Vietnam is often called “the war that won’t go away”, largely because of the continuing controversy of the POW/MIA (Prisoners Of War / Missing In Action) issue. Families of those who were POW/MIA in Vietnam organized an activist movement which went on to pursue a question which still haunts America nearly decades later: were soldiers left behind in captivity after the Vietnam War? Once the exclusive domain of a select fraternity of soldiers’ wives, the POW/MIA movement has become both a fixture of American life and a distinct subculture within it.
John McCain on the horrors he endured as a POW
“I thought perhaps I was going to die,” McCain told ABC’s Sam Donaldson in a 1999 interview when describing being captured and tortured by the Vietcong.
