June 2011

Spring flows into Summer and thoughts turn to the Suan Camps where so many men were held in 1951.  After Chinese forces entered the war, the U.S. EIGHTH Army and the U.N. Command were pressed southward, back into present day South Korea.  Heavy fighting ensued as the Chinese took Seoul and tried to consolidate and move farther south across a broad front. Battles followed, month by month, from...
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March 2010

As I write, Washington is digging out from record snows, a tiny inconvenience if you have heat and shelter and food . . . . Days are also getting longer, and with that come hope in every Winter. Turning back the pages, hope was something very badly needed in March and April of 1951. These months were vital for most KoreanWar POWs. Among men captured between July and December 1950, upwards of...
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September 2009

This is the story of a place that never was, yet it took on a “life” all its own. The story is worth telling, for many of you had a hand in it. But first, some background info. We begin with POWs captured in 1951. The Chinese pressed into South Korea, and a flow of POWs began to work its way north. Those captured in January and February 1951 stopped en route at the Suan Bean Camp, a very real...
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July 2009

Accounting for former POWs and other missing men can become an adventure, because there are always new discoveries. So now, a story that you probably haven’t heard before. We begin with Tiger Group, which contained the fi rst U.S. POWs and quite a few civilians. It is very well known. Most of the men in Tiger Group were captured between 6 and 22 July 1950. Others joined later, but this is how...
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March 2009

New Year has begun, and we are looking back over many of our records. We’re trying to resolve several questions that could prove helpful to recovery teams going into the field in 2009. As I write in late January, we have not yet had direct contact with North Korean authorities. There is still a little time, as Winter moves toward Spring. But we do not have any firm basis for expecting to go back...
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