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.
They are pictured cooking, laughing, seated with their pets, standing with their wives. The photographs of 30 former Vietnam war POWs portray a comforting normalcy, though their common history is anything but. Most hold no anger or bitterness.
Col. James Lamar was shot down during a bombing mission over North Vietnam in 1966 and spent 7 years as a POW, including at the prison camp called the ‘Hanoi Hilton’
Former POW and U.S. Air Force MAJ Richard Eugene Bolstad (Captured 6 Nov 65) at the microphone salutes the people who came to greet his return. GEN Paul Carlton, Commander, Military Airlift Command stands to the left and the Honor Guard to the right. MAJ Bolstad and LCOL Doughty were
Quite a few of our country’s heroes have significant history at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, “The Cradle of Naval Aviation,” but none of them have a story quite like former Commanding Officer Capt. John Bryan (JB) McKamey. For over 10 years now, the former base commanding officer has rested
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