After the war in Vietnam ended, the American public was told that all of our POWs had been returned and accounted for. But we know that was not the case. The Defense Intelligence Agency, and others in government had over the years in fact received “more than 1,600 first-hand sightings of live American prisoners and nearly 14,000 second-hand reports, with witnesses “interrogated by CIA or Pentagon intelligence agents were deemed credible".
