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.”
For Charlie Plumb, a retired Navy captain shot down after 74 successful missions, seeing many of the guys he was held with in a North Vietnamese prison was an indescribable experience on Tuesday, May 23. “Seeing these guys I haven’t seen in a long time is really neat, especially when
On this date in 1973, the Viet Cong released First Lieutenant Richard Bates of the U.S. Air Force. While flying a mission nearly 6 months before, he was shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner. Bates was from Plaza, ND, and was 24 when he was captured.
On the Fourth of July, the 65-year-old former Navy pilot talked about his blessings while fingering the remnant of a 57-millimeter anti-aircraft shell that downed his plane in the Vietnam War. Osborne managed to eject from his A-4 Skyhawk before it crashed, but it seems the 30-year-old casing has found
“Freedom has a taste to those who fight and almost die that the protected will never know.” –A POW saying left on a wall in the Hoa-Lo Prison known to Westerners as the “Hanoi Hilton.” A small American flag on display at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum was a patriotic
On September 9, 1965, Navy Cmdr. James Bond Stockdale was flying his A-4 Skyhawk on a mission over North Vietnam, just days after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, when his plane took fire and hurtled down. Forced to eject with seconds to spare, he landed with severe injuries: his left