U.S. Air Force (Retired) Chaplain Thomas Azar delivered the opening prayer Thursday evening at a ceremony in Shalimar, Fla. to honor American troops captured in the Vietnam War and brought back home 50 years ago. “The Elks, VFW groups, are sponsoring the 50–year anniversary when the U.S. government and the
In the early morning hours of 29 October 1963, at Tan Phu village in southernmost Vietnam, then-First Lieutenant (1LT) James N. ‘Nick’ Rowe, the Assistant Detachment Commander, Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 23, prepared for a ‘routine’ combat patrol. Rowe, Senior Special Forces (SF) Medic Master Sergeant Daniel L. Pitzer,
Air Force Maj. James R. “Jim” Berger spent over six years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war after his FC-4 jet was shot down on Dec. 2, 1966. He was released 50 years ago this past February. His release made front-page news in The News-Gazette in the weeks that
Navy Lt. Giles Norrington was making his 22nd reconnaissance flight into North Vietnamese territory when communist rebels shot off the right wing of his RA-5C Vigilante. The plane erupted into a fireball. As Norrington and his navigator, Richard Tangeman, tried to escape, Norrington thought, “It’s taking a long time to
Remember the Vietnam War and 1973? Probably not, but Air Force fighter pilot Captain Guy Dennis Gruters does. After being held as a prisoner of war for five plus years, including time in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, he was repatriated to the U.S. in 1973 along with 591 surviving POWs.