Sunday, June 4, 1972
POW Kin Plead For Viet Pullout
WASHINGTON (UPI) --The mother of an American prisoner of war begged the House Foreign Affairs Committee Thursday to set a date for total U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam."Please, gentlemen, at this turning point in history, assert your constitutional rights," Mrs. Gerald A. Gartley of Dunedin, Fla. testified in support of a Democratic end-the-war proposal. "I beg you to set a termination date for our entire military involvement."Mrs. Gartley and other relatives of prisoners of war or missing in action testified as the committee concluded hearings on the proposal. It would set a withdrawal date of Oct. 1, dependent only upon the release of the POWs, an accounting of the MIAs and the safe withdrawal of remaining U.S. troops.In Thursday's hearing, the committee heard from Mrs. Gartley and two other members of "POW-MIA Families for Immediate Release," an organization claiming about 500 members.Mrs. Gartley, a high school history teacher, is the mother of Navy Lt. Markham L. Gartley, shot down over North Vietnam on Aug. 17, 1968. Accompanying her were Mrs. Shirley Culbertson, McLean, Va., sister of Cmdr. Kenneth L. Coskey, a POW since Sept. 6, 1968, and Sheila Cronin, Silver Spring, Md., whose brother Lt. Cmdr. Michael Cronin, has been imprisoned for 5½ years."POW Kin Plead for Viet Pullout", by (UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Sunday, June 4, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.