the MIA Facts Site? On this very page is a link to their site yet they delete my entries from their guest book. I do not delete guest book entries. Sad but this is what I expect from the Alliance.

Update:
In November 2000, I made several entries in the Alliance Guestbook. So far (3 December 2000), those entries are still there.

Update (3 Dec 00):
Another of the lunatic fringe is a "group" calling themselves "Task Force Omega." TFO consists of Earl Hopper, Sr. (father of USAF 1LT Earl Hopper, Jr., lost in North Vietnam in 1968),. Hopper's long-time girl friend Patty Skelly (Hopper and Skelly carried on an open affair for years, even while Hopper's wife was alive; they are now married and Skelly signs herself as Earl, Jr.'s "stepmother"); and some guy named Craig Willbanks. Read more about the Hopper loss here. In November 2000, I asked TFO via e-mail to link from their site to mine. This is the response I received from Willbanks on December 3, 2000; reproduced as I received it, complete with original misspellings. Note, too that I have included the link to the TFO website because I know that reasonable people who read their site and who read mine will recognize facts when they see them -- that's the real reason TFO will not link to me -- they don't want anyone discovering the horseshit they are peddling :

Joe:

"Sorry to decline your challenge to put a link to your site on ours. We link
only to credible sites and your site does not meet our qualifications to do
so."

Craig Willbanks
Web Master
http://www.taskforceomegainc.org
A Non-Profit POW/MIA Orginazition

Mr. Willbanks:

On my website is an article with links to many of the "MIA activist" sites whose views are starkly different from mine. You see, I am not afraid to have visitors to my site read the mythology spread by the "MIA activists" because I have faith in the ability of the public to recognize horseshit when they step in it.

And, many of these folks -- whose views on the MIA issue are starkly different from mine -- have demonstrated their intellectual honesty by placing a link from their site to mine. Some of those who are not afraid to link to my site are:
-- Advocacy and Intelligence Index
-- Mark Smith, Major, USA (Ret)
-- POW Forum
-- Operation Just Cause
-- and others.

Your inane response was what I expected. Your e-mail has now been published on my web site so the rest of the world can see that Task Force Omega does not have the courage or the intellectual honesty that others have.

MIA Facts Site

A Challenge to the "MIA Activists"