Memories of being caged, shackled and exposed to the powerful herbicide Agent Orange linger in the mind of retired U.S. Army Captain Isaac “Ike” Camacho, the first American to escape a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam.
Still, Camacho, who spent nearly two years as a prisoner of war, said he would serve again if he could.
“At one point in your life you have to serve your country. This would be one way of serving your country,” the now 81-year-old Camacho said from his home in East El Paso.
You’ve probably never heard of Col. James Helms Kasler. It’s a pity. Kasler is Indiana’s Sgt. York. Three times Kasler went off to war. Three times he returned home to Indianapolis a hero, and this Memorial Day is an appropriate time to celebrate him. The Air Force Cross is an
Graduates from one of Lackland’s last Officer Candidate School classes, including an honorary class member and former Vietnam prisoner of war, reunited here to commemorate their 50th-year anniversary. Members of OCS Class 62-A, which graduated Sept. 22, 1961, were honored as special guests during the Sept. 23 Air Force Basic
During his time as a prisoner of war, Lt. Col. William “Bill” Gauntt remembers a Vietnamese soldier pressing a .45 pistol against his forehead and pulling the trigger. “I remember hearing the spring as it was being stretched and then pop,” he said. “On an empty chamber fortunately.” Gauntt told
Among the 200 American Vietnam prisoners of war and their families who recently gathered in the reproduced East Wing at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda were Whitethorn residents Everett and Evelyn King. Everett King was a corporal in an Army intelligence unit stationed at Hue,
For US Air Force Col. Raymond J. Merritt, his accommodations in North Vietnam between 1965 and 1973 left a lot to be desired. Merritt, a former fighter pilot, was shot down by anti-aircraft fire in September 1965 and held captive at a number of camps, including the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.”
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