‘Fidel’ tortured POWs in Vietnam (Bomar, Hubbard, Cobeil)

Jack Bomar still has nightmares about the beatings administered by ”Fidel,” a Cuban government agent in North Vietnam who tortured him and 17 other U.S. prisoners of war some three decades ago.

”I wake up at night and I am in a situation back there,” the retired Air Force colonel said. ”Sometimes I am trying to bail out of my airplane, or sometimes it might be Fidel there, waiting to hammer me.”

Recently declassified Defense Department documents say three Cubans were sent to North Vietnam by Fidel Castro’s government to deal with U.S. POWs in what became known as the Cuba Program.

Now, some of those former POWs are thinking of suing the Cuban government for reparations, according to a Miami Herald report Sunday.

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I arrived at Udorn RTAFB in early May, 1967, to fly A-1E and A1-H Skyraider with the 602nd Fighter Squadron (Commando). I was to fly 247 combat missions during three consecutive tours and participated in the rescue of 18 aircrew members. On May 31, 1968, going for number 19, I

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