Penny Grossman served 21 years of active duty as an Air Force nurse. In 1973, She was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines during Operation Homecoming, when nearly 600 American Prisoners of War were freed. The first leg of their journey home took them from Hanoi to Clark Air Base, where Penny witnessed their first steps of freedom.
She has not spoken of these difficult memories in 50 years.
“It was survival. We were in survival mode every day.” And Army Command Sgt. Maj. Frederick Crowson remembers every one of those days he was held captive in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Prisoners of war and those missing in action have long told their stories of capture, torture and
LAST was asked FEBRUARY, to make WHEN a few I remarks FIRST TOUCHED on behalf of FOOT the ex-POWs on American who soil, were Iwas asked to make a few remarks on behalf of the ex-POWs who wereembarked in the airplane with me. An ancient verse came to mind that
U.S. Air Force Capt. William R. Austin II and his aircraft commander, Maj. Ivan D. Appleby, had out-maneuvered certain death hundreds of times before they got hit. A fighter pilot with the storied “Triple Nickle” 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Austin had flown 80 combat missions over North Vietnam in the
James F. Bell, a Navy captain and pilot who was held prisoner for seven and a half years during the Vietnam War, died Sept. 30 at an Alexandria care facility. He was 83. The cause was complications from Parkinson’s disease, said his wife, Dora G. Bell. Flying a reconnaissance plane
There were times I thought the end was coming. That’s how Arthur Neil Black described his captivity after the helicopter he was aboard was shot down over North Vietnam on Sept. 20, 1965, while on a rescue mission for the U.S. Air Force. “It was a very scary situation,” he