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.”
A young Long Island marine who spent 18 months as a prisoner of war was acquitted today of charges that he had run from his unit and, when captured, had made propaganda statements broadcast over the Hanoi radio. The decision freed Sgt. Jon M. Sweeney, 21 years old, of West
Their code was to return with honor. The inhumane treatment can hardly be understood by most of us. As prisoners of war in Vietnam, it was desperate at times after the torture, but Capt. Robert Biss says he always knew he was coming home.
Ray Alcorn grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. He served 30 years in the U.S. Navy including seven years as a prisoner of war. His last assignment before retirement as a Captain was as Dean of Students at the Naval War College. Alcorn and his wife, Karen, moved to
The engineered violence U.S. Air Force pilots Ron Mastin and Tom Storey felt ejecting from an F-4 Phantom at 500 miles per hour was more shocking than impact of North Vietnamese ordinance that sent their jet crashing to the ground on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. On Mastin’s 34th aerial reconnaissance