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.
First Lieutenant Loren Harvey Torkelson was from Crosby and was a month shy of his 26th birthday when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam. He was in his second tour of duty as an Air Force F4 Phantom pilot with the 389th Tactical Fighter Squadron when it happened.
Three Navy airmen told yesterday of having given information under torture to the North Vietnamese. But each said he had been able to offer some, resistance and none seemed in any way apologetic. “I would say I did not break,” said Capt. James P. Mehl of Hauppauge, L. I., a
The engineered violence U.S. Air Force pilots Ron Mastin and Tom Storey felt ejecting from an F-4 Phantom at 500 miles per hour was more shocking than impact of North Vietnamese ordinance that sent their jet crashing to the ground on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. On Mastin’s 34th aerial reconnaissance
A Prisoner of War bracelet from the 1970s has managed to unite a U.S. Navy veteran and an Air Force veteran on Mar. 3. Lt. Col. Bob Jeffrey was taken as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam Conflict, and it was that bracelet that gave him hope during the
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.