POW recalls captivity (Bradley Smith)

NATIONAL VIETNAM WAR VETERANS DAY (Kay Russell)

March 29 is National Vietnam War Veterans Day. Two years ago, we were fortunate to receive a donation from the son of CAPT Kay Russell, a naval aviator who served time in a North Vietnamese POW (prisoner of war) camp. When I first saw the shirt he wore as a

Dave Bakke: POW bracelet still meaningful (Leland Hildebrand)

Donna Bowers was a teenager in the early 1970s, when she received her POW bracelet. The name on the bracelet was Col. Leland Hildebrand. There was a date with the name: 12/18/71. Those bracelets were worn in honor of American soldiers missing or taken prisoner in the Vietnam War. That’s something we

Red Warriors – STANLEY ARTHUR NEWELL

In the spring of 1973, 591 American Prisoners of War were released from prisons and camps in Vietnam. Among them were six of a group of nine U.S. Army 4th Infantry Division personnel captured in and near Pleiku Province, South Vietnam during the year of 1967 whose lives had been

William Butler, veteran and volunteer, dies

William Butler was an Air Force captain who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam – some of it in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” – before returning home to Calistoga to become a veterinarian who dedicated his life to helping fellow veterans and others in need.

POW Bracelet Leads to Friendship Years Later (William Spencer)

William Spencer’s world turned upside down as he felt his F-4 Phantom hit by a heat-seeking missile fired from an MiG-21 that had come up underneath him. In a split second it began cartwheeling its fiery way to the ground, its tail section and left wing missing. The 29-year-old Air