Today marked 40 years since the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces and the end of the Vietnam War. But, for three men who spent years of their lives as prisoners of war, the memories of that era remain fresh.
The men shared their stories at an event hosted by the North Carolina Museum of History and North Carolina Vietnam Veterans Inc., in Raleigh, April 17, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War.
Almost 50 years ago this month, they began to arrive. It was called Operation Homecoming, and it saw 591 American military prisoners of war finally free after years of often brutal captivity in Vietnam. Over several weeks in February and March of 1973, they were returned to military bases in
Retired fighter pilot Robert Sponeybarger doesn’t suffer flashbacks and isn’t jarred awake in a cold sweat from nightmares of being held captive by the North Vietnamese. Never was a problem for him, he says. And he says he rarely thinks of ejecting from his crippled plane, threats of execution or
The bracelets are cuff-style. They come in a number of colors and can be made of a number of materials: silver, stainless steel, aluminum, copper. They are engraved and go by many names, depending on their exact reason for being: memorial bracelets, KIA bracelets, POW/MIA bracelets, hero bracelets. They have
After an almost imperceptible hesitation, Mike Lenker stood. About 500 people politely applauded when Lenker, 60, was introduced as a prisoner of the Vietnam War. It was a fleeting formality between the Harlem High School Choraleers’ “Song for the Unsung Hero” and the keynote speech, part of the hourlong Tribute
The date was Oct. 26, 1967. I was on my 23rd mission, flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up—the sky was full of them—and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk