American Veterans Center’s 2006 conference panel on Vietnam: The POW Experience, featuring Col. George “Bud” Day, Maj. Gen. Edward Mechenbier, Capt. Jack Fellowes, and Lt. Col. Anthony Marion Marshall.
Captured and held in a prisoner of war camp for five years, Dr. Kushner’s tale of torture, abuse, survival, humanity, and perseverance was both sobering and moving. As our closing keynote speaker for VMI’s Vietnam symposium ‘The Vietnam War at 50,’ our audience leaves on a powerful note among the several personal stories they heard today.
On July 18, 1965, U.S. Navy Commander Jeremiah Denton took off from the aircraft carrier USS Independence leading a 28-plane mission over the city of Thanh Hoa in North Vietnam. Denton’s plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire during the attack, and for the next eight long years, he would battle the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. As the senior American officer at the prison, Denton was forced by
Commander George Coker was one of the “Alcatraz 11,” a group considered by the North Vietnamese to be the resistance leadership, even though he was a junior officer. The Alcatraz 11 were moved from Hao Lo to a separate facility “Alcatraz” in 1967. Among them were Jim Stockdale and Bob Shumaker. Like Shumaker, Coker was a key communications link in the command structure at Hao Lo and the other Hanoi prisons. He also has the
Robert Certain took part in the massive aerial battle that effectively ended the Vietnam War. But it left a mark — the death of half his bomber crew, enemy capture, imprisonment and making his way as a Warrior in the peaceful calling of public ministry.
