Retired Air Force Col. Laird Guttersen, 80, who spent five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp and later became an advocate for families of missing military personnel, died June 13 in Tucson of complications of a stroke, according to family members. His F-4 Phantom was shot down over North
If captured by the enemy and imprisoned during wartime, American servicemembers must summon the highest levels of courage. A pair of retired lieutenant colonels in Texas knows all too well what it’s like to be stripped of freedoms and have their patriotism and faith put to the test. Lawrence Barbay was
1,882 days; five and a half years. That’s how long Vietnam veteran Wayne Smith was a prisoner of war. “We were in pretty bad shape, we certainly were,” said Smith. He shared his story with us and dozens of people at Punta Gorda’s Military Heritage Museum. The Air Force captain’s
Jack Van Loan, an Oregon native and fighter pilot who spent six years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and then served for 20 years as executive director of the Five Points Association in Columbia, has died. He was 87. “He was a mentor,
On a granite wall in Washington, D.C., the story of Capt. Edward A. Brudno’s suffering remains untold. There is no recognition of the beatings he took or the interrogations he resisted – nothing that acknowledges 7 1/2 years of captivity in a windowless room. Three decades after being tortured in
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