(4/1/99)

Staff Seargant Andrew Ramirez, Staff Seargant Christopher Stone, and Specialist Stephen Gonzales were guarding the border, in Macedonia.

Serb forces say the men moved into Kosovo. That's why they were abducted.

Today President Clinton expressed his concern for the way they are being treated. And, according to one former P.O.W., everyone should be concerned. News Specialist Karen Scullin reports.

Dale Osborne still has the shell that brought his plane down over Vietnam on September 23, 1968.

On that day he became a prisoner of war. He was held captive for four and a half years.

Osborne says, "You don't have anything. You're isolated. You have nothing and you are nothing."

Although Osborne was unconscious for the first few months of his captivity, he has a good idea of what the three American soldiers currently held captive in Serbia are going through.

"What's going through their mind is they're saying, 'How long are we going to be here?' And they're saying, 'I'm not going to be here very long because the U.S. of A. will get us out of here soon.'"

Osborne says as a P.O.W., your days are endless. He spent his entire captivity lying on a dirt floor.

"You ever have a rat eat on your leg? They go p, p, p, p. They you wake up and try to kick him off," Osborne says.

Osborne was badly injured and never received medical attention. He says it's good the three soldiers appear to be fairly healthy, because they'll definitely need their strength.

"You think of survival. You think, 'I would give up $10,000 for a cup of water.' That's what you think," he says.

But Osborne says there is one thing that helps any P.O.W. survive, and that's hope.

Dale Osborne says if he could say anything to the P.O.W.'s in Kosovo right now, he'd tell them to keep the faith, because they're going to come home.