Lawmakers are pushing for swift passage of legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal — the nation’s highest civilian honor — to a Navy veteran who was the first aviator shot down in the Vietnam War and the second-longest held prisoner of war in U.S. history. Retired Cmdr. Everett Alvarez Jr., now 86, was captured Aug. 5, 1964, while on a bombing mission near the North Vietnam-China border. “I was in the very first raids into North Vietnam,” Alvarez said in an oral history recorded for the Library of Congress. He was the first captured American during the war who was sent to the infamous North Vietnamese prison nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton.” He survived beatings, torture and starvation during 3,113 days of captivity. “Cmdr. Alvarez remained loyal to the United States and assisted other American prisoners of war,” according to the legislation.
