108 more POWs are flown to freedom (Dave Winn, Profilet)

Quiet Vietnam POW ‘not a hero’ (Michael Lenker)

After an almost imperceptible hesitation, Mike Lenker stood. About 500 people politely applauded when Lenker, 60, was introduced as a prisoner of the Vietnam War. It was a fleeting formality between the Harlem High School Choraleers’ “Song for the Unsung Hero” and the keynote speech, part of the hourlong Tribute

Shot down over Vietnam: POWs share memories 50 years later (Hayden Lockhart, Everett Alvarez)

This weekend marked the 50th anniversary of the fateful day the first U.S. troops went ashore in South Vietnam. But by then U.S. aircraft had already been bombing North Vietnam for seven months and downed American pilots had fallen into a hell that would last for the rest of the

I’ll Always Be There (Dennis Thompson)

It’s been nearly 50 years since Dennis Thompson was captured by North Vietnamese forces as a prisoner of war. But he still sees the black enclosed room with no light where they kept him. For five years — he counted 1,864 days — the Vietnamese imprisoned him, 850 days of

‘Yankee air pirate!’ — Air Force pilot shot down over Vietnam lived to tell the tale (George Rose)

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

Vietnam POW from Virginia Beach dies at 77 (Jack Fellowes)

Retired Navy Capt. John H. “Jack” Fellowes, a pilot from Virginia Beach who was held at the “Hanoi Hilton” as a prisoner of war during Vietnam, has died from congestive heart failure, his family said. On Aug. 27, 1966, Lt. Cmdr. Fellowes and his bombardier-navigator, Lt. j.g. George Coker, also