Jay Hess was 14 years into his Air Force service.
The fighter pilot, in the cockpit of an F-105 Thunderchief, was dropping 600 pound bombs in the heavily defended area around Hanoi, in north Vietnam. Hess finished the steep dive, released his bombs and began to pull out when his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. With no way out, he pulled the ejection handle.
The bright blue Corvette in David Harker’s garage holds a special place in his heart. It was a gift on the day in March 1973, when he returned to Lynchburg after five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. His classmates sold bumper stickers to raise money for the
Brigadier General (Ret.) James Latham is an Air Force veteran who served for more than 27 years, from March 1969 to August 1997. He was a command pilot with more than 5,000 flying hours to include 383 combat missions in Southeast and Southwest Asia. On October 5th, 1972, while operating
F. Harold Kushner was four months into his deployment as an Army flight surgeon in the Vietnam War when a driving rainstorm caused the helicopter he and three other soldiers occupied to crash into the side of a mountain in the middle of enemy territory. The pilot was killed on
It was December 26, 1972. The vibration from bombs exploding in the distance resonated through the walls of the North Vietnamese prison. In his cell, an American pilot peered through the barred windows where he saw the silhouette of a B-52 Stratofortress in flames. He could only watch as the
Fifteen Iowans who were held as prisoners of war will be honored with P-O-W medals in a ceremony this morning in northeast Iowa. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley will present the medals to the veterans or surviving family members in the 9-45 service at Rose Hill Cemetery in Fredericksburg. Grassley says