U.S. Air Force 1955-1976Cold War 1955-1976Vietnam War 1965-1973 (POW)William Burroughs was born on September 29, 1932, in Indianhead, Maryland. He entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1951 and was commissioned a 2d Lt in the U.S. Air Force on June 3, 1955. Lt Burroughs graduated from Undergraduate
Although he graduated ahead of me – he was in the Class of 1959 and I was in the Class of 1967 – Jon Reynolds and I both received Air Force commissions through Trinity’s Air Force ROTC unit. He was shot down over North Vietnam when I was still at
Remember the Vietnam War and 1973? Probably not, but Air Force fighter pilot Captain Guy Dennis Gruters does. After being held as a prisoner of war for five plus years, including time in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, he was repatriated to the U.S. in 1973 along with 591 surviving POWs.
In January of 1964, Captain Harlan Chapman reported to Marine Fighter Squadron 212 based at Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station, Hawaii. In 1965, his Squadron deployed with Carrier Air Wing 16 aboard the USS ORISKANY (CVA 34) for combat operations from the South China Sea. Harlan flew his first combat
In 1967, there was a “unit” of approximately 300 Americans fighting the Vietnam War from within a Hanoi prison. The unit—later named the 4th Allied POW Wing—was located in the drab North Vietnamese capital. Within this unit, every man had the same job: prisoner of war. All—except three enlisted airmen—were