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.
After the Music Stops: Released but not Recovered
Captain Ben Ringsdorf was locked away for six and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, the most notorious prison camp in the Vietnam War. After he and the rest of his captive soldiers were freed at war’s end, he was greeted with not only a hero’s welcome, but a
