U.S. Air Force (Retired) Chaplain Thomas Azar delivered the opening prayer Thursday evening at a ceremony in Shalimar, Fla. to honor American troops captured in the Vietnam War and brought back home 50 years ago.
“The Elks, VFW groups, are sponsoring the 50–year anniversary when the U.S. government and the Vietnamese government worked out the trade, so the 591 Prisoners of War at the Hanoi Hilton were released,” Azar, a Dannemora resident, said.
When Pvt. Ferdinand Rodriguez of Brooklyn arrived at Valley Forge General Hospital on a stretcher 22 days ago after nearly five years as a prisoner of war, his infirmities were listed as malaria, exhaustion and apprehension. The apprehension eased considerably Wednesday when Defense Department aides told him that he would
On April 19, 1967, Maj. Leo Thorsness (pilot) and Capt. Harold Johnson (EWO) led a Wild Weasel formation on a mission against the Xuan Mai army barracks about 30 miles southwest of Hanoi. After they silenced one SAM site and destroyed another, enemy anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) shot down the accompanying
Col. Will Gideon, former 437th Supply Squadron commander, who spent nearly seven years locked deep within the jungles of North Vietnam as a POW. Through the darkness, Gideon never lost his light.
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