“They stripped me of everything I had.” So began Charlie Crafts’ 26-month odyssey as a prisoner of war in the jungles of Vietnam. Crafts, who now lives in Livermore, consented to a rare interview on his experience as Maine’s first Vietnam POW, and the only one to be imprisoned in
When Lieut. David Matheny drove home for lunch the other day, he saw that his wife’s car was gone. He turned around and left without even going in. Lieutenant Matheny was a prisoner of war in North Viet nam for about six months. Most of that time was spent in
Donald and Donna Rogers wore bracelets on their wrists for three decades, honoring prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. Like millions of other Americans in the 1970s, they purchased bracelets with names of POW’s on them to keep their memory alive. Devout patriots, the Rogers hoped that one day they would be
I stood up and made a gesture of surrender, and they were all over me. Funny thing, the first thing to come off was my Seiko watch . . . then they got around to my gun and knife.” When Bill Wilson was captured by the North Vietnamese, one of