Ex-POW that Jerry West honored featured in PS Air Museum (Jerry West)

The Palm Springs Air Museum’s collection of Vietnam-era POW/MIA bracelets has steadily grown since the first bracelet — bearing the name of U.S. Air Force Col. Norman Schmidt — was donated in late February.

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FORMER VIETNAM POW VISITS COLD WAR GALLERY (Robert Naughton)

Captain Bob Naughton, USN (Ret), a former prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, poses for a photo with the prison camp model of the “Zoo,” where he spent time during his captivity, just a few miles outside of the city of Hanoi in North Vietnam. Captain Naughton visited the

A heroic connection (Charlie James)

It took her 44 years, but Morreen O’Reilly-Mersberger finally tracked down the prisoner of war whose name was on a bracelet that she purchased in college and kept to this day. The 62-year-old Plymouth resident bought the item for $2 in the fall of 1970 from a student group on

P.O.W.S: At Last the Story Can Be Told (Rodney Knutson)

For weeks the returned P.O.W.s had been stepping from “freedom birds” onto the television screens—most of them saluting crisply, walking smartly, looking physically fit and acting mentally alert. As the nation’s early apprehensions faded, a new idea set in: perhaps the P.O.W.s had been humanely treated after all. That illusion

POW recalls mission that led to capture 50 years ago (Richard Smith)

On Oct. 25, 1967, now retired Lt. Col. Richard Smith and his wingmen had orders to bomb the Paul Doumer Bridge in North Vietnam; the bridge was a mile long and one of the most heavily defended positions in Southeast Asia. Smith said that leading up to the mission, he