Strength through endurance: from POW to Ohio farmer (Paul Kari)

A story of survival, endurance, and overcoming obstacles for your Memorial Day.

Lt. Col. Paul Kari spent nearly eight years as a POW after being shot down over North Vietnam. What happened afterward also tested his limits.

Kari and I walked the land on his pristine spread in West Liberty. “I started with nothing and now I have what you see. 907 acres total.” Kari said.

For the old fighter pilot, the journey from freedom, here to West Liberty, was anything but as straight as the plane flies.

When asked to pick one word to describe his life, Kari thought for a moment and answered, “Perseverance” another long pause, “I never give up”.

Other Publications You Might Be Interested In

Ex-POW recalls Hainan Island (Phillip Smith)

News of the emergency landing of a U.S. spy plane on China’s Hainan Island is giving flashbacks to a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who spent 7-1/2 years as a POW in China. It was on that island that Philip Smith spent his first hours after he was shot down

Read More »

To Capt. Butcher ‘From A Grateful City’

Air Force Capt. Jack M. Butcher who a few years ago was playing “Hail To The Victors” as a member of the University of Michigan Marching Band, heard that fight song played in his honor Saturday afternoon. Ann Arbor’s first prisoner of war to return from Vietnam was welcomed home

Read More »

Veteran’s Day: The cost of freedom (Robert Hudson)

When the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center held the sixth Annual POW/MIA Run in September to honor all current and former prisoners of war and Americans still listed as missing in action, the big story that particular day was the run. However, the real story to remember from

Read More »

P.O.W. Casualties Reported (Carroll Beeler)

Tass, the Soviet press agency, reported from Hanoi today that American air strikes over the North Vietnamese capital had inflicted casualties on Ameri can pilots held prisoner there. A Tass correspondent, Alex ander Mineyev, said that raids “during three straight nights” had dropped bombs in the area of a prison

Read More »