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.
“The key word for all of us at first was fragility. Each of us, before we were ever in shouting distance of another American, was made to “take the ropes.” That was a real shock to our systems — and as with all shocks, its impact on our inner selves
When his country called, John Blanks answered. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam, one of the most unpopular wars in U.S. history and the subject of a 10-episode series on PBS by filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. A lot of his buddies went, too. Some came back
A prisoner of war for seven years, a University of Wisconsin alum spoke to a group of UW Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets Tuesday, telling a jarring tale of courage, honor and service. Originally trained as a navigator, Col. Don Heiliger became an official pilot when the Air
When Pvt. Ferdinand Rodriguez of Brooklyn arrived at Valley Forge General Hospital on a stretcher 22 days ago after nearly five years as a prisoner of war, his infirmities were listed as malaria, exhaustion and apprehension. The apprehension eased considerably Wednesday when Defense Department aides told him that he would
You can’t breath because your chest is compressed during the process,” Captain Peter Schoeffel explains. He’s talking about being tortured by the communist North Vietnamese, who were trying to force captured American military personnel to talk. Schoeffel, a retired navy pilot living in Jacksonville, tells about his experience as a