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. Air Force lieutenant colonel. “It was a good mission. We needed to nip that in the bud, and we did. Actually, Vietnam was successful. We stopped communism.”
On Nov. 29, 1970, 43 U.S. servicemen gathered in the Hoa Lo prison compound, often called the “Hanoi Hilton,” and performed an act of retaliation— a church service. Nine days earlier, after a failed attempt by U.S. Special Forces to liberate the prisoners, the North Vietnamese captors had removed them
Amy Shively Hawk knew she had to write about her stepfather’s experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam when she heard the recordings he had made about that time. On the Department of Defense’s Prisoner of War/Missing in Action website, James Richard Shively’s name is one of 1,756 names
A North Vietnamese lieutenant was released today as part of a one‐for‐one prisoner exchange initiated by the enemy, United States officials said. These sources said that when the Vietcong released S. Sgt. John C. Sexton Jr. of the Army three days ago they told him that they expected the United
A local war hero who spent seven years in a prisoner of war camp with Arizona Senator John McCain has died. 74-year-old retired Air Force Colonel Warren Lilly died over the weekend after a sudden fall. Lilly was shot down over Cambodia during the Vietnam War and spent more than seven years
Summer may be gone for a while, but the glorious, crisp mid-autumn weather that we so often experience in Iowa was in full bloom as we met at the Wakonda Club at noon for our weekly meeting. President Don Flannery welcomed us and called on Rob Hedgepeth for words of