50 years later, memory still bright for pilot who flew Vietnam POWs to freedom (William Means)

In his 21-year career as a pilot for the United States Air Force, Maj. James Marrott logged more than 7,000 flying hours. During a yearlong tour in Vietnam alone, he flew 108 combat missions.

But the flight he remembers best, the one that means the most, hands down, had nothing to do with war or conflict. It was the flight that brought home the first batch of prisoners of war from Hanoi as America was exiting the Vietnam War.

“That was the highlight, it was then, it still is now,” says the 88-year-old retired major as he relaxes in an armchair in the comfortable apartment he shares with his wife of 67 years, MaryAnne, on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley.

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The Vietnam-Era Prisoner-of-War/Missing-in-Action Database

This database is designed to assist researchers in accessing U.S. government documents related to American military personnel who are unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. The formal title of this collection is “Correlated and Uncorrelated Information Relating to Missing Americans in Southeast Asia.” The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA; formerly

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