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.
The Vietnam War lasted almost 20 years. It was the first war the U.S. had lost. However, the return home of the Prisoners-of-War was widely celebrated. They were held captive for almost nine years, the longest of any American war. Those pilots who survived shootdown were held in secluded prisons, hidden from the outside world except for occasional propaganda films.In 1992 I received permission from the Vietnam government to return to Hanoi and the prison
COL ROBERT CERTAIN | U.S. Air Force, B-52 Navigator, 307th Strategic Air Wing – Air Force
Inspect the savage sufferings and breaking points the American captives endured at the hands of their Vietnamese captors during the Vietnam Conflict as we touch down on Southern & Northern Vietnam camps as well as other outpost sites deep in the Indo-Chinese borderlands with Aldo scouring stories from firsthand accounts of real hard-boiled prisoners of war — including collaborators with the enemy. ——— ———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ———— — 0:24 Northern prisoner camps
Jeremiah Denton delivers a few words on the tarmac after his release in 1973
