40 Years Later: An Interview with a Former Vietnam POW (Willard Gideon)

Col. Will Gideon, former 437th Supply Squadron commander, who spent nearly seven years locked deep within the jungles of North Vietnam as a POW. Through the darkness, Gideon never lost his light.

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FINAL POW TO LEAVE NAVY (Joseph Mobley)

Vice Adm. Joseph Mobley, the U.S. military’s last Vietnam prisoner of war still on active duty, stepped down Thursday as commander of the Atlantic Fleet’s Naval Air Force. Mobley, 59, turned over command during a ceremony aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. He will retire May 1 after 35

Ex-Vietnam POW brings fallen comrades home (Edward Mechenbier)

Piloting the same plane that rescued him 31 years ago, a former American prisoner of war returned to Vietnam on Friday on his last military mission to bring home remains thought to be fallen comrades. Air Force Reserve Maj. Gen. Edward Mechenbier stood in his flight uniform saluting two aluminum

Nevadan recalls POW ordeal (William Elander)

Here’s how Nevada Republican delegate Bill Elander describes becoming a prisoner of war: a bad day. “After 50 or 60 missions, I had a bad day,” the Sparks resident and retired Air Force lieutenant colonel said in an interview at the national GOP convention. “I was shot down in 1972

A GOOD AGE: The Stratton incident becomes the Stratton way (Richard Stratton)

News stories about the Vietnam conflict were a daily staple in the spring of 1968 when I joined The Patriot Ledger as a copy reader on the news desk. I soon learned that the year before a Quincy native, Lt. Cmdr. Richard Stratton, had been captured after he was forced

Col. Thomas H. Kirk Jr. ’50B: Most Decorated Living VMI Alumnus

On Oct. 28, 1967, 38-year-old Thomas H. Kirk Jr. ’50B left Takhli Air Base in Thailand flying an F-105 Thunderchief aircraft. He was heading for Hanoi, the most heavily defended city in the world. Kirk led 48 bombers, plus supporting aircraft, in the largest air attack on Hanoi during the