In August of 1967 I was shot down on my 101st mission near Dong Hoi, just north of the Demilitarized Zone. I was the co-pilot on an F4C. Both the pilot and I survived the crash and spent the next five and one-half years in a Communist prison in Hanoi — the Hanoi Hilton. Before I was shot down I had become disillusioned with the way we were fighting the war. The intent of what we were trying to do was absolutely correct. But we were going about accomplishing our goals in the wrong way.
‘We made it:’ Local Vietnam veteran shares his POW story (Wayne Smith)
1,882 days; five and a half years. That’s how long Vietnam veteran Wayne Smith was a prisoner of war. “We were in pretty bad shape, we certainly were,” said Smith. He shared his story with us and dozens of people at Punta Gorda’s Military Heritage Museum. The Air Force captain’s
