50 Years Ago
■Mrs. Mary Cutter, 211 Elm St., grandmother of Capt. James Cutter, prisoner of war in North Vietnam, reported this morning that she has learned her grandson will be among the last prisoners to be returned to the U.S. “He hasn’t been there (as a POW) as long as some,” Mrs. Cutter conceded. “He’s only been there about a year.”
In the last few months of his life, as Alzheimer’s gradually crept over his orderly mind, retired Air Force Gen. Kenneth Walter North began to recall vividly his years spent as a prisoner of war, a time that exemplified his devotion and service to his country. It started gradually. A
2023 marks 50 years since Vietnam prisoners of war were freed. Among them is the longest-held enlisted prisoner, Captain Bill Robinson, who now lives in Lenoir City. Despite spending more than seven years in captivity, he is grateful. He was just 22 years old and was a flight mechanic on
This speech by Jim Collins for The Drucker Institute talks about The Stockdale Paradox, which is rooted in the story of Admiral James Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. Tortured over twenty times during
It’s been 50 years this month since Robert T. White, the last Vietnam prisoner of war released, came home. Part of his homecoming was a celebration on April 19, 1973, in Williamsburg, where his wife lived. Festivities were held on Market Square Green with a militia muster complete with a
On two occasions, Douglas “Pete” Peterson served in Vietnam when he didn’t have to. Already a 10-year Air Force veteran when his number was called in 1966, then-Captain Peterson, with a pregnant wife and two kids at home, was eligible for a deferment, but didn’t apply. Instead, he took his