This is a long story, hopefully youll read it and appreciate it, if not thats cool too...If you were ever in the military you will definitely understand and appreciate it with out a doubt..Im just taking a trip down memory lane..... The political prisoner Danilo Continente, was freed from prison on June 28th, 2005 after serving his maximum sentence. Philippine President Fidel Ramos refused to pardon Continente during his term of office despite representations by human rights organizations. But with his sentence served, Continente was a free man. Why should Danilo Continente be a free man? And for him, freedom means becoming a full-time father to his 6-year-old son ? Continente, 43, one of two men convicted in the killing of US Army Col. James Rowe in 1989, was released from the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa on June 28,2005. Bureau of Corrections records show that he served the maximum sentence of 16 years. His chief regret, he says, has been an inability to spend time with his son, conceived on a conjugal visit. Continente was initially convicted as a principal in the murder of Rowe, for which he was given a life sentence on Feb. 27, 1991. But upon review, the Supreme Court ruled in August 2000 that he was only an accomplice and lowered his sentence to 14 years. He was recommended for release thrice under the Ramos administrations amnesty program: In January 1993, by the Presidential Review Committee secretariat; in June 1993, by the Department of Justice, and in 1994, by the Presidential Committee for the Grant of Bail, Release on Pardon and Parole. But Continente remained behind bars, allegedly because of pressure from the US government. The Left always kept the faith with Continente, who at the time of the murder was a staff member of the Philippine Collegian, the student newspaper of the national university, famous for its radical politics. Ever and again they clamored for his release as they are even now doing for terrorists imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. The New York Times reports: For quite awhile, the small commercial air service to the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been carrying people the military authorities had hoped would never be allowed there: American lawyers. And they have been arriving in increasing numbers, providing more than a third of about 530 remaining detainees with representation in federal court. Despite considerable obstacles and expenses, other lawyers are lining up to challenge the governments detention of people the military has called enemy combatants and possible terrorists. In 1983 I had the pleasure and good fortune to be selected to go to a brand new version of a school that had been formed at Ft Bragg, N.C. for Special Operations soldiers, It was named S.E.R.E... S.E.R.E. stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, critical tasks that every soldier needs to know in a combat enviroment, especially Spec Ops soldiers. The man that was tasked to head up,staff and create the SOPs that this school would operate under was a renowned Spec Ops Lt Col by the name of James Rowe..The following is a sad reminder of how our soldiers, our heros, are actually treated, maybe this might give you an idea as to why so many Americans really dont care about reports of abuse, torture and mistreatment of alleged Terrorists... Colonel Nick Rowes fate has always been to be forgotten, though he didnt seem to resent it. When Rowe was held captive as a POW in Vietnam , during which he suffered from dysentery, beriberi and fungal attack -- diseases unknown in Durbins Guantanamo -- he protected his fellow prisoners by concealing his identity as a Special Forces Officer, which if revealed would single them out for special cruelty. His deception worked for months. But the Left did not forget. Acting on a request from the North Vietnamese, students in a so-called anti-war organization in the United States researched public records and formulated biographies on Americans captured in Vietnam. After reading Lt. Rowes biography, his Viet Cong captors became furious. They marched him into a cramped bamboo hut and forced him to sit on the damp clay floor. Several high ranking Viet Cong officials were staring down at Lt. Rowe. They held out a piece of typed onion skin paper. The peace and justice loving friends, of the National Liberation Front, who live in America, have provided us with information which leads us to believe you have lied to us, they informed Lt. Rowe. According to what we know, you are not an engineer . . . you have much military experience which you deny. You were an officer of the American Special Forces. Lt. Rowe sat dumbfounded, unable to comprehend that his own people would betray him. He felt it was over. He had lied to the communists for five years. Worse in their eyes, the Viet Cong had believed him. They had lost face and, for that, he would be punished. Soon after, the Viet Cong Central Committee for the National Liberation Front sent orders to Rowes camp ordering the cadre to execute the uncooperative American prisoner. On the day Lt. Rowe was being led to a destination for execution, he and his small group of guards were caught on the edge of an American B-52 saturation bombing raid. The guards scattered, leaving Lt. Rowe with only one. Lt. Rowe knew he had nothing to lose. He bided his time until the remaining guard carelessly moved to Rowes front, whereupon Lt. Rowe bludgeoned him with a log and escaped. Not only did Lt. Rowe survive his ordeal as a POW, he escaped and emerged stronger than before his capture, more committed to the American ideal and more convinced than ever that what the communists had planned for Vietnam and the world was a blueprint for tyranny and human suffering. Nick Rowe frustrated the communists. They never broke him. They never shook his faith in the American system. He was the quintessential American fighting man, unable to be broken mentally or physically. The communists, however, never forgot Lt. Nick Rowe. They never forgot the threat men such as he posed to them and their view of world domination. Shortly before 7 a.m. on April 21, 1989, a small white car pulled alongside a gray, chauffeur-driven vehicle in a traffic circle in the Manila suburb of Quezon City. The barrels of an M-16 rifle and a .45-caliber pistol poked out the window of the white car and spit out more than two dozen shots. Twenty-one of them hit the gray car. One of the rounds hit Col. James Nick Rowe in the head, killing him instantly. The hooded NPA killers had ties to the communist Vietnamese, Rowes old enemies in Vietnam. It took the communists nearly 25 years, but they finally silenced Nick Rowe. What they could not do in a jungle cage in South Vietnams U Minh Forest through torture, intimidation, and political indoctrination, they did with a .45 and an American-made M-16 on the streets of Manila. His killer was freed. Col JamesNick Rowe was an officer who set the highest standards for his men and for the Spec Ops community, he was revered, respected and loved, and will never be forgotten by the people he led, the people he served, or the men who, myself included, learned so much from him. It was an honor to know and to serve with him. If you would like to read/hear the whole story of Col Rowes harrowing ordeal, check out any book store and pick up a copy of his book entitled, 5 Years to Freedom Its a fantastic read. DE OPPRESSO LIBER
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 10:59:48 +0000
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