It was a few days before Christmas, 1972, when Jill Drummond got the worst present imaginable. It was a letter from the United States Air Force telling her that her husband David Drummond was officially missing in action in Vietnam.
Shock, fear and worry all followed. What she didn’t know immediately was that her husband’s B-52 bomber had been shot down and he had been captured by North Vietnamese soldiers.
A large crowd of past and present service members, students and guests gathered at Grand Avenue Theater to hear Colonel Thomas J. Curtis, retiree from the United States Air Force, speak about his time as a Prisoner of War (POW) in Vietnam on Friday. Organized by Master Networks Belton Chapter
This interview is a continuation of Bob Jones’ first interview from May 2008. In that interview, equipment limitations resulted in an abrupt conclusion to the recording. This interview picks up where his first interview finished: his journey from the Hanoi Hilton to the Gia Lam Airport, where C-141s were waiting
After an emotional speech, former prisoner-of-war Gary L. Thornton looked at the flag-draped casket holding the remains of his friend and mentor, Thunderbirds pilot Russell C. Goodman, and snapped a salute. “Welcome home to the hero, professional and patriot,” Thornton said. “Welcome home, Major Russell Clayton Goodman, United States Air
Wilkes County native Wilson Denver “Denny” Key was a prisoner of war in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” in North Vietnam during essentially the same 5½-year period Sen. John McCain, who died Saturday, was held there. McCain, being remembered this week for his bravery and resolve as a POW, was captured
Before his plane was shot down, before spending more than six years as a prisoner of war and before he was honored during his hometown’s Fourth of July parade, Col. Robert Waggoner called Steamboat Springs home. “He was the youngest boy of eight children, and he grew up and went