For nearly 20 years, former Army Capt. Johnnie Ray remained grateful that Oklahoma had eased his return as a Vietnam prisoner of war by granting free college tuition to his children.
But when he tried to get free tuition at his own alma mater, Oklahoma State University, for his daughter, Pammy, he was turned down.
“They told us that was only for children of prisoners of war who died in Vietnam,” Dorothy Ray said Tuesday from the family’s Wynnewood home.
Several decades before he was chosen as one of seven grand marshals in this year’s Veterans Day Parade, Col. Gobel James spent 32 years in the military, most of it as a U.S. Air Force pilot. “The Korean War was on when I joined the Air Force in 1952 and
Charles “Chuck” Jackson has little memory of the crushing sound of metal as his F-4 Phantom II broke apart. What he does remember most is the split second before ejecting. A heat-seeking missile, about 6 to 8 feet long, fired by a pursuing North Vietnamese MIG-21 went right up the
On two occasions, Douglas “Pete” Peterson served in Vietnam when he didn’t have to. Already a 10-year Air Force veteran when his number was called in 1966, then-Captain Peterson, with a pregnant wife and two kids at home, was eligible for a deferment, but didn’t apply. Instead, he took his
SFC Harry L. Ettmueller, USA, was the Chief Engineer at Hue, 1967-68. He was captured by the North Vietnamese during the TET ’68 offensive on February 5, 1968 and remained a POW until March 5, 1973.I have not been able to find Harry’s obituary, which is what I would normally
Everybody says we had nothing to do, but we did have something to do, we had an obligation to fulfill,” Lieut. Col. Alan Lurie said recently. “That was to follow the Code of Conduct, to resist the North Vietnamese attempts to exploit us. And that was full‐time job in that