It’s an indelible image of the Vietnam era: George Alan Rose, then 30, stands on a rain-slicked tarmac. The Air Force fighter pilot has just been released from captivity in North Vietnam. His wife, Becky, wraps her arms around him. Their son, Glen, gazes up at his father and reaches for him.
Rose is 80 now, but that reunion at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on March 31, 1973, captured by an Associated Press photographer, is still fresh in his mind half a century later.
One hundred and eight former American prisoners of war landed here Wednesday, and the first man to debark told a cheering crowd, “Thank God, the United States of America, and all you wonderful, good-looking people.” The first of three C141 Starlifters that brought the returnees from Gia Lam Airport outside
Navy Lt. Brad Smith was on a bombing run to destroy a bridge in North Vietnam when he was shot down in 1966. He didn’t see what ripped into his A-4 Skyhawk, but he saw the ground approaching at 600 mph as his crippled jet nose-dived toward the ground. Smith
Tayden and Crixus Dengler never met their legendary grandfather, a Navy pilot captured as a prisoner of war in Laos who escaped his captors. But at a ceremony aboard the USS Turner Joy on Monday, the children witnessed firsthand Dieter Dengler’s lasting legacy. Dengler’s name was added, along with four
Most probably had seen it before, but the symbol-filled ceremony honoring prisoners of war and service members missing in action that began the penultimate day of the Vietnam Veterans of America National Convention in Springfield still tugged at the emotions of the 200 or so vets who attended the 7