As U.S. prisoners of war in Iraq await their freedom, Col. Charles Brown, 439th Maintenance Group commander here recalled the end of his own POW experience 30 years earlier. On April 1, 1973, a young, Captain Brown walked off a C-9 Nightingale onto the tarmac here after spending 101 days
1,882 days; five and a half years. That’s how long Vietnam veteran Wayne Smith was a prisoner of war. “We were in pretty bad shape, we certainly were,” said Smith. He shared his story with us and dozens of people at Punta Gorda’s Military Heritage Museum. The Air Force captain’s
I was hiding under a log. Doing my best to masquerade as North Vietnam terrain, I’d pulled branches on top of me, smeared mud on my face, and arranged leaves and other foliage to stick out of my clothes. I was 20 miles behind enemy lines, having parachuted out of
Wallace (Moe) Newcomb, a former U.S. Air Force pilot during the Vietnam War, was 27-years-old when he was deployed from his base in Thailand to strike a North Vietnemese railroad yard during the height of the conflict in 1967. While over the skies of North Vietnam, Newcomb’s F-105 fighter-bomber was heavily
Thomas Collins III would like to clarify one point about his bombing missions in Vietnam, and the more than seven years he spent as a prisoner of war: It was not a mistake, not a waste, not a failure. “We needed to stop communism,” says Collins, 74, a retired U.S.