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 and named “Living History,” Colonel Curtis revealed the brutal reality behind being imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton and how he has lived to tell his story as one of 687 POWs who returned alive.

Dave Bakke: POW bracelet still meaningful (Leland Hildebrand)
Donna Bowers was a teenager in the early 1970s, when she received her POW bracelet. The name on the bracelet was Col. Leland Hildebrand. There was a date with the name: 12/18/71. Those bracelets were worn in honor of American soldiers missing or taken prisoner in the Vietnam War. That’s something we

