Sunday, June 19, 2005
Col. Nick Rowe and the treason of the left
Wretchard tells the story of Nick Rowe, once an American POW held by the North Vietnamese.
Rowe survived the Vietnam War, only to be murdered on the streets of Manila in 1989 by killers with ties to the Vietnamese. The government of the Philippines is about to set free one of Rowe's murderers -- Danilo Continente, a darling of the Philippine left -- compounding the crime.
Read the whole thing.
Acting on a request from the North Vietnamese, students in a so-called anti-war organization in the United States researched public records and formulated biographies on Americans captured in Vietnam. After reading Lt. Rowe's biography, his Viet Cong captors became furious. They marched him into a cramped bamboo hut and forced him to sit on the damp clay floor. Several high ranking Viet Cong officials were staring down at Lt. Rowe. They held out a piece of typed onion skin paper.
"The peace and justice loving friends, of the National Liberation Front, who live in America, have provided us with information which leads us to believe you have lied to us," they informed Lt. Rowe. "According to what we know, you are not an engineer . . . you have much military experience which you deny . . . You were an officer of the American Special Forces."
Lt. Rowe sat dumbfounded, unable to comprehend that his own people would betray him. He felt it was over. He had lied to the communists for five years. Worse in their eyes, the Viet Cong had believed him. They had lost face and, for that, he would be punished. Soon after, the Viet Cong Central Committee for the National Liberation Front sent orders to Rowe's camp ordering the cadre to execute the uncooperative American prisoner.
On the day Lt. Rowe was being led to a destination for execution, he and his small group of guards were caught on the edge of an American B-52 saturation bombing raid. The guards scattered, leaving Lt. Rowe with only one. Lt. Rowe knew he had nothing to lose. He bided his time until the remaining guard carelessly moved to Rowe's front, whereupon Lt. Rowe bludgeoned him with a log and escaped.
Rowe survived the Vietnam War, only to be murdered on the streets of Manila in 1989 by killers with ties to the Vietnamese. The government of the Philippines is about to set free one of Rowe's murderers -- Danilo Continente, a darling of the Philippine left -- compounding the crime.
Read the whole thing.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Jun 20, 04:58:00 PM:
I was stationed at Subic Bay when Col. Rowe and some other American military personnel were murdered by the New People's Army, a communist rebel group that was active during the Cold War. It was always thought that they acted in connection with the Vietnamese communists
By , at
Tue Jul 05, 11:06:00 PM:
GOD DAMN THAT PIECE OF SHIT TO HELL
By , at
Sun Aug 30, 06:24:00 PM:
