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 Viet Nam Veterans of America Chapter 203 recognized POW John Sparks at its March meeting on Monday night. In April, 1968, Mr. Sparks was flying a reconnaissance mission over North Viet Nam when his OV-1 Mohawk twin engine fixed wing aircraft was shot down. He was captured and spent
On Oct. 25, 1967, now retired Lt. Col. Richard Smith and his wingmen had orders to bomb the Paul Doumer Bridge in North Vietnam; the bridge was a mile long and one of the most heavily defended positions in Southeast Asia. Smith said that leading up to the mission, he
Capt. Davis flew 57 combat missions off the aircraft carrier Oriskany during the Vietnam War before being shot down in his A-1 Skyraider on Aug. 26, 1965. After spending the night in a rainy ditch accompanied by a large snake, he was captured and marched for 19 days to Hanoi.
The bombing started on Dec. 18, 1972 and lasted 11 days. Waves of B-52s dropped 20,000 tons of ordnance on and near the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi and the port city of Haiphong. For the nearly 600 American POWs held by the North Vietnamese, the destruction wreaked by Operation