THE PUBLIC MIND: WAR HERO ENGAGES IN FIGHT FOR AMERICAN SONS AND DAUGHTERS

To the Editor:

Yesterday, I heard a stirring speech from an American hero.

It was Memorial Day, and I had just finished watching the posting of the color guard at the conclusion of the American Legion ceremony downtown. Lisa Lane had just delivered the most stirring rendition of our National Anthem perhaps ever heard in Sikeston. The politicians had, finally, spoken and finished. The prayers were concluded. The crowd was thinning, slowly, as it was still continuing to digest the powerful message delivered to it by Navy Captain Eugene "Red" McDaniel (Ret'd.) Life was again returning to normal.

For a change, the weather had decided to cooperate during the ceremony, and, as eyes were drying, beads of sweat replaced tears on the cheeks of the members of the attentive audience. Thank goodness, many folks said, for the slight puffs of breeze, as the gigantic rendering of Old Glory proudly unfurled, and the stickiness of the heat temporarily dissipated. Thank goodness, and God bless Captain McDaniel.

Captain McDaniel is more than just another program filler at yet another patriotic gathering. Captain McDaniel is a hero. He is a true hero in every sense of the word. In fact, the reason we are even able to enjoy the ceremonial gatherings such as that of yesterday is because of the selfless sacrifice Captain McDaniel and many others like him have made to keep this country free.

You see, Captain McDaniel was a Prisoner of War, who for seven long years, defied his brutally torturous Vietnamese captors as he continued to fight for this great country of ours.

But, what makes Captain McDaniel so different, so special, however, is that he was one of the few lucky POWs who came back. He left our shores as a Navy pilot and family man, and he returned a hero. And for that, all Americans and all other POWs should feel grateful.

For in Captain McDaniel's message to us yesterday, as we sat and stood in awe and disbelief, was the tragic no, criminal tale of cover-up of the POW/MIA issue at virtually every level of the federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.

From Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush emanates the conspiracy of convenience: the MIAs are all "dead", they say. From the halls of Congress comes the conspiracy of complicity: "Why rock the boat, why take a stand, why possibly lose a vote?" From the Pentagon and State department comes the conspiracy of cowardice: "Live sightings of American Servicemen still in Southeast Asia? Sorry, we're career bureaucrats. Have you tried the American Red Cross instead?" It was a message, quick and powerful. And it was true.

Shortly thereafter, the emotionally moving ceremony was over. The sideshow speeches and the singing and the prayers were all finished, and there we were, milling around in the sweltering heat with the most unbelievable of all messages rolling around in our heads: the government of the United States has abandoned its own MIAs! "Surely, it can't be so!" we argued within ourselves. "Unbelievable!" But, there it was, in black and white, the evidence presented by the one man who better knows than possibly any other American, Captain McDaniel. And, friends, Captain McDaniel knows.

Captain McDaniel survived the prisons and jungles of Vietnam because he is a fighter. Fight he did, and continue to fight he still does. Seemingly a one-man crusader for his abandoned countrymen, Captain McDaniel asked but one thing of his audience in return for his years of anguish at the hands of his murderous captors: Please help him pressure the leaders of our country to face up to the MIA issue. Please ask our leaders to push the Vietnamese and Laotians and Cambodians into accounting for and releasing the brave American soldiers still held against their wills in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Please ask our politicians for results, for a change, instead of just another committee report. As citizens, it's all we can do. But, if we all do it, it's a lot.

To me, Captain McDaniel is a hero for yesterday, today and tomorrow. He fought our enemy yesterday. He is fighting government indifference today. Tomorrow, I hope, he will be welcoming home America's long lost sons. Maybe, if we each lend him a hand, the families of the missing soldiers will think of us as heroes, too. That would be quite an honor.

And Captain McDaniel will have won his biggest fight, a fight for the freedom for America's own sons and daughters.

Will we help? Will we respond to the pleas of Captain McDaniel? Today is not too late to start. Tomorrow may be. Fellow citizens, let's get going. There is much left to do.

R. Scott Matthews Jr.

Sikeston