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.
Three Lives of a Warrior
Few men have literally been blown out of the sky and lived to tell about it. If you can call being starved, beaten and otherwise tortured living. But not only did Phil Butler survive, he came out of the experience a new man…a war hero, a loving husband, a warrior
