Former POW Ralph Galati ’70 Found Purpose in Service

Five decades after surviving a year as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, the St. Joe’s graduate and former head of the Office of Veterans Services is being recognized for a lifetime of giving back.

Other Publications You Might Be Interested In

John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account

The date was Oct. 26, 1967. I was on my 23rd mission, flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up—the sky was full of them—and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk

A Former P.O.W. Relates His Experiences in Hanoi (Norris Overly)

Norris Overly, a 41‐ year‐old Air Force Colonel from Detroit, is one of nine men in the United States who know what it is like to live in a North Vietnamese prison camp.

The Story Behind the Story: An Inside Look at the Extraordinary True Events that Inspired ‘Glory Denied’ (Floyd Thompson)

Glory Denied is about the cost of war, in this case the Vietnam War, to an American family. But in many ways, it is also the story of our country’s painful growth in the 1960s and 70s. United States Army Colonel Floyd “Jim” Thompson, the longest held prisoner of war (POW)

Former POW shares story with NCOA (Melvin Pollack)

“I may be older, but I’m a fighter pilot,” he said, smiling, as he shared his story of perseverance before a crowd of Kisling NCO Academy students, Sept. 12, 2016. Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Melvin Pollack, Vietnam War veteran, was flying his 78th mission when he was shot down

50 years later, longest-enlisted POW talks about how he survived (William Robinson)

2023 marks 50 years since Vietnam prisoners of war were freed. Among them is the longest-held enlisted prisoner, Captain Bill Robinson, who now lives in Lenoir City. Despite spending more than seven years in captivity, he is grateful. He was just 22 years old and was a flight mechanic on