“The Cookie Caper” In Honor of Col Robert B. “Percy” Purcell, Prisoner
of War: North Vietnam (July 1965 – February 1973)
On Oct. 17, 1967, Chico native Tony Andrews was a 27-year-old Air Force pilot, flying F-105 fighter bombers over Vietnam. Before that day was over his life would change forever, and he would attain a status he happily would have turned down.
“It was survival. We were in survival mode every day.” And Army Command Sgt. Maj. Frederick Crowson remembers every one of those days he was held captive in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Prisoners of war and those missing in action have long told their stories of capture, torture and
Jacksonville will remember missing military members Friday and Saturday at events marking National POW/MIA Recognition Day. An open house is scheduled Friday at Jacksonville’s National POW/MIA Memorial at Cecil Airport on the city’s Westside. Speakers on Saturday will include Meghan Wagner, daughter of Navy Capt. Scott Speicher, a Cecil-based aviator who became the
One of the senior American officers in the North Vietnamese prison camps said today that the prisoners “forced” their captors “to be brutal to us” by resisting their demands to the last possible point of human endurance. Navy Capt. Jeremiah A. Denton, who has been nominated for promotion to admiral,
There is little about Phillip Butler’s appearance to suggest a man who has lived by what he calls the “warrior spirit.” Dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers, Butler wears his snowy white hair closely cut and sometimes walks with a cane. He speaks softly and enjoys a mostly quiet