Читать книгу Flight of the Forgotten - Mark A. Vance - Страница 22

With safety now our utmost concern, we decided to end our quest for information from inside the military itself and pursue our search through other areas of the U.S. government. As the saying goes, “if you don’t like it, write your congressman,” and we decided to do just that. The legislative branch of the U.S. government controls the military’s purse strings and thus commands a high level of respect from each of the armed services. Congress therefore, was a logical choice for our next avenue of pursuit as we continued to press the military for answers.

In that quest, I personally contacted over a dozen United States senators and congressmen around the country in an all-out effort to apply pressure to the U.S. military. Each request was well-received initially, and our inquiry eventually reached top officials of the U.S. military during closed Armed Services Committee hearings in Washington, D.C. Those top military officials however, continued to hold to the same exclusions to the Freedom of Information Act as before and refused to release my uncle’s accident report to anyone, including elected officials. One senior senator, who had vigorously pursued answers at the outset, eventually did a complete about face. He informed me that the military had explained its rationale for withholding information to him well enough, that he was satisfied I did not need to know what had really happened to the Jack Ketchum crew.