|
Hi Mary,
I look forward to all your updates. It has been so frustrating
to get these guys to do their job that they get a big check
for. We, as family members do not get a check and spend a lot
of our own money just trying to get our loved ones home.
I was at the San Diego update on Jan. 20th and was so
frustrated. I wrote to Gen.
Mattis in
August asking for him help for my missing brother, Marine
SSGT Gregory
R. Benton, Jr. The Marine Corps Casualty office stopped helping
me and I wrote 2 letters to that Fern
Sumpter
Winbush
asking for her help and she did not even have the courtesy of
answering either letter. That is why I wrote to Gen.
Mattis.
Gen. Mattis
had Director
McKeague call me in September. He then set up a meeting
in Palm Springs for me to meet with my NEW analyst Dr. James
Clonninger,
Jr. on Oct. 26th, along with Hattie Johnson from
HQMC
Casualty. What a waste of time.
Hattie hasn't helped me for years. All she wants to do is
gossip about people. Someone spread rumors about me that I am
only handling my brother's case so I can get money by filing
suit against the government.
In 2013 I put together a timeline from my brother's official
company investigation showing all the lies and discrepancies in
that report. I had my brother's platoon commander, Larry
McCauley at
our annual meeting in 2003 and had analysts from
DIA and the
Pentagon interview him for new testimony.
It was at that time that he admitted he did not see my brother
come back off his 4 hour patrol and did not see him at the
attack area/landing zone where some individuals in the
investigation said he was. They said they saw him at 1500 yet,
when I got copies of the Command Chronology and After Action
Report for Apache Snow, they both show my brother reported
Missing in Action at 1400. So how could he be at a landing zone
at 1500?
I took the investigation and went line by line writing down all
the times. Then I put all the like times together and nothing
made sense. Not one thing. I can't believe no one caught these
lies all these years.
I sent all of my findings to
HQMC
Casualty in 2013 and never heard anything from them. When I
contacted DPMO
no one would speak with me.
While at the annual meeting in 2003, Bill
Forsyth from
DIA found
me and wanted to share an email he received from one of his
teams that were in a Lao village. They found 2 farmers who told
them of an American body they found during the war that was
laying halfway in an enemy fox hole. They described what he was
wearing and that he had light brown skin. If they found a body
that had light brown skin, he had either just died or was in the
process of dying. You don't see a dead person with light brown
skin if he has been dead for a long time.
There were at least 5
JFA's set to
take those farmers to that mountain but all were cancelled for
some reason. I firmly believe it was Dr. Tom Holland that was
responsible for cancelling them. He has hated me since 2001
when I got up to the microphone the last day of our annual
meeting and asked if
JPAC was
using dogs to search for our missing in Vietnam. Dr. Holland
was so disrespectful and negative about the use of dogs. A
Pentagon staff member made him do a study on search dogs and
told him to give me a copy of his report. He never did so the
staff member got a copy for me. Then Gen.
Redmann, the
JPAC
commander at that time got a copy of my article that I found in
a magazine about a dog that was trained to find hundreds of
remains in one day. Gen.
Redmann put
together his own program that took a year of research. He found
Rhode Island State Trooper, Matt
Zarella and
had Matt bring his two German Shepherds, Max and Panzer, to
Vietnam in 2002 and 2003. They were successful.
When Gen. Redmann
left JPAC
Dr. Holland got the program cancelled. Dr. Holland never spoke
with me again and if I ever came across him at a meeting, he
completely ignored me. I never understood that until I found an
article about how abusive he was to his employees and how he
hated to be challenged.
I even wrote a long, long letter to Gen. Winfield asking him to
please continue the dog program so more of our loved ones could
come home. He never answered me and I think that was because of
Dr. Holland.
Dr. Holland said dogs were not conducive to the weather in
Vietnam. Our troops and Australian troops had dogs in Vietnam
the entire time they were there.
At the update in San Diego, I asked Bob
Maves why
they stopped the dog program and he said it was because it
didn't work and that dogs were not conducive to the weather in
Vietnam. Then another female staff member in the back of the
room said the same thing. She even said it would be a lot of
trouble trying to set something up like that with Vietnam. It
had already been done in 2002...by Gen.
Redmann. I
read that Dr. Holland had complete control of everything and
that none of the commander's could interfere with his decisions.
Dr. Holland is an idiot. He said, to him, dogs are only good
for fetching his newspaper and slippers. Then he said they
would have to put a dog in quarantine for 6 months before they
could go to Vietnam. So what. I told him that he was in a room
with family members who had been waiting over 30 years...at that
time...to learn the fate of their loved ones. I told him if he
could find a dog that could tell the difference between a steak
bone and a human bone, he might want to get one. I could not
believe how negative and stupid he was acting.
So, when I read how he hates to be challenged, I knew why he was
treating me that way and why he was probably responsible for
cancelling all the
JFA's for my brother.
I was shocked to hear Bob
Maves and
the other staff member said the exact same thing Dr. Holland
said in 2001. Bob
Maves was so hostile with me.
I did not know it but the new Deputy Director, Rear Admiral Jon
C. Kreitz,
was sitting behind me in the meeting. He leaned forward and
told me that he asked them why they didn't use dogs when he
first arrived in Hawaii. He said they told him because dogs did
not work out. I just happened to have a stack of photos and
articles about Matt
Zarella, Max and Panzer with me. The Deputy Director
asked if he could see what I had. He was taking photos of the
information but I told him to keep them because I had tons of
that information. Matt is retired as a state trooper and runs
his own dog training business. His phone number was one one of
the articles. I told the Deputy Director that someone needed to
call Matt and see what really happened back in 2002 and 2003.
He said he would call Matt. Then he took his phone and pulled
up photos of all the dogs he has on his private property here in
California. He is a dog lover.
I don't know why individuals in Hawaii are against using a tool
that can help bring our loved ones home but I intend to find
out. They lied to the Deputy Director and I am going to contact
Senator Claire
McCaskill and find out why Dr. Tom Holland still has a
job with the Pentagon after being fired from Hawaii.
To date, no one has gone to that mountain where those farmers
found that body that I believe is my brother. Even though
JFA after
JFA were
set up to take those farmers there. They are probably all dead
now after all these years.
Now, Dr.
Clonninger is telling me that he and Brad Taylor from
DIA will be
going to that Lao village to see if they can find any of my
brother's personal things. Brad was in that village in 2003
when Bill Forsyth
shared his email with me. It is shocking to realize how
individuals who get a paycheck...which I am sure is a lot of
money...treat a family member who is just trying to get her baby
brother home and give him a proper burial. I have done all the
work for them over the past 49 years. Not one analyst has done
the research I have and they seem to be resentful that I have
uncovered what really happened.
Dr. Clonninger
mentioned that it may have been remains traders that took my
brother's remains. How would he know. No one has ever been to
that location with the farmers to find out. It is such a remote
area and not well traveled through the years. An analyst
mentioned that it would be difficult to get to that location.
Funny, our troops got to that location. My brother got to that
location.
I have not heard from anyone since the update on Jan. 20th. One
thing that Dr.
Clonninger mentioned was that he had contacted
NCIS about
my brother's case and he said he was told that they could not do
anything until someone from the investigation confessed to
lying. What!!! I thought that was the responsibility of
NCIS to get
the truth from individuals in a cold case. I am going to
contact the Secretary of the Navy and the Director of
NCIS in
D.C. and challenge them to contact those lying thugs that did
that to my brother. They left my brother to die on a mountain
just 1 kilo from their command post. The company investigation
was not even started until 4 days after Greg went missing. Most
of the individuals wrote statements 7 to 10 days later.
As a former police officer, I know if you wait that long you
will not get good information from a witness. Another curious
thing about the statements in the investigation. Some of the
individuals said exactly the same thing happened at the same
time. That never happens. There is always a variation of
information. These thugs got together after Greg went missing
and put together a story that would cover up what they did. I
proved that in my own investigation/timeline.
I came away from that update in San Diego more disturbed than
ever. Johnie Web approached me and said he was looking for me
and that he was supposed to be in my meeting with Dr.
Clonninger.
He said he had another meeting to go to. Really? I think
certain people were just trying to be nice because I wrote to
Gen. Mattis.
I think they are all disgusted with me because I wrote to Gen.
Mattis and
some are disgusted with me because I said Dr. Tom Holland should
have been fired and that I was glad he was fired and that he
looked like a homeless man in a photo I was of him sitting at
his desk with dozens of post it notes all over the place and
photos of his hand on his wall. At meetings he writes on his
hand and then takes photos of his hand and puts them on his
wall. What??? His desk was such a mess that I said if he
couldn't find anything on his desk how could he find our missing
in action?
I know they all stick together and hate family members
interfering. Well, I am one family member who is not done with
all of them yet. I am going to get my brother home before I
die. I am going to contact everyone and anyone that will help
me accomplish that since no one else has...so far. I just don't
get it.
Keep up the good work and a big thank you to all of you for
helping us all these years.
Proud sister of a Marine,
Mary E. Benton
|
