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WASHINGTON (Nov. 14, 2007) – The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. national commander’s trip last week to assist Russian veterans with their goal of creating a system similar to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was made more urgent because American researchers have been banned from Russia’s central military archives for the past 13 months.
According to U.S. officials in the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, the archives are vitally important to America’s Full Accounting Mission because archival material could help to determine the fate of some of the 88,000 missing and unaccounted-for Americans going back to World War II.
VFW Commander-in-Chief George Lisicki now wants the Russian veterans’ groups to use their collective influence on their government so that America can resume its mission to account for missing Americans.
Lisicki, a Vietnam combat veteran from Carteret, N.J., traveled to Russia last week on the invitation of retired Russian Gen. Lt. Ruslan Aushev, the chairman of the Commonwealth of Independent States Committee of Warrior Internationalists.
Speaking at a joint veterans’ conference Nov. 6, Lisicki urged the 65 leaders to use their combined influence to bring their government back to the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission. The commission was created in 1992, but has been largely ineffective since June 2004 due to a reduction in the size of the Russian government’s executive branch. The U.S. government was told it was an oversight, but no correction has yet been made.
"Helping Russian veterans to create a system similar to our VA is something we are doing out of respect for them as military veterans," he said. “I now need their help to move their government from inaction to action on the full accounting issue.”
Lisicki told the audience that the U.S. had provided the Russian government dozens of reports and intelligence data on the capture, imprisonment or deaths of former Soviet military personnel in Afghanistan. "To my knowledge, this information has enabled Russia to account for 63 soldiers who were formerly listed as missing in action. More important is that information helped to bring closure to 63 Russian families," he said.
The VFW national commander now wants that same assistance for American families. “Our wars are over, but these families relive their wars every hour of every day," he said. “The Full Accounting Mission is a humanitarian issue for the families of our dead comrades in arms.”
In an unprecedented gesture, Lisicki also met with several members from both houses of Russia's parliament, where he urged them to restore their side of the bilateral commission and to restore U.S. research access to their archives.
Lisicki believes the veteran-to-veteran exchange in Russia will prove just as beneficial to the Full Accounting Mission as the relationship the VFW has forged with Vietnamese veterans’ organizations. The VFW is the only American veterans’ organization to return to Vietnam every year since 1991.
"We are veterans … not politicians or diplomats," he explained. "We understand the true nature of war, and we and our families understand the sacrifices that are sometimes required. The Full Accounting Mission fulfills a soldier’s pledge that we will never leave a fallen comrade behind on the battlefield. This is one issue that all military veterans from all nations can support."
Read the VFW National Commander George Lisicki's Nov. 6 speech to the Russian veterans
Learn more about the U.S. Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office
Learn more about the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command
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