Six years, nine months and four days — that’s the length of time 1959 Conroe graduate Col. James E. Ray spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
He was shot down on Mother’s Day 1966 and was released two days before Valentine’s Day 1973. Upon his return home to Conroe, the city hosted a parade around the downtown square and celebration at Tiger Stadium in early March 1973 where the stadium was filled with supporters.
Walking next to his father near a lake he fished as a boy, Navy Lieut. Markham Gartley looked up at the clear, blue sky and filled his lungs with crisp autumn air. The 28‐year‐old pilot noted the colors of the northern Maine woods—the McIntosh reds of the sugar maples, the
TO THE WORLD, the photo of his family greeting the Air Force officer after his return from a North Vietnamese camp symbolized the joy of a nation leaving an ugly war. To him, the scene was and remains a lie. His older daughter is racing to meet him, arms outstretched,
“Freedom has a taste to those who fight and almost die that the protected will never know.” –A POW saying left on a wall in the Hoa-Lo Prison known to Westerners as the “Hanoi Hilton.” A small American flag on display at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum was a patriotic
For over a decade I wore a POW bracelet in Sgt. Don MacPhail’s honor and memory. This is the story of Sgt. Don MacPhail and our unique history in pictures, words, video links and newspaper files. For my 16th birthday on August 16, 1971, Irene Pfeffer gave me the bracelet