Thread: "Lost" US soldier found in Vietnam 44 years later

"Lost" US soldier found in Vietnam
44 years later



The Pentagon just wishes this guy would go away
His name is John Hartley Robertson.

His sister who recently saw him face-to-face is sure it's him. So are some guys who served with him. But the Pentagon will tell you it isn't so.

Robertson was born and raised in Alabama and he was a good solider and Army Sgt. (the guys who really fight the wars.)

He was so good he earned a spot in a SOG, a special operations group which some members fondly refer to as "Son of the Gestapo."

They were used for "classified missions."

A fancy name for dirty work, usually illegal and sometimes involving war crimes.

Robertson was "lost" during a mission in Laos in 1968, but apparently the Pentagon has known about him for years.

I'm sure their fondest hope was that he would just fade away.

SOG alumni are the very definition of "inconvenient truths." A whole lot of them die or are otherwise neutralized when they're no longer needed.

Favorite methods: 1) send them on impossible missions where they are most likely to die and 2) put them all on a helicopter and have an "accident." Some end up in prison for life on trumped up charges back in the states under very close watch.

All's fair in love and war, right?

This appeared in the Canadian news
media.

The US news media seemed a whole lot
less interested in the story.

This guy "disappeared" in Laos on a mission
in 1968 and the Pentagon just wishes he'd
disappear for good.

Here's why...

Video:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/26027.html

- Brasscheck

P.S. Please share Brasscheck TV e-mails and
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I bet they wish he would go away..haaaa he did already though didn't he...he was a POW, so much for never leaving any one behind!!!

Family wants ‘definitive proof’ man in Vietnam isn’t Army sergeant

A split screen image of Army Sgt. 1st Class John Hartley Robertson, left, and the man who claims to be the missing Green Beret, Dang Tan Ngoc. Robertson's family is currently raising funds to exhume Robertson's mother and test against Ngoc's DNA.
Courtesy of Cyndi Hanna
View Photo Gallery »

By Matthew M. Burke

Stars and Stripes

Published: November 26, 2013

Related

• Film about vet’s search for MIA stirs controversy
• Proposal would give DOD a year for plan to clean up POW/MIA agencies

View Photo Gallery »

Army Sgt. 1st Class John Hartley Robertson, upper right-hand corner, as compared with the man in Vietnam who claims to be him, Dang Tan Ngoc, lower right, and photos of one of Robertson's sisters, left.
Courtesy of Cyndi Hanna



For years, a man living in Vietnam as Dang Tan Ngoc has been claiming that he is Army Sgt. 1st Class John Hartley Robertson, a Special Forces soldier who went missing in 1968 and was declared dead by the U.S. government.
Ngoc’s story was the subject of a controversial documentary, “Unclaimed,” which premiered in the U.S. in May as part of the annual GI Film Festival. The film professed to have found the Green Beret living in a remote Vietnamese village, spurring an impassioned backlash from veterans.
The U.S. government has condemned Ngoc as a fraud, but members of Robertson’s family aren’t so quick to dismiss the claims.
They want to know for sure.
The family wants to exhume the body of Robertson’s mother, Mildred Robertson, from a Birmingham, Ala., cemetery and perform a mitochondrial DNA test to see whether the man living in Vietnam is John Robertson.
“We need definitive proof,” said Robertson’s niece, Cyndi Hanna, who launched a fund-raising effort on behalf of her family to cover the costs of exhumation. “I believe it’s him. I believe it’s him enough to try and confirm it one way or another.”
The controversy surrounding Robertson began during a 2008 humanitarian mission when Vietnam veteran Tom Faunce heard about a man claiming to be Robertson. Tormented by his own memories of the war and plagued by survivor’s guilt, Faunce made it his mission to investigate. He formed a team and returned to Vietnam to meet with Ngoc, who bore a striking resemblance to Robertson.
Robertson was last seen on May 20, 1968, aboard a Vietnamese Air Force H-34 helicopter that came under heavy enemy ground fire, according to a Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office statement released earlier this year. The helicopter struck a row of trees, exploded into flames and crashed. American servicemembers who witnessed the crash reported there were no survivors, but Robertson’s body was never found.
In several meetings with Faunce, Ngoc — who is forgetful and can’t speak English — told an interpreter he recalled jumping from a helicopter before it crashed and being taken prisoner. He showed Faunce serious scars he said were proof that he had been involved in the crash. After four or five years, he was put to work in the fields where a local nurse helped him escape and start over under a false identity. They later married and had children.
Faunce’s journey and Ngoc’s claims were highlighted in the film, made by Emmy Award-winning director Michael Jorgensen and Myth Merchant Films Inc.
The premise of the film prompted a vitriolic response from veterans who used threats to try to prevent its showing at the GI Film Festival. The U.S. government dismissed the film as inaccurate and said that they had investigated Ngoc and found him to be a hoax. They claimed they were first alerted to Ngoc in 2004 and interviewed him for the first time two years later, the DPMO statement said.
“In 2009, the Vietnamese man [Ngoc] was interviewed again by U.S. officials, who collected fingerprints and hair samples for analysis,” the statement said. “The FBI analyzed the fingerprints and they were determined not to match Robertson’s fingerprints on file. The mitochondrial DNA sequences from the hair samples obtained were compared to family reference samples taken from Robertson’s brother and one of his sisters. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory determined the DNA sequences from the Vietnamese man did not match either of Robertson’s siblings.”
But Robertson’s family points to a list of what they call inconsistencies and evidence as their reasons behind pushing ahead with the exhumation and testing.
They say none of Robertson’s siblings ever supplied DNA for a reference sample. They question whether the agencies even have Robertson’s DNA or fingerprints on file. They also claim they had no idea about Ngoc until they were approached by the filmmakers.
Adding to the intrigue is the film.
At one point, Faunce accompanies Ngoc to a dentist who pulls a molar. The tooth was analyzed in the U.S. by Ehleringer Lab at the University of Utah, and IsoForensics Inc. Isotope oxygen analysis of the tooth — enamel stores a chemical record of childhood living environment, such as local climate and geology — indicated that it was “very likely” that Ngoc grew up in America.
The film reaches a crescendo with Ngoc being brought to Canada to meet Robertson’s only surviving sibling in an emotional reunion. Jean Robertson-Holley is unequivocally convinced that Ngoc is her brother.
“We absolutely never forgot about you,” she tells Ngoc in the film as they cry in each other’s arms. “We remembered you all the time.”
The family needs $15,000 to exhume the body. They launched a fund-raising page on GoFundMe.com earlier this month and have raised more than $1,200.
“There is enough evidence to at least look at this,” Hanna said. “If he’s just an American soldier alone, he needs to be honored and recognized. If he’s our uncle, that would be even better.”
burke.matt@stripes.com


http://www.stripes.com/news/family-wants-definitive-proof-man-in-vietnam-isn-t-army-sergeant-1.254472

FRAUD! US Vietnam 'veteran found alive in jungle after 44 years' is exposed as a FAKE

• The man claiming to be a U.S. Vietnam veteran missing for 44-years has been revealed as a fake
• Sgt. Robertson crash landed over Laos in 1968 during a special ops mission
• Official U.S. Government documents show that the Vietnamese man named Dang Tan Ngoc has been trying to impersonate him for years
  
• Former special forces soldiers have also come forward to pour scorn on his claims to be the former Green Beret
• A new documentary claimed to have found him - aged 76 - still living in Vietnam with a wife and children
• This would have meant the man who claimed to be Sgt. John Hartley Robertson never contacted his American wife and two children who have believed him dead for 44 years
• Despite these new revelations his sister, who is filmed being reunited with him in the documentary, said she knows it is him

By James Nye

PUBLISHED: 19:25 EST, 30 April 2013 | UPDATED: 01:03 EST, 2 May 2013

The astonishing claims of a 76-year-old man found living in Vietnam who says he is a U.S. war veteran presumed dead 44-years ago have been exposed as a hoax.
The story of Sgt. John Hartley Robertson as told by a new documentary 'Unclaimed' gripped the world on Tuesday - raising the astounding possibility that an American POW escaped from his Vietnamese captors and began a family in secret with a local woman - while his wife and two children grieved back home.
However, it can be revealed that the man is not Sgt. Robertson, rather he is a conman who has attempted to suck in members of the Vietnam MIA/POW community and that the CIA performed a secret DNA test on him 20-years ago that confirmed his lies.
Scroll Down for Video

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Discovery: Special Forces Green Beret Master Sgt. John Hartley Robertson is the subject of a documentary which claims to have found him alive - now revealed as incorrect - 44 years after he supposedly died in Vietnam

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Mystery no More: Dang Tan Ngoc (pictured) has been revealed to be an imposter who had repeatedly tried to impersonate a MIA Vietnam veteran

A 2009 Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) memo sent to the MailOnline on Tuesday acknowledges that the man, known as Dang Tan Ngoc, came to the attention of U.S. personnel in Vietnam in 2006.
He was claiming to be Sgt. John Hartley Robertson, who is thought to have died in a special forces op mission over Laos in 1968.

He was interviewed and under questioning admitted that he was not Sgt. Robertson but a Vietnamese citizen.
However, in 2008 he again tried to pose as the MIA veteran and was taken to the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh where he was fingerprinted.

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They were evaluated by the FBI, which, in a February 2009 report, concluded Ngoc's fingerprints did not match those in Sgt. Robertson's official records.
They believed that these attempts to claim the identity of a MIA solider were to defraud the U.S. Government of money in military back-pay.
These revelations follow swiftly on from the release of 'Unclaimed', a new documentary that questions whether Ngoc - found living in south-central Vietnam, could be Sgt. John Hartley Robertson.


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Fake? Robertson, a former U.S. Army Green Beret and member of an elite MACV-SOG unit, was listed as Missing In Action in 1968. But a fellow Vietnam vet who claims he has met a man claiming to be him set off a media storm on Tuesday
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Don Bendell (left) has spent years debunking the claims of a Vietnamese man who says he is missing American veteran Sgt. John Hartley Robinson - his friend Major Mark 'Zippo' Smith (right) apparently collected DNA from this man which proved Bendell right

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Retired Army Sgt. Maj. Billy Waugh - with his extensive knowledge of special forces and covert operations - Mr. Waugh also refutes the claims of Ncog to be Sgt. Robertson



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Out of sight: Dang Tan Ngoc (pictured) claims to be Robertson, but has forgotten how to speak English

In the course of the film, 76-year-old Ngoc, claiming to be Sgt. Robertson, is shown to be unable to remember his birthday, his American children’s names, or how to speak English.
Despite this, he manages to convince a number of people, including Sgt. Robertson's 80-year-old sister, Jean Robertson Holley.

The climax of the film is a tearful meeting between Robertson Holley and Ngoc - during which she unconditionally accepts the man is her brother back from the dead.

MISSING IN ACTION: WHO WAS JOHN HARTLEY ROBERTSON?

• John Hartley Robertson was born in Birmingham, Alabama on October 25, 1936, and went by the name of Johnny. He was the third of five children born to John Cheslea and Mildred Robertson.
• He grew up during World War II, and it was this influence that led him to drop out of high school at 17 so he could get his GED and join the Army, according to the film makers.
• He went on to join the U.S. Army Special Forces, known as the Green Berets, and was later chosen to join an elite Special Operations Group known as Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG).
• On May 20, 1968, he was on a mission when his helicopter came under enemy fire and crashed. A full search mission was not possible and he was declared Missing in Action. On April 28, 1976, he was officially declared dead by the military, leaving behind a wife, Wanda Robertson, and two daughters.

According to best selling author and former special forces soldier Don Bendell, the individual who claims to be Sgt. Robertson, is most probably a Vietnamese-French man who has been manipulating vulnerable veterans searching for MIA/POWs since 1991.
Mr. Bendell served in Vietnam assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group from 1968 to 1969 and counts influential friends such as fellow veteran and former member of the Reagan administration, Orson Swindle as friends.

In an email seen by the MailOnline sent to the organizer of a veterans film festival that will show 'Unclaimed', Mr. Bendell says, 'The man seen in the documentary posing as John Hartley Robertson is a guy from France, an impostor, who has been used to scam money from well-meaning veterans and others who would LOVE to see any POW rescued.'

Reports suggest that Ngoc has been attempting to impersonate Sgt. Robertson since 1982.

Senior members of the special forces veterans community have also made it clear to the MailOnline their disgust at the man's claims expressed through the new documentary.
It is thought that the individual has possibly scammed tens of thousands of dollars from well meaning veterans who want to believe him.

Indeed, Mr. Bendell reveals that influential former POWs Major Mark 'Zippo' Smith and Orson Swindle - who was Senator John McCain's cellmate during their incarceration by North Vietnamese forces - are aware of the fraud the man claiming to be Sgt. Robertson is attempting.
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Orson Swindle seen in June 2008 in his role as Commmissioner of the Federal Trade Commission - Mr. Swindle was a Vietnam POW who shared a cell with one-time presidential candidate Senator John McCain

In fact, 'Zippo', who currently lives in Thailand traveled to meet the man portraying Sgt. Robertson in 1991 to find out the truth for himself.
He later shared his findings with legendary CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer Billy Waugh,

Mr. Waugh is a renowned former Special Forces Sergeant Major who was instrumental in the capture of terrorist Carlos the Jackal and tracked Osama bin Laden for a year in the mountains of Tora Bora, in Afghanistan following 9/11.

Mr. Bendell reveals that 'Zippo' and Mr. Waugh came to the conclusion that it was a total scam and crucially - and at one point collected DNA.
Such is the anger aimed at the imposter inside the Special Operations Association (SOA) veterans group, Mr. Bendell claims the Vietnamese man is well advised to stop making these claims.
Put simply, members of the SOA are adamant that if the individual in Vietnam was their missing comrade, he would have been welcomed back with open arms.
Retired special forces Captain Robert Noe, the owner and editor of Vietnam veteran website MACVSOG explains the reservations his fraternity have always had over Ngoc.

'One of the things that struck me first was that he had forgotten how to speak English,' said Noe, who served in Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, North during the conflict.

'Robertson was a special forces soldier which would have meant he had specific language capabilities and he was a Sergeant 1st Class in his 30s.

'No one forgets to speak their native language after that long. The claims are bulls**t.'

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At work: Cinematographer Allan Leader and filmmaker Michael Jorgensen pictured in Vietnam in 2012

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Michael Jorgensen (pictured) is the writer and director of new documentary 'Unclaimed' - which follows the story of a Vietnam veteran as he travels back to the South East Asian Country


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Search: Vietnam veteran and humanitarian Tom Faunce, pictured, has become obsessed with proving that the 76-year-old man he has found in Vietnam is indeed Sgt. John Hartley Robertson

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Questions: Faunce walks along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.

Email exchanges seen by the MailOnline reveal it is the deepest wish of the ex-special forces community and U.S. government that Sgt. Robertson be found.
POWS IN VIETNAM: COULD THERE STILL BE U.S. PRISONERS?

• There has been considerable speculation and investigation by private sources and government bodies into this issue since the United States exited the country in 1973
• Many vocal groups led by family members of those MIA in Vietnam contend that there has been a conspiracy to cover-up the fact there are still prisoners in the South East Asian Country.
• The U.S. government has always denied that any man was left behind.
• There have been several congressional investigations into the issue - culminating in the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in 1991-93
• This was led by Senators John Kerry, Bob Smith and John McCain - who himself was a POW during the conflict.
• They found, 'no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.'

'There are lots of us who would love to find a POW and bring him home, many willing to accept less due diligence just to show as proof the American government left men behind, but we are not willing to accept some obvious fraud who has already been exposed,'Captain Robert Noe to Mr. Bendell in an email to Mr. Bendell.
The documentary makers, led by Emmy award winning filmmaker Michael Jorgensen have made it clear that they are making no judgement about the claims of the man who says he is Sgt. Robertson.
Their film is about the journey of one Vietnam veteran, Tom Faunce, as he seeks to find the truth behind the astounding claims.

The makers of the documentary were approached for comment by the MailOnline - but at the time of publication had not responded.

However, despite the potentially astonishing discovery made during the course of the documentary, Sgt. Robertsons two daughters - refused to take a DNA test to prove his identity.
The wife and daughters of Sgt. John Hartley Robertson, a one-time Green Beret, initially agreed to participate in DNA testing, before changing their minds last year, according to Jorgensen, whose documentary asks whether the man is indeed who he says he is.

'Somebody suggested to me maybe that's (because) the daughters don't want to know if it's him,' said Jorgensen. 'It's kind of like, "That was an ugly war. It was a long time ago. We just want it to go away".
'I don’t know. What would compel you not to want to know if this person is your biological father?'

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Jean Robertson Holley, said she will not have a DNA test as she knows it's him
The tearful meeting between Ngoc and Robertson Holley is the climax to the documentary.

The scene was filmed in Edmonton, Canada, because Ngoc could not gain a visa to enter the United States.

According to Michael Jorgensen, 'Jean says...There’s no question. I was certain it was him in the video, but when I held his head in my hands and looked in his eyes, there was no question that was my brother.'



A simple DNA test could confirm the claims of Ngoc once and for all, but she said she does not need to take the test to know the man is her brother.


video at link below


Indeed, Sgt. Robertson's name is etched along with 60,000 others onto Washington D.C.'s poignant Vietnam memorial, but the documentary questions whether he is actually alive and well.

The now exposed fake, 'Sgt. Robertson' tells Emmy-award winning filmmaker Michael Jorgensen that when his flaming helicopter crashed to the ground during a firefight on a Laos mountaintop, he was captured immediately by North Vietnamese soldiers.

video 2 at link below


'They locked me up, high in the forest, in a cage,' he claims. 'I was in and out of consciousness from torture and starvation. The North Vietnamese soldier hit me on the head with a stick, shouting, "American!"

'Then he would hit me even harder; I thought I would die. I never said anything, though they beat and tortured me.'
According to his story, he escaped after four years, hid in the woods and was found in a field by a woman who nursed him back to health and then became his wife.
He said he borrowed her late husband’s surname and birth date and was registered as a French-Vietnamese resident named Dan Tan Ngoc.
The couple then had children but no recorded attempt was made to contact his wife or children back home in America.



The main focus of the documentary is the quest of Vietnam veteran Tom Faunce as he seeks to prove that the man he first heard about in 2008 while on a humanitarian mission was indeed a fellow serviceman.
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Younger years: Jean and her younger brother are pictured center while growing up in Alabama

Fonce contacted Jorgensen to see if the filmmaker would follow his story to establish that Robertson was still alive - but at first the director was cautious.
'The MIA story was pretty unbelievable, pretty grandiose,' he said to the Globe and Mail. 'I was very skeptical.'
However, what struck Jorgensen more than the idea a Vietnam veteran could have stayed undetected for 44 years was Faunce's own journey as a soldier, alcoholic and victim of child abuse.

Jorgensen said he was inspired by how Faunce would 'go all the way in helping someone he didn't even know.' He added that 'no matter how the story turned out with John, I knew there was just a great "once upon a time" with Tom.'

In Vietnam, Faunce tracked down the man who was locally rumored to be a former American Green Beret who had never returned home.

'Tom went to meet him and was very skeptical, grilled this guy up and down trying to get him to break, to say, "Oh, no, I’m just making it up." And he was adamant he was that guy,' Jorgensen told The Toronto Star.

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Growing up: Robertson is pictured with his older sister Jean, other siblings and their parents



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Former life: Robertson's parents, JC and Mildred, are pictured left, while Robertson himself is pictured in uniform in 1955, when he would have been 19 years old, two years after dropping out of school







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Heroes: American flags stand at the base of a statue of American Soldiers of the Vietnam War in D.C.



Read more:

• Hot Docs premiere Unclaimed finds a Vietnam veteran left behind for 44 years | Toronto Star
• Doc chronicles strange story of Green Beret John Hartley Robertson, MIA since 1968

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2uAUs5nzn
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