It’s been nearly 50 years since Dennis Thompson was captured by North Vietnamese forces as a prisoner of war.
But he still sees the black enclosed room with no light where they kept him. For five years — he counted 1,864 days — the Vietnamese imprisoned him, 850 days of which were in continuous solitary confinement.
“I’ll always be there,” the 74-year-old veteran said.
Somehow, five years and three months of captivity that included starvation and torture in North Vietnam did not change Ken Fleenor. He was the same man his wife, Anne, met long before, when she was a high school senior and he was a junior majoring in biology and agriculture at
For US Air Force Col. Raymond J. Merritt, his accommodations in North Vietnam between 1965 and 1973 left a lot to be desired. Merritt, a former fighter pilot, was shot down by anti-aircraft fire in September 1965 and held captive at a number of camps, including the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.”
GSW 2012 POW/MIA Convocation featuring Bill Arcuri, Ret USAF, former POW, Vietnam. September 19, 2012
Prior to his POW experience, Robert Shumaker had other memorable moments in the service. During one mission in the Mediterranean, multiple mechanical malfunctions forced him to freefall 2,000 feet before he could open his parachute. He was also one of the top 32 candidates for NASA’s Apollo program during the
Charles Frederic Klusmann was a Naval Aviator born on September 7, 1933, in San Diego, California. He joined the U.S. Naval Reserve on February 23, 1952, and began active service on March 18, 1953. Lieutenant Chuck is known for his extraordinary heroism and achievement for his role in the aerial