No Man Left Behind

No Man Left Behind. . , All soldiers try to live by the doctrine of "No Man Left Behind" but war is not fought on a theater stage. It is fought on a battlefield, and the fact is, Americans will be left behind as MIA, POW or hostages., Missing in action, or MIA, is a casualty classification assigned to armed services personnel and other combatants who are reported missing during wartime. They may have been killed, wounded, or become a prisoner of war. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave has been positively identified., Prisoner of War, or POW, is a person, whether combatant or non-combatant, who is held in custody by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase is dated 1660., A hostage is a person held by belligerent parties such as terrorists, to be used as security for the purpose of forcing a government to act, or refrain from acting, often under threat of serious physical harm to the hostage., Over one hundred and thirty thousand Americans were taken POW in world war two. Japan had signed, but never ratified the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War, therefore did not treat prisoners of war in accordance with international agreements. The more than 27,000 American POWs in the Pacific Theater experienced a 40% death rate. Over one hundred thousand Americans were held as prisoners of war the European theater. Germany and Italy generally treated prisoners from the western Allies in accordance with the Geneva Convention., At the end of the Korean War in 1953 more than 900 American POWs held by North Korea were known to still be alive and being held, but were never released by the North Koreans., During the course of the Vietnamese conflict, hundreds of Americans were incarcerated in prisons in North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and China. Many lived in barbaric conditions., Nearly 600 Americans were lost in Laos, but because the U.S. did not recognize the communist government there, we did not negotiate for the release of American prisoners held by the Pathet Lao., In 2014, more than one thousand, six hundred soldiers and civilians were still classified as Missing In Action or were being held as prisoners or hostages by foreign powers or belligerent groups.