Charles “Chuck” Jackson has little memory of the crushing sound of metal as his F-4 Phantom II broke apart. What he does remember most is the split second before ejecting. A heat-seeking missile, about 6 to 8 feet long, fired by a pursuing North Vietnamese MIG-21 went right up the
Former Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan, a Vietnam prisoner of war who entered politics and was thrust into the state’s top office when his predecessor suffered a deadly stroke, died Wednesday at age 74. Kernan died at a South Bend health care facility, said Mary Downes, who was his governor’s office
The New York Times has reviewed the public comments of nearly 100 returned men and interviewed several dozen in depth. The “battle of Hanoi” as one prisoner called it, emerges as a complex and fascinating story of men under extreme stress. The tales of torture seem genuine, but physical brutality
The scene was the courtyard of a prison camp near Hanoi called Planiation Gardens, and the time was August, 1971. Eight young American enlisted men going to vash dishes passed a group of senior officers who were out shaving. The eight had made statements against the war and developed rather
It was suppertime when they came to break the news. There were seven in the delegation, including her husband’s commanding officer, a Catholic priest and a flight surgeon supplied with tranquilizers. She met them at the door of the two-story house on the Wright Patterson Air Force base in Ohio,