State Tells Vietnam Ex-POW Only Dead POWs’ Kin Get Aid (Johnnie Ray)

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.

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Retired Navy Capt. Charles Gillespie Jr. of San Marcos, who was shot down over Vietnam and spent 5 1/2 years in the “Hanoi Hilton” POW prison, was identified Thursday as the pilot killed in a civilian plane crash, officials said. Gillespie, 60, was flying a turboprop plane 80 miles northwest

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