Interview with POW Rick Bates – Aug 22, 2020
Interview with Rick Bates, former US Air Force F-4 pilot, and Vietnam War POW. Rick talks about his experience in the Air Force and as a POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
Interview with Rick Bates, former US Air Force F-4 pilot, and Vietnam War POW. Rick talks about his experience in the Air Force and as a POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
Inspiring stories of heroism and gripping tales of captivity of four Vietnam Medal of Honor recipients and four former Vietnam Prisoners of War. Each recalled their experiences and answered questions at the National Infantry Foundation’s “Vietnam: Valor and Sacrifice” symposium. The symposium was part of the dedication of the new Vietnam Memorial Plaza, featuring the Dignity Memorial® Vietnam Wall at the National Infantry Museum.
On September 9, 1965, Admiral James Stockdale’s A-4 Skyhawk jet was shot down in Vietnam. He was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese and spent the next seven years being tortured and subjected to unimaginable loneliness and terror. Fortunately, three years earlier, he was recommended a book. That book, he says, saved his life. After twenty years in the navy, Stockdale decided to go back to school. He enrolled in a two-year graduate program at
Vietnam Prisoners of War recall their experiences and the inspirational story of how they not only survived their imprisonment, but found growth and gratitude afterwards. Their stories are juxtaposed with those of recent Naval Academy Midshipmen who are facing the COVID pandemic and applying those same foundational values to their own experiences.
Shot card: ROLL: R36F-439 -HANOI -FIRST FLIGHT-14 MARCH 1973 Reel 8 1) CUs of Vietnamese people watching release ceremony. 2) Sequence showing returnees debarking bus, lining up, and stepping forward as their names are called: Lt Col H. C. Copeland, USAF; Lt Charles Zuhoski, USN; Capt Wallace Newcomb, USAF; Capt Carl Chambers, USAF; Maj Glenn Wilson, USAF; Capt Lauren Lengyel, USAF; Maj Glenn Myers, USAF; Maj Thomas Norris, USAF; Maj Thomas Parrott, USAF; Comdr Leo