Fighting for survival behind enemy lines (Frederick Crowson)

“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 fears of not making it out alive, but hearing Crowson speak so vividly of his experiences conjures a place he describes as “the pits of hell.”

Crowson, an Army veteran who served 21 years, was with Company B, 229th Helicopter Assault Battalion when his aircraft was shot down by enemy fire over Cambodia in 1970. He was 20 years old.

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