“Unclaimed” is phony
A number of you have been sending us links to the story about Army Sergeant John Robertson who was lost over Vietnam in 1968 and left behind for over four decades. Some Hollywood director made a movie about how they found him, still living with his Vietnamese family and supposedly left behind and forgotten by the US government.
Wringing out the details and talking to Robertson’s American family seems to have been a gut-wrenching affair. The children whose names he couldn’t recall declined DNA testing at the last minute with no explanation.
None of that mattered to Roberston who says he fulfilled his wish of coming to America and seeing his kids one more time before he dies.
Yeah, well, among us skeptics, the story sounds like so many other tales we’ve been told. TSO tells us that a DNA test was finally done and it’s been proved that whoever this guy is, he’s not Sergeant John Robertson.
Category: Who knows
Additional info about the movie “Unclaimed” being a fraud.
Below is a copy of a report compiled by the Defense Prisoner/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) providing background on the case of SFC John H. Robertson
https://www.facebook.com/notes/national-league-of-powmia-families/information-regarding-john-hartley-robertson-reporting-and-unclaimed/10151569836768850
/piling on.
Jonn/TSO: I was wondering what the deal is with this whole thing; that’s why I sent it to you.
Remember that clown from N. Korea who became the actor?
He was a deserter and I think they just severed ties do to length of time, age, politics and so forth.
I think that is why he left N. Korea for japan, where he was caught. Family or health issues?
Anyway, alot different but still similar.
So Hollywood got duped, huh?
I’d be more interested in a movie about a Japanese soldier, left on some deserted island for over 70 years who didn’t know the war was over, and was reeking havoc on tourists.
Yeah – I’d definitely go see that one, just to see some old guy causing hate and discontent somewhere.
I get money scam e-mails all the time in my junk e-mail, but they all come from Nigeria or Hong Kong.
I am SO disappointed that I have never, ever received one single scam e-mail from people like the Faunces.
@4.
You should watch the original “American Ninja”.
They are planning to show this film at the GI Film Festival in DC in May. Might want to send them some email. A lot of films are on soldier and veteran stories. They are on Facebook and Thr web
ROBERTSON, JOHN HARTLEY
Name: John Hartley Robertson
Rank/Branch: E7/US Army Special Forces
Unit: C & C North, MACV-SOG, 5th SFG
Date of Birth: 25 October 1936
Home City of Record: Birmingham AL
Date of Loss: 20 May 1968
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 160023N 1072353E (YC566710)
Status (in 1973): Missing in Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: CH34
Refno: 1184
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 July 1990 from one or more of
the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence
with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.
NETWORK 2013.
Lets make these clown pay for toying with folks like that. I am soo irate that its taken me 20min to type this in english-legible and presentable.
Freaking morons- if was meant to be a fiction story say it up front. Now lets make you famous- internet famous
Dont play with the wounds of the family and surviving brothern. I have soo much respect for all VN Vets- they recived they didnt want go: but went. Then they recive the stick upon their return.
We cherries and juniors now honor our seniors.
This is an old and despicable story. I have reams of files on similar scams, and cases, from when I wrote my POW book. The families take the brunt of this b.s.
Here is the event at the GI Film Festival
https://www.facebook.com/events/370068806436064/
For those who missed it: “SKK” above is Ms. Susan Katz Keating. The book she references, Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW/MIA Myth in America details much of the hype, hoopla, and shady actions used by charlatans who exploit the families of those lost and not recovered in SE Asia.
Another good source on the subject is the following site, run by a former Deputy Director of the DoD POW/MIA Office.
http://www.miafacts.org
It’s not the easiest site to use, but it contains a good deal of useful material on the subject.
Bottom line: there aren’t any POWs still being held in SE Asia, and there haven’t been since the 1970s. If there are any former US servicemen still in SE Asia today, they’re either (1) unrecovered fallen, or (2) didn’t want to come back and opted to stay behind.
What is with all these people who can so easily dismiss the pain that they cause others? I am not so naive as to think that there have not always been some among us, but it seems that the rewards and the numbers of these scammers, frauds, and such have multiplied exponentially far beyond simply increased awareness by the rest of us.
The comments on that article… Wow.
Like this one-
“Who told you that “the US military places such a priority on bringing every service member home, whenever possible.” Diplomats and hostages, for sure. Able-bodied, re-deployable soldiers, maybe. But I suggest you speak to the families of the POW/MIA and combat wounded before making such bizarre statements about the priorities of the US military!”
Stupid hippy.
@4 I’ve never heard of a movie being made about this, but here is the story of the last Japanese soldier holdout, Hiroo Onoda. He definitely spread hate and discontent until he was relieved of his duties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda
Wow, maybe you guys should do your homework before you comment on something. If you researched the director/producer, you would see that he’s not a “Hollywood director” but instead an emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker from Canada. He has won many awards and is a highly regarded documentary filmmaker.
“He has won many awards and is a highly regarded documentary filmmaker.”
And, therefore, unassailable?
@16 It looks like the “highly regarded documentary film maker” got taken for a ride.
Momof2girls: regardless of whether or not he’s a “Hollywood movie maker”, the director of this POS film is nothing but a damn liar. He knows full well (or should know if he’s anywhere near sophomore-level competent) that the guy he’s portraying as an “abandoned” US POW has been proven by DNA to be of Asian ancestry vice from the US; has been proven by both fingerprints and DNA to be someone else other than SFC Robertson; and has in fact been linked to a different POW scam attempted some years ago.
This ass of a director is nonetheless misrepresenting the truth to make a buck. He’s either doing this deliberately or is too incompetent regarding investigating the subject of a documentary to be allowed to film a documentary of any sort.
Sadly, he’ll likely convince a few gullible fools as well as make a load of $$$. PT Barnum was an optimist.
As far as I’m concerned, the director of this abomination can go straight to hell for doing this.
So, she is saying that he is now a failed maker of documentaries??
ah. An award winner like Michael Moore. Of course he can’t be duped, then. Un huh. Right.
Even respected award winners can be duped.
OWB: I read it as more like “How dare you question him!”
Screw that. This ass is deliberately or through abject incompetence presenting a proven lie as fact, and he’s doing it to push an agenda and to make $$$. The lie he’s pushing makes MY country look bad, raises hopes only to allow them to be crushed yet again, and allows him to make a tidy profit from the misery of others. It also likely is being done to further an anti-American political agenda.
All of that is unacceptable. Screw this guy. He can go straight to hell for all I care, and I’ll shed no tears if I hear he has taken an immediate and excruciatingly painful journey to that destination.
Got that too, Hondo. Guess I was just wondering if her screed was an unwitting admission that since he apparently is presenting this piece of fiction as a documentary that it would mean he fails in the documentary department.
Nothing wrong with fiction, and it sounds like it might have been a nice enough project if it had been presented as fiction. Or he could have simply told the complete, factual story as a documentary.
OWB: agreed. Had he presented this accurately, or as fiction, I’d have no real major problem with what he’s doing here (I’d still be a bit torqued if he did a fictional presentation implying we abandoned POWs, but crap like that’s par for the course in Hollywierd). It’s the fact that he’s doing this deliberately and presenting lie as fact that royally pisses me off.
You would be re-miss for not keeping it in mind that such “notables” as Gritz and “Zippo” Smith could be sources for this world renowned assclown and director. Agreed, he should have stated it is “fiction” and nothing more, unlike our other super-world renowned, former grunt Oliver Stone.
Add the Robert Garwood mystique to it as well.
[…] There have been a slew of reports that a soldier reported missing in action for 44 years has been found living in Vietnam. I didn’t post anything because I was pretty damn skeptical. Looks like I may have had reason to be. […]
Thanks for setting this straight, Jonn.
nothing has been set straight. the government tells you ‘nothing here’ and you want to believe it. i don’t know a real vietnam vet (and i know several, including my father) who saw REAL action who doesn’t NOW know that his government used him. you don’t want to believe it because you don’t want to think YOU were/are used. i get it. but don’t be such shills. fight for americans, for the truth, for our constitution. don’t fight for whatever government happens to be bullshitting you today.
Vietvetskid, im sure you know “lots” of people that agree with you and share your outlook on everything. you hang around those people because they are sheeple like you. yall tell each other how right yall are because you agree with the same stance. where as your father served, or you know someone who once walked in front of a recruiter station, what ever your claim, the vast majority here actually served them selves. i spent my enlistment in the airborne infantry and am personally a combat vet spending ’04 in Iraq. Jonn, the guy that runs this site, is an old infantry platoon sergent. half the people here have their rank/service in their names. do you really want to try to tell those who have served how much more you know about their service? go spout your hippie lingo somewhere else, no one wants to follow your heard.
@21, i was going to make a michael moore comparison, but ya beat me too it.
Smitty…this kid sound more like a Paultard, although not far removed from drug-addled hippie status. He was two cliches away from telling us to go read a book.
whats the difference between a paulbot and a hippy? no this isnt the intro to a joke. other than the decade, Paulbots are our modern hippies!
also to “my daddy served but i didnt have the balls”, my father served in vietnam, was in 5th group through the 80s, and retired as a 1sg. he didnt feel used, he loved his job. not all vietnam vets got out and became protesters and hippies, some actually were grown ups that owned their own actions, took responsibility for themselves, and became productive members of society.
@29 It’s been set straight on this case kid….not only doesn’t the DNA match up, no part of this piece of sh1t’s story fits the actual narrative of the actual MIA’s case…rthe dude’s a known fake and fraud who is well known to the authorities of several nations….
F$ck the 4ssclowns making the film, f$ck the faker who’s trying to prey on the family’s loss, and f$ck the people who are defending all these 4ssholes….you can all pretend it’s okay to be a lying sack of sh1t, apparently that’s how you conduct yourselves…folks here don’t much care for liars and frauds, we’ve seen too many over the years…I have a simple credo, ” If your word ain’t worth sh1t, then neither are you”…fits these “documentarians” rather well along with their lying sack of sh1t impostor they are trying to pass off…
You can still hate the fact you are an American, it’s just that this excuse for doing so doesn’t hold water….
Streetsweeper, you mention the “Garwood” mystique. How that jerk persuaded anyone to listen to him is beyond me. I personally spoke to a former Marine who engaged in a firefight with Garwood, the “White VC,” and picked him out of a photo lineup before anyone knew who he was. The only reason Garwood talked about POWs because he thought it would take the heat off his own malfeasance (desertion, and collaboration with the enemy). I have much in my files on Garwood, including material given to me by Winstom Groom (yes, THAT Winston Groom, who researched and wrote about him way-long ago. Sorry for the rant. Garwood makes my blood boil. And thank you, Hondo! ; )
As for the “documentary:” In addition to taking cruel advantage of the family’s pain, it also fuels the ridiculous belief that the Pentagon has known about POWs all along, and refuses to bring them back. How idiotic. The DoD has risked lives in hopes of recovering missing men. Who aren’t there. A handful were known to have deserted, but they most likely would hide from anyone who came looking for them – if they are still alive.
SKK — Garwood makes my blood boil.
You ain’t the only one, baby. I was in 1st Force Recon and on the hook on a relay when the Dublin City shootout went down. If you could put me in touch with your eye-witness I would be very grateful.
The problem was, as I recall, the DC team said they killed the white gook, which RG later used as proof that it couldn’t have been him. Not an unreasonable argument.
We really need to clear this Garwood BS up. Time is getting short.
Contact info is on my site thepatentguy.net
I look forward to reading your book.
Just stop for a moment and think…
What if this man really is John Robertson and he’s been trying for years and years to get someone to believe him in the face of loosening his life, on top of what he’s already given up for that war? This man deserves a closer look into his circumstances. What would that harm? He has had a very steep uphill battle to fight, more ferice than any other war battles that’s been fought. If he IS who he claims to be, he has had to live in the shadow of fear, living among his own enemies and his previous captors every day of his life for the past fourty some years. It’s no wonder he might seem confussing. He really isn’t sure who he can trust at anytime. He might be trying to get help then when he gets frightened he reverts back to his protective cover of being just another VN citizen in order to blend in and avoid being captured and tortured again. Just imagine what that must be like? Those of you that went to that war, put yourself in his shoes for just one moment and think… What would I do? I am really very surprised that you that call yourselves veterans are not DEMANDING a closer look into this story. We ALL KNOW that the US government lies to us whenever they feel like doing it to suit their own purposes so why not take a stand and say, as a member of the forces who have proudly served this country, enough is enough! No more lies! Let’s openly do the DNA tests that will settle the matter. No government controlled testing but private sector testing where the results are open to every brother a sister of the armed forces brotherhood. This may just be a true fallen brother who needs our help. No one left behind!
Give it some thought, are you saying that the military personnel on the scene, who have interviewed him and decided that he’s a phony have some sort of reason to abandon an American soldier on the battlefield? That’s mighty despicable of you to make that charge against veterans. We’re pretty adept at recognizing phonies, and since we can’t all go over there and talk to him face-to-face, we’ll just take the word of someone who was there.
That’s a whole bunch of what-if’s in there, Give it some thought! What’s to keep him from going to a US Embassy, or traveling back to the US, or any of a number of things??
I happen to know several people who have been in the neighborhood recently who report that travel is easy and that he has had plenty of opportunities to seek any help that he might desire from official and unofficial sources.
The only conclusion I can draw is that he is living where he wants to live. Why, exactly, should any of us meddle in his living his own dream?
The guy is a doucher trying to scam his way into the US, The tests and interviews have all been done. I am betting that everyone who had anything to do with checking him out was hoping he would be the real deal.@38 “give it some thought”. How about you give some thought to taking the tin foil off your head and pulling your head out your ass at the same time.
This guy is as fake as a tranny’s tits.