When Lt. Colonel Ballard, a USAF jet pilot on a military mission over North Vietnam, was shot down in September 1966, his first thought was for his wife: Ruth, I’m sorry. It’s going to be a long time… Shortly afterward he was captured by North Vietnamese soldiers and interred as a prisoner of war. Thus began six and a half years of pain, hunger, thirst, fear, anxiety, humiliation, and degradation. But there was also hope. And faith. This memoir vividly chronicles Ballard’s capture, torture, and the living conditions that he and his fellow POWs endured until their release in March of 1973.
M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America: How and why belief in live POWs has possessed a nation
Almost two decades after the Vietnam War, most Americans remain convinced that U.S. prisoners are still being held captive in Southeast Asia, and many even accuse the government of concealing their existence. But as H. Bruce Franklin demonstrates in his startling investigation, there is no plausible basis for the belief
