It was all so long ago, and time for a final interview with nine U.S. Marines released from Vietnam’s infamous Hanoi Hilton prison in 1973. Capt. William Kerr Angus was number nine, the last in line. I called this group of Marines “The Pendleton 9,” a microcosm of men mired in what
One of the most honored occasions that I’ve ever experienced was meeting a Vietnam War Veteran and P.O.W., who was held at the infamous Hanoi Hilton in North Vietnam for seven-and-a-half-years. I had just concluded a meeting with a major supplier (ALCOA) at the Hattiesburg Country Club in south Mississippi,
First Lieutenant Loren Harvey Torkelson was from Crosby and was a month shy of his 26th birthday when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam. He was in his second tour of duty as an Air Force F4 Phantom pilot with the 389th Tactical Fighter Squadron when it happened.
They are pictured cooking, laughing, seated with their pets, standing with their wives. The photographs of 30 former Vietnam war POWs portray a comforting normalcy, though their common history is anything but. Most hold no anger or bitterness.
Ben Pollard got a lot of mail his last week in prison, as many letters as he’d received in the preceding six years combined: four. – No matter that they dated to 1968, .and this was 1973. ; That sort of conduct “made (the iNorth Vietnamese) wonderful enemies,” said Pollard,