Soon after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, the United States prepared for Operation Homecoming. Five hundred and ninety-one American prisoners of war returned home from Vietnam during the two-month process. Previously, during the war, 129 pows “escaped from,evaded, or were released by their captors,” including
For Charles A. Brown Jr., his story is less important than those of the people with whom he served at Westover Air Reserve Base. “Everyone’s heard my story,” the now retired Air Reserve colonel says. In a nutshell, Brown’s story goes something like this: Young man from Greater Boston joins the
There is little about Phillip Butler’s appearance to suggest a man who has lived by what he calls the “warrior spirit.” Dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers, Butler wears his snowy white hair closely cut and sometimes walks with a cane. He speaks softly and enjoys a mostly quiet
Six months before American combat troops were committed to Vietnam, Eugene Richardson, a 21-year-ld flight mechanic from Monroe County was killed while flying ammunition to a Special Forces camp on October 24, 1964. Rochester soon became economically involved in the war. General Dynamics, Stromberg-Carlson, Graflex, EastmanKodak, Bausch and Lomb, and
Thomas Collins III would like to clarify one point about his bombing missions in Vietnam, and the more than seven years he spent as a prisoner of war: It was not a mistake, not a waste, not a failure. “We needed to stop communism,” says Collins, 74, a retired U.S.