POW’s get new honor aboard USS Turner Joy (William J. Metzger)

Vet has no regrets about Vietnam (Thomas Collins)

Thomas Collins III would like to clarify one point about his bombing missions in Vietnam, and the more than seven years he spent as a prisoner of war: It was not a mistake, not a waste, not a failure. “We needed to stop communism,” says Collins, 74, a retired U.S.

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.

Where is the most austere or arduous place you spent the holidays while deployed? (Hughes, Alcorn)

On 22 December 1965, on a combat mission over North Vietnam, I was shot down and captured. I spent Christmas on a concrete floor in a North Vietnamese prison, arms tightly bound behind my back. For eight holiday seasons I enjoyed “the humane and lenient treatment of the North Vietnamese people,”

Vietnam POWs are reunited in San Antonio, honored by Air Force (Trimbley, Marshall, Carl Jefcoat)

The morning he flew his 266th mission over Vietnam, Air Force Capt. Tony Marshall only knew the pilot in the seat in front of him, Capt. Steve Cuthbert, by reputation. Tall and thin with a shock of sandy blond hair, Cuthbert never suffered a lack of confidence flying the F-4 Phantom. “He told

A GOOD AGE: The Stratton incident becomes the Stratton way (Richard Stratton)

News stories about the Vietnam conflict were a daily staple in the spring of 1968 when I joined The Patriot Ledger as a copy reader on the news desk. I soon learned that the year before a Quincy native, Lt. Cmdr. Richard Stratton, had been captured after he was forced