Navy Pilot Chronicles his POW Experiences (Jack Ensch)

Former prisoner of war reflects on capture (Pete Camerota)

In honor of Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Recognition Day, a former prisoner of war came to Ramstein Air Base, Sept. 16 to share his experience and visit one of his last duty stations before he retired. At the time of becoming a prisoner of war, retired Maj. Pete Camerota,

Col. Thomas H. Kirk Jr. ’50B: Most Decorated Living VMI Alumnus

On Oct. 28, 1967, 38-year-old Thomas H. Kirk Jr. ’50B left Takhli Air Base in Thailand flying an F-105 Thunderchief aircraft. He was heading for Hanoi, the most heavily defended city in the world. Kirk led 48 bombers, plus supporting aircraft, in the largest air attack on Hanoi during the

McCain bargained with his Vietnamese captors (Fred Thompson)

In his speech Sept. 2, 2008, to the Republican National Convention, former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., recounted John McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after his Navy plane was shot down in October 1967. “They took him to the Hanoi Hilton, where he lapsed in and

The Ghosts of Vietnam

This Veterans Day marks a turning point in our nation’s recovery from the trauma of Vietnam. The last official prisoner of war, Col. Charles Shelton, an Air Force pilot, was declared dead this fall after having been kept administratively “alive” by the Pentagon for 30 years. Acknowledging Colonel Shelton’s death…..

A lesson for today: No racial divide for two American POWs (Cherry, Halyburton)

Two millennia ago, the Roman historian Plutarch penned a series of Parallel Lives of famous Greeks and Romans. He would juxtapose some notable figure from classical Greece against another from classical Rome in order to entertain, inform and teach. He presented a capsule biography of each, then appended a short essay comparing