On March 23, 1961, Bob Bailey became the first American prisoner of war in Southeast Asia. A combat veteran of World War II and Korea, Bailey was assistant Army attache in Laos when communist Pathet Lao guerrillas shot down the unarmed C-47 transport plane in which he and seven companions were flying. The only survivor, and suffering from severe injuries, Bailey was captured. The rebels held him in a small, unlit cell – in solitary confinement – for seventeen months while his wife and young children waited. His release was a national event: President John F. Kennedy award him the Bronze Star, the first such honor since the Korean War. Overshadowed by events in Vietnam, of the more than six hundred Americans captured or unaccounted for in Laos, only fifteen escaped or were released.
A Code To Keep: The True Story of America’s Longest-Held Civilian POW in the Vietnam War
Ernest C. Brace was a former Marine hero, banished in disgrace from the Corps. In 1965, while working as a civilian pilot in Laos, he was captured and spent the next two years in a bamboo cage with his legs in stocks. His bravery did not diminish when transferred to
