2949 Marine Prisoners, Hostages, and Peacetime Governmental Detainees Since Our Corps' Founding

Library shelves are replete with books on war but authoritative books on an elite breed of sea soldiers known as United States Marines, and who are held captive, is much less common.  This book, released in June was written as a historical work, detailing Marine Prisoners of War (POW), hostages, or peacetime governmental detainee experiences from the Marine Corps’ founding in 1775 to the present. 

To provide the reader with a foundation for this topic, the first chapter explains often misunderstood POW-related terms and the steps prisoners go through from their initial point of capture until their release or escape. Following this introduction to POWs, the author then takes the reader through our nation’s conflicts, starting with the American Revolution through Operation Desert Storm (1991). 

Each chapter provides the origins of the conflict, followed by the Marines assigned duties and tasks. Each of the conflict chapters conclude with a summary of individual Marines’ captivity experiences. Many of these accounts were drawn from personal interviews, providing first-person information. Marine POW’s stories from pre-Korean War were taken from a combination of personal books written by (then) former POWs, as well as official records and accountings from Marine Corps research center located at Quantico, Virginia. 

The final parts of the book include Appendixes that contain lists of the Marines held captive in each major conflict or period of history, e.g., Marine captives during the Cold War and a Bibliography. 

Compiling a historical look at Marine prisoners since our country’s beginnings is indeed a daunting task but enabled by the author’s extensive military and federal contract career, this allowed the author to explain in laymen terms the in-depth details of such a diverse topic. Although written in an easy to digest style, this book provides the reader with information on how the very finest in our nation’s history military endured such hellish conditions. This book will, without doubt prove to be cherished by those researching the topic of Marine prisoners, but also one that will be of significant interest to historians and cherished by prisoners’ family members. 

Jon Couch is a retired United States Marine (1979-1999) and TATE, Inc. contract employee that worked at the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency’s (JPRA) Personnel Recovery training facility located in Fredericksburg Virginia (2003-2023). 

Mr. Couch is a noted writer on Prisoner of War (POW) subjects. His published works include Caged Heroes: American POW Experiences from the Revolutionary War to the Present (2011) and The shoot down, evasion, attempted rescue and capture of Jackel-33B (2019). While in uniform, he served as a reconnaissance Marine, Intelligence Analyst/Officer, as well as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) Instructor. Throughout his career, he served six tours of duty in the Pacific, Mediterranean, and Middle East. While a contractor with JPRA, he wrote and taught two Intelligence courses on Intelligence Support to Personnel Recovery, taught Personnel Recovery planning, as well as Personnel Recovery Reintegration Debriefing of former captives for joint, interagency and international audiences. He lives with his wife in Stafford, Virginia and is now fully retired.

Order the book: 2949 Marine Prisoners, Hostages, and Peacetime Governmental Detainees since Our Corps' Founding