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September 30, 1999 AMES, Iowa -- At one time, retired Air Force Col. Dwight Sullivan of Corydon had memorized the names of more than 500 Vietnam prisoners of war. There wasn't much else to do during the six years he spent in the Hanoi Hilton as a prisoner of war himself. Now, 27 years after his release in 1973, he concedes he can't recall the names like he used to. At Iowa State University here, as a side project to his ISU Air Force ROTC teaching assignment, Air Force Capt. Brian Standley has researched and documented the stories behind Memorial Hall's etched list of alumni who died in the Vietnam War or are classified as POWs or MIAs from that war. "For myself, it's too easy when you are teaching about history to just talk about how many millions were killed in this war versus 100,000 in that war," Standley said. "It isn't until you start looking at individual names you realize they had parents, they had kids, they had lives." At this year's observation of POW/MIA national recognition day at central campus at ISU, Sullivan's speech and the ceremonies put on by the ISU ROTC units sought to brighten the dimming memories and seek remembrance, not in terms of sweeping, abstract numbers but in the names and details of Iowa individuals. The Ames ceremony was one of many held Sept. 17 throughout the United States and the world, including military installations, ships at sea, schools, churches and fire stations. It focused on the 40 Iowans who remain unaccounted for and more specifically on the seven ISU alumni who remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. Sullivan, who was shot down by anti-aircraft fire on a bombing run northeast of Hanoi in October of 1967, used his speech to describe conditions and events during his imprisonment. Later, the cap of each branch of the service was presented to represent the ISU alumni who remain unaccounted for. One of those caps represented Army Pfc. Donald Sparks, whose sister, Esta Behrens, was in attendance. When the Communist government of Vietnam released 591 American POWs in 1973, they denied any knowledge of holding Sparks. Sparks, born in Carroll, and another man were serving as pointmen for their company when they were ambushed on June 17, 1969. Both men were wounded and believed to be dead, and only after heavy shelling of the enemy could a rescue effort take place. Initially, Sparks' body was believed to have been destroyed by the air strikes, but with no positive evidence of death, he was listed as MIA. In November of 1970, several letters from Sparks found on the body of a killed Viet Cong soldier and several eyewitness changed his status to POW. The letters were dated after his believed death and talked about imprisonment. "I am prepared for bad news," Behrens said after she spent an emotional moment in front of the cap representing her brother,"but I hope and pray." She said POW/MIA recognition day is great for public awareness, recalling how some people have asked what her POW-MIA bumper sticker stood for. "People now don't really remember," Behrens said. Behrens still works with an Army casualty officer to try to account for her brother. It is now believed he may have died while being transferred through the Vietnamese prison system, and the Army has identified a small area of land where his remains might be located. The problem for years in retrieving remains from Vietnam has been an uncooperative Vietnamese government. Behrens used to belong to Iowa Cares, a support and action group for Iowa families of POWs and MIAs which has since disbanded. "One woman that left was going to get married," Behrens said, "and she just wanted to leave it behind, get on with the rest of her life. Some people are like that now, they just want to bring it to some kind of closure." Standley said the recognition day is not meant to be a memorial service but for remembrance. "The days of people thinking that the MIAs are actually alive over there are gone," Standley said. "There still may be some families out there that hope. Our goal is just to get accountability." "The point is not to dwell, but more just to remember, but realize that for a lot of families this is still very real for them." Other former participants of Iowa Cares were parents of a POW or MIA, Behrens said, who have since died or are limited by health problems. Now she is still involved in the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia in Washington, D.C. The league works to obtain the release of all prisoners, to get the fullest possible accounting for the missing and to recover all recoverable remains of those who died serving the United States during the Vietnam War. The league has 1,000 members and state coordinators for most of the 50 states. All four branches of the armed services have casualty offices that still work on POW/MIA cases. "When you look through the casualty databases, you will see dates in there from the 1980s on, you will see about two dozen [returned remains] each year," Stanley said. "As Congress makes links with the Vietnamese government and as farmers dig up old airplanes, there are remains being returned. It doesn't always make the news." The remains of Army Spc. James Schimberg of Cedar Rapids, previously unaccounted for, were identified and returned for burial last December. "I get accused sometimes of being a bit morbid or of thinking too much about war and how it tears lives apart and the futility of it," Standley said. "I asked a woman at the union for some information, and she was pretty shook up after she had gotten into it. She said, 'This is so sad when you start looking at the hometowns'." |