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.
Remember the Vietnam War and 1973? Probably not, but Air Force fighter pilot Captain Guy Dennis Gruters does. After being held as a prisoner of war for five plus years, including time in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, he was repatriated to the U.S. in 1973 along with 591 surviving POWs.
When Pvt. Ferdinand Rodriguez of Brooklyn arrived at Valley Forge General Hospital on a stretcher 22 days ago after nearly five years as a prisoner of war, his infirmities were listed as malaria, exhaustion and apprehension. The apprehension eased considerably Wednesday when Defense Department aides told him that he would
“I was a prisoner of war of the North Vietnamese 2,428 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes (nearly 7 years) . I calculated it on a Hewlett-Packard calculator one day. ” Before the January, 2006 dinner meeting of the Golden Gate Wing, the last time CAPT Cole Black was at the
Michael Thomas Burns was fulfilling a lifelong dream of flying jets in the Air Force when he was shot down over Vietnam during a combat mission July 5, 1968. Burns was captured and later transferred to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prisoner of war camp. After spending 1,714 days in captivity,
A former prisoner of war who has been threatened with court‐martial for his behavior in captivity, said tonight that the “pressure of conscience and morality” made him change his mind on the war while in captivity. Capt. Walter E. Wilber of the Navy acknowledged in television interview that he had