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.
“Paul K. “P.K.” Robinson, Jr., was born January 5, 1939, in Galion, Ohio. He graduated from Galion Senior High School in 1957. During his school years, he was on the National Honor Society and lettered on the football and baseball teams. Following graduation from High School, “P.K.” attended one year
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,
He was just a soldier on a bracelet in a basket – Army 1st Lt. John Dunn, who was taken prisoner in 1968. I decided his Irish Dunn was a good match for my Irish Cahill. The Vietnam War was the first time I heard of prisoners of war. Though
Lawmakers are pushing for swift passage of legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal — the nation’s highest civilian honor — to a Navy veteran who was the first aviator shot down in the Vietnam War and the second-longest held prisoner of war in U.S. history. Retired Cmdr. Everett Alvarez
On June 27, 1972, U.S. Air Force Capt. David E. Baker flew his O-2 Skymaster over Cambodia in an attack on North Vietnamese supply stashes. As a forward air controller during this Vietnam War mission, he traveled low and slow, marking targets and coordinating airstrikes in his prop-driven plane. The