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.”
Three Navy airmen told yesterday of having given information under torture to the North Vietnamese. But each said he had been able to offer some, resistance and none seemed in any way apologetic. “I would say I did not break,” said Capt. James P. Mehl of Hauppauge, L. I., a
Commemorating Veterans Day at the Deuel High School gym Monday, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Lebert recounted his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Lebert, a 1960 graduate of Watertown High School, joined the Air Force in 1965. During his 89th mission, in January 1968, Lebert’s plane
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
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
After an almost imperceptible hesitation, Mike Lenker stood. About 500 people politely applauded when Lenker, 60, was introduced as a prisoner of the Vietnam War. It was a fleeting formality between the Harlem High School Choraleers’ “Song for the Unsung Hero” and the keynote speech, part of the hourlong Tribute