
Interview with POW Rick Bates – Aug 22, 2020
Interview with Rick Bates, former US Air Force F-4 pilot, and Vietnam War POW. Rick talks about his experience in the Air Force and as a POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam.

Interview with Rick Bates, former US Air Force F-4 pilot, and Vietnam War POW. Rick talks about his experience in the Air Force and as a POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam.

In the late 1960s, POW/MIA wives bucked government protocol and challenged the traditional role of “military wife.” These courageous women led by Sybil Stockdale on the West Coast, Jane Denton, Louise Mulligan, and Phyllis Galanti on the East Coast and later Helene Knapp in the Interior West organized to form the National League of POW/MIA Families. The women worked with Congress and the Nixon administration to demand accounting for their husbands and pursue their safe

American Veterans Center’s 2006 conference panel on Vietnam: The POW Experience, featuring Col. George “Bud” Day, Maj. Gen. Edward Mechenbier, Capt. Jack Fellowes, and Lt. Col. Anthony Marion Marshall.


During the Vietnam War many United States soldiers were captured and held as prisoners of war (POW). Many soldiers reported being regularly tortured, and some were used for military propaganda. This segment from Iowa Public Television’s Iowans Remember Vietnam includes archival footage and interviews with Iowa veteran Harold Johnson. Johnson describes his role as a military jet pilot, his experience being captured, his days in captivity and his eventual release.