50 years ago, direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War officially ended as the last remaining combat troops and prisoners of war returned to American soil.
It was a complex moment for the country, as the war was deeply unpopular and ended in defeat. More than 58,000 Americans died in the war, along with three million Vietnamese. Fredrik Logevall told Under the Radar that Americans were ready for the war to be over.
Name: Phillip Dean Prather Rank/Branch: W1/United States Army, pilot Unit: HHC 11th INF BDE Date of Birth: Home City of Record: Armarillo TX Date of Loss: 08 March 1971 Country of Loss: South Vietnam/North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 165720 North 1070300 East Status (in 1973): Returnee Category: Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: OH6A Other Personnel
Isolated, they tapped on walls to communicate with each other in the beginning. Later, with a little more freedom granted, they played bridge together, shared some of the rotating Sunday chaplain duties and encouraged each other with the recitations from movies, books and poetry. The memories, now half a century
In the spring of 1973, 591 American Prisoners of War were released from prisons and camps in Vietnam. Among them were six of a group of nine U.S. Army 4th Infantry Division personnel captured in and near Pleiku Province, South Vietnam during the year of 1967 whose lives had been
Almost 50 years ago this month, they began to arrive. It was called Operation Homecoming, and it saw 591 American military prisoners of war finally free after years of often brutal captivity in Vietnam. Over several weeks in February and March of 1973, they were returned to military bases in
Charles “Chuck” Jackson has little memory of the crushing sound of metal as his F-4 Phantom II broke apart. What he does remember most is the split second before ejecting. A heat-seeking missile, about 6 to 8 feet long, fired by a pursuing North Vietnamese MIG-21 went right up the