Dave Bakke: POW bracelet still meaningful (Leland Hildebrand)

Donna Bowers was a teenager in the early 1970s, when she received her POW bracelet. The name on the bracelet was Col. Leland Hildebrand. There was a date with the name: 12/18/71.

Those bracelets were worn in honor of American soldiers missing or taken prisoner in the Vietnam War. That’s something we won’t have when the war in Afghanistan is over, not on that scale. There were thousands of them then, and Hildebrand was one.

“I really don’t remember how I got it,” Donna says. “The best I can figure out, it was from my grandmother. She was still a member of D

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Returned to sender, 40+ years later (Richard Dutton)

A special delivery of long-forgotten letters and photos came from Vietnam to an Air Force widow. The United States and Vietnam are working together to return personal belongings of prisoners of war to their rightful owners; and, a package was delivered today to the family of retired Col. Richard Dutton.

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Vietnam POW retells his tale (Donald Heiliger)

A prisoner of war for seven years, a University of Wisconsin alum spoke to a group of UW Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets Tuesday, telling a jarring tale of courage, honor and service. Originally trained as a navigator, Col. Don Heiliger became an official pilot when the Air

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Major Steve Long

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