Bob Bergdahl, father of current POW, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and Carmel Whetzel, Prisoner of War, WWII proudly holding a T-shirt with Bowe' image before leaving for the demonstration march.

The POW/MIA FREEDOM MARCH started at the Lincoln Memorial departing at 10:00 am for the War Memorials, where a wreath laying will take place for all who have yet to come home and then march down to the US Capitol Building to hear the speakers.

Bob Bergdahl showing off a HONOR-RELEASE-RETURN poster with his son Sgt Bowe Bergdahl image

HONOR-RELEASE-RETURN, Inc.’s first public awareness event was a FREEDOM MARCH in Washington, D.C., on 9 April 2013, beginning with a wreath-laying at the war memorials, followed by a demonstration march to the steps of the U.S. Capitol building

Featuring speeches by Bob Bergdahl, father of current POW, SGT. Bowe Bergdahl, Afghanistan, captured June 2009, currently being held by the Taliban aligned Haqqani network in Pakistan, Mike Benge, Prisoner of War, Vietnam, Larry Stark, Prisoner of War, Vietnam, Carmel Whetzel, Prisoner of War, WWII, and Roger Hall, POW/MIA activist and Bob ‘Bulldog’ Ousley, Major, US Army (Retired)

The speakers will focus on demanding that the U.S. government formally request and negotiate for the return of all live Americans who are in captivity in foreign countries, and negotiate for information concerning Americans unaccounted for and believed to be held captive in Southeast Asia, Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We are still trying to educate, enlighten our future generation

Jim 'Moe” Moyer the Co-chairman of the National Board of Directors for Honor-Return-Release gives last minute instructions before the start of the march to the Capitol building

The POW/MIA FREEDOM MARCH started at the Lincoln Memorial departing at 10:00 am for the War Memorials, where a wreath laying will take place for all who have yet to come home and then march down to the US Capitol Building to hear the speakers.

World War II POW Carmel Whetzel
On Nov. 2, 1944, elements of 3rd Battalion “pushed ahead” to the French town of Rodalbe in the province of Lorraine. German troops surrounded the Americans, killing many and seizing about 200 as prisoners of war. Whetzel and two other drivers evaded capture by running into a barn and diving beneath a “haymow.” For three days, Whetzel and his comrades dared not move from their place of hiding – even as German soldiers took turns sleeping on piles of straw directly above them. Only when they heard the tell-tale fire of American guns did they reveal themselves.
But it was not Americans, coming to their rescue, who were discharging the guns, but rather Germans firing captured weaponry. Whetzel and his friends walked out of their hiding place into German hands. Taken initially to Stalag 12-A near Limburg, Germany, Whetzel did not eat for a week, but was forced to peel potatoes for his German captors. “We couldn’t eat,” he says, “and, if we tried, a guard would hit you over the head with a rifle butt.”
He and his fellow POWs were stripped of their GI uniforms and given raggedy old clothes and wooden shoes. Their uniforms, as they later learned, were used by German infiltrators, posing as American MPs during the Battle of the Bulge.
Ten days before Christmas, Whetzel boarded a 40×8 railroad car (so-called because it could hold either eight horses or 40 men) for his transfer to Stalag 2-A, near Neubrandenburg north of Berlin. This stalag had roughly 50 ancillary camps, known as Arbeitskommando, where POWs were subjected to hard labor seven days a week. Whetzel was dispatched to one such camp, located at a Luftwaffe base near Parchim, where he caught a glimpse of Germany’s prototypical jet fighters, sitting on the runway.
At Parchim, a captured French priest provided a fellow POW – Albert J. “Steve” Stevens – enough paper to keep a diary and, more importantly, to record the names and home addresses of all the men in the contingent. On pages 60-61 of the diary are recorded the events of March 26, 1945.
Wirecutters duly procured, Whetzel and his two bunkies – Harvey (Ikie) Boulerice and Roy Miller – hatched their plan for escape. They knew each night a guard would pass through and check each individual room in the barracks. On the night in question, the threesome saw the guard start his rounds and then move to the room closest to the front door – which they found unlocked. They slipped out of the barracks and into the latrine out back.
“We went through the crapper hole and cut the fence and crawled through,” he says. “The guards didn’t stop us. I don’t know if they even saw us. We didn’t care. We just walked down the road.” And they kept walking. For two weeks, they lived off the land – relieving chicken coops of their inhabitants to sustain themselves – until a German forest guard spotted them and picked them up. Whetzel says the trio would have gone farther afield had it not been for their inability to ford swollen canals. When they returned to camp, they were carrying a chicken.
Summarily put on trial, Whetzel and his fellow escapees were not sentenced to death – as may have been the case earlier in the war – but to three weeks of confinement, with a diet of bread and water. They were housed in a compound reserved for Russian prisoners.
Though Allied forces were inching closer as winter turned fully to spring in 1945, the work did not stop. When American warplanes blew up a railroad, Whetzel and the POWs were sent to repair it. One day, they saw a U.S. plane shot down. On another, seven POWs fell victim to friendly fire when U.S. aircraft strafed the area in which they were working. Whetzel and the other prisoners dug a trench and buried their buddies.
On May 2 came the “day of days,” as Stevens wrote in the diary. The war was over, at least in that sector. Oddly enough, after detonating all available ammunition, the guards herded the prisoners to a wooded area – and then departed. For about six hours, the men huddled together, wondering what to do. Eventually, they decided to march back to their compound, where Russian troops liberated them two days later.
From the Winchester Star, November 11, 2010

Former World War II POW Carmel Whetzel gets a kiss from the pretty girls

It was a Great Day for this Freedom March

Mike Benge, Vietnam POW | January 31, 1968, Benge was captured while riding in a jeep near Ban Me Thuot, South Vietnam. Learning of the Tet offensive strikes, Benge was checking on some IVS volunteers who were living in a hamlet with three companies of Montagnard rebels who had just been through a lot of fighting as the NVA went through the Ban Me Thuot area. His plan was to pick up the IVS "kids" and then go down to pick up some missionaries in the area.
Benge was captured a few miles from the Leprosarium at Ban Me Thuot. This center treated anyone with a need as well as those suffering from leprosy. The Viet Cong regularly harassed and attacked the center in spite of its humanitarian objectives. Mike Benge contracted cerebral malaria and nearly died. He credits Betty Ann Olsen with keeping him alive. She forced him to rouse from his delirium to eat and drink water and rice soup. Mike Benge describes Olsen as "a Katherine Hepburn type...[with] an extra bit of grit."

Benge was taken to Cambodia, turned over to the North Vietnamese, and another long, grueling trek began. Benge, however, had made his mind up that he wouldn't die. He treated his ulcerated body by lying in creeks and allowed small fish to feed off the dead tissue (a primitive debridement), then caught the fish and ate them raw. He caught small, green frogs and swallowed them whole. He did everything he could to supplement his meager
food ration.
After a year in Cambodia, Benge was marched north on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to Hanoi. He spent over three years in camps there, including a total of twenty-seven months in solitary confinement. Upon his return, he verified collaboration charges against eight of his fellow POWs, in a prosecution effort initiated by Col. Theodore Guy (this action was discouraged by the U.S. Government and the effort was subsequently abandoned.) Mike Benge then returned to Vietnam and worked with the Montagnards until the end of the war.
Betty Ann Olsen was among nearly 2500 Americans, including several civilians, who are still unaccounted for, missing or prisoner from the Vietnam war. Since the war ended, over 10,000 reports have been received concerning these missing Americans which have convinced many authorities that hundreds are still alive in communist hands. While Olsen may not be among them, they went to Vietnam to help. They would not turn their backs on their fellow man. Why has their own country turned its back on them?

LAWRENCE J. STARK, Civilian working for the Department of the Navy, Captured: January 31, 1968, Released: March 5, 1973

Larry was drafted into the Army in February 1958 and after spending two years in Germany
was honorably discharged.

In April 1966, I went to Vietnam with a construction firm as a labor coordinator. This work terminated in 13 months. My next tour in Vietnam was as a Navy civilian in Da Nang. After three months, I went to Hue which is in the northern part of South Vietnam, heading an industrial relations office which had the responsibility of hiring Vietnamese to work for various military organizations. It was while working in this capacity that Hue came under seige
and I was captured.

After spending two months in the hills outside of Hue and another month enroute to the North, we arrived at a camp in North Vietnam. I was to be imprisoned there and at other prisons in the North for the next five years. To add to one's loneliness and feeling of helplessness, I was forced to spend five months in solitary. Also, at no time during these five years was I able
to receive or send any communication.
A typical day would run something like this: We would rise at 6:30 a.m. and after washing would have breakfast which usually consisted of bread and a teaspoon of sugar with hot water. From about 7 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. we would do various things such as read
(if material was available which was not very often) or work on little projects such as
learning a foreign language. Lunch generally consisted of a bowl of soup with a spinach-like vegetable and bread or rice. There was a little pork fat in the soup. After lunch we would take a siesta from noon to 2:30 p.m. and then we would work on our mental stimulation projects. Dinner would be the same as the lunch and during the rest of the day we would just pass the time in conversation with our roommates. Our conversations would be centered around
our families, friends, interesting experiences as well as hobbies, interests and discussions of the fairer sex. At 9 p.m. we would retire for the night. I was seldom asked to work and had very little recreation.

We did receive some news while we were in prison, but most of it was full of propaganda, and there was very little said about the good things that were happening in the United States, such as the moon flights. There was, however, a great deal said about the bad things that were occurring in the States.

Upon returning to the United States I could not help but be aware of the changes that had occurred in the area of dress, hair styling, the liturgy of the Mass, and car styling to mention a few of the most obvious. But I have been most pleasantly surprised by the public concern in political issues. In thinking back I cannot recall such awareness before my capture. It is my
fervent hope that this concern is not temporary, but will be long lasting. I firmly believe that good government requires an alert and demanding public It is quite natural that our interest is on the POW-MIA issue, but let us not in our generosity forget to pray for the veterans and especially the disabled veterans of the Viet Nam conflict.

Larry lives in Maryland and is a activist with the LIVE POW issue. He has testified before Congress, and has spoken across the county on the Prisoner of War issue.

‘A Veteran is someone who wrote a blank check, payable to the United States of America for an amount up to and including his or her own life’ | So why have you abandoned 'US'?

Jim “Moe” Moyer saluting the Flag during the playing of our National anthem

Have you said your prayer today to help bring Bowe home, Now!

Paul J. Carro leads us with the invocation.

The Missing Man Table Ceremony done by Jon Asdourian

World War II POW Carmel Whetzel speaking to the audience

WORLD WAR II - 73,677 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! | KOREAN WAR - 7926 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! | COLD WAR - 126 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! | VIETNAM WAR –1654 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! | WAR on TERROR – 6 Americans STILL wait to come HOME!

Mike Benge, a former Vietnam POW addressing the audience

Carol and Carmel Whetzel

Larry Stark former Vietnam POW speaking to the audience about his many searches for live POW's

Roger Hall a long time POW/MIA activist

Bob Bergdahl speaking to the audience about his son POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
Listen to his conversation at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2k8_kZ70LI

Bob Bergdahl with his right hand on the heart & Bronze Star of former WW II POW Carmel Whetzel

We will be back, until they 'All' Come Home! - WORLD WAR II - 73,137 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! | KOREAN WAR – 7,807 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! | COLD WAR - 126 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! | VIETNAM WAR –1618 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! | WAR on TERROR – 6 Americans STILL wait to come HOME! As of 8 July 2016