Vietnam War POWs gather, remember at Nixon Library reunion (2023)

FAQs

Vietnam War POWs gather, remember at Nixon Library reunion? ›

More than 150 Vietnam prisoners of war

They were tortured, isolated, and psychologically abused in violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949, to which North Vietnam was a signatory. Some POWs were paraded before reporters and foreign visitors and forced to confess to war crimes against the people of Vietnam. Others resisted torture and refused to comply.

There are no known living POWs left in Vietnam from the American War. Many veterans and survivors of those terrible years have returned to the country to visit and pay respects to their peers left behind. A few have even returned to live there.

In order to buy time with the American people, Nixon began to withdraw forces from Vietnam, meeting with South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu on Midway Island on June 8 to announce the first increment of redeployment. From that point on, the U.S. troop withdrawal never ceased.

With the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, the American withdrawal had a firm end date. As such, the North Vietnamese released the POWs they still held. Between February and March 1973, 591 American servicemen were released by the North Vietnamese.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lists 684 POWs returned home alive from the Vietnam War — the majority after the U.S. pulled out of the war in 1973. (The war officially ended April 30, 1975). There are 1,582 Americans still unaccounted for, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking Navy officer POW in Vietnam, was held there for nearly eight years. Navy Cmdr. James Stockdale exits an A-4 fighter-bomber weeks before being shot down over Vietnam.

As a result, Everett Alvarez, a navy pilot who was captured a couple of months after Thompson, was named as the longest held POW when the conflict was finally over.

Robert Russell Garwood (born April 1, 1946) is a former United States Marine. Often cited as the last verified American prisoner of war (POW) from the Vietnam War, Garwood was captured on September 28, 1965 by Việt Cộng forces near Da Nang, Quang Nam Province.

Estimates of total casualties

Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30%. The Ministry of Defense for Vietnam reported 849,018 military dead during the war for the period between 1955 and 1975 (of which a third were non-combat deaths).

Which president started the Vietnam War? ›

The major initiative in the Lyndon Johnson presidency was the Vietnam War. By 1968, the United States had 548,000 troops in Vietnam and had already lost 30,000 Americans there. Johnson's approval ratings had dropped from 70 percent in mid-1965 to below 40 percent by 1967, and with it, his mastery of Congress.

Eager to support Lon Nol and destroy the sanctuaries, Nixon authorized a large sweep into the border areas by a U.S. and South Vietnamese force of 20,000 men.

Agent Orange was a tactical herbicide used by the U.S. military for control of vegetation. It was named for the orange band around the storage barrel. The military sprayed Agent Orange and other tactical herbicides during the Vietnam War.

Although North Vietnam was a signatory of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, which demanded "decent and humane treatment" of prisoners of war, severe torture methods were employed, such as waterboarding, strappado (known as "the ropes" to POWs), irons, beatings, and prolonged solitary confinement.

It's been 50 years this month since Robert T. White, the last Vietnam prisoner of war released, came home. Part of his homecoming was a celebration on April 19, 1973, in Williamsburg, where his wife lived.

As a first matter, POWs receive back pay that accrued during their period of captivity. They were on active duty, possibly in a combat zone, and are entitled to all the pay that they earned during that time regardless of their captive status.

She Became America's First Female POW There. Dr. Eleanor Ardel Vietti, known as Ardel, joined the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1957 and was sent to the Ban Me Thuot Leprosarium in the midst of tiger-infested jungles.

He was in a battle and was later captured by the British, making him the only president to have been a prisoner of war. Jackson was magnetic and charming but with a quick temper that got him into many duels, two of which left bullets in him.

Who was the best American soldier in Vietnam? ›

His name is Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper, and not only was he a hero in the Vietnam War; he is also the most decorated soldier in American international combat, even eclipsing both York and Murphy. Joe Ronnie Hooper was born on August 8th, 1938 in Piedmont, South Carolina.

Joseph Alexander became a POW at 15. He was a military and civilian worker at Kelly AFB. Joseph Alexander never got to enjoy his youth. At just 14 years old, and with his grandmother by his side, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and is said to have been the youngest American prisoner of war.

Technical Sergeant Richard Bernard Fitzgibbon Jr., USAF (June 21, 1920 – June 8, 1956) was the first American to die in the Vietnam War. He was murdered by another American airman on June 8, 1956.

Using the nursery rhyme “Old McDonald Had a Farm” as a mnemonic device, he memorized over 250 prisoners' names. When the Vietnamese decided to release three prisoners from the camp, Douglas didn't want to go.

Only one fifth of America's former POWs since World War I are still living (about 22,641). More than 90% of living former POWs were captured and interned during World War II.

In the European Theater of World War II less than 2% of American POWs successfully escaped and returned to US forces. In Vietnam more than 4% of American POWs successfully escaped and reached US forces.

One of the lingering and deeply troubling aftermaths of any war is the unknown fate of those listed as missing in action (MIA). These individuals were killed on the battlefield unseen, or died as prisoners, or met with other misfortune.

Nearly a dozen general officers and one admiral were killed while supporting military operations in Vietnam. They include Maj. Gen. George William Casey Sr., whose helicopter went missing over Vietnam on July 7, 1970.

(66% of U.S. armed forces members were drafted during WWII). Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in Vietnam. Reservists killed: 5,977 National Guard: 6,140 served: 101 died.

Who was the lost soldier found in Vietnam? ›

Master Sergeant John Hartley Robertson, 76, survived the crash but was captured and tortured by North Vietnamese forces. But he went on to build a new life, according to a startling documentary.

Following the breakdown of peace talks with North Vietnam just a few days earlier, President Richard Nixon announces the beginning of a massive bombing campaign to break the stalemate. For nearly two weeks, American bombers pounded North Vietnam.

Despite his caution when dealing with international crises and his refusal to send combat troops to South Vietnam, Kennedy did escalate American involvement there. Around 700 US military personnel were in South Vietnam when he was inaugurated; on his death there were roughly 16,000.

Nixon's silent majority referred mainly to the older generation (those World War II veterans in all parts of the U.S.) but it also described many young people in the Midwest, West and in the South, many of whom eventually served in Vietnam.

"Peace with Honor" was a phrase U.S. President Richard Nixon used in a speech on January 23, 1973 to describe the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War.

Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year.

Digital History. In the 1968 election, Republican Richard Nixon claimed to have a plan to end the war in Vietnam, but, in fact, it took him five years to disengage the United States from Vietnam.

From 1962 to 1971, the U.S. Air Force sprayed nearly 19 million gallons of herbicides in Vietnam, of which at least 11 million gallons was Agent Orange, in a military project called Operation Ranch Hand.

There is currently no definitive evidence that a father's exposure to Agent Orange causes birth defects. However, an analysis of Agent Orange registry data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) suggests a link between males' exposure to Agent Orange and having children with certain birth defects.

What were the worst atrocities in Vietnam? ›

The Mỹ Lai massacre (/ˌmiːˈlaɪ/; Vietnamese: Thảm sát Mỹ Lai [tʰâːm ʂǎːt mǐˀ lāːj] ( listen)) was a war crime committed by the United States on 16 March 1968, involving the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by the United States Army in Sơn Tịnh district, South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

However, nations vary in their dedication to following these laws, and historically the treatment of POWs has varied greatly. During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.

North Vietnamese torture was exceptionally cruel--prison guards bound POWs' arms and legs with tight ropes and then dislocated them, and left men in iron foot stocks for days or weeks. Extreme beatings were common, many times resulting in POW deaths.

There are no known living POWs left in Vietnam from the American War. Many veterans and survivors of those terrible years have returned to the country to visit and pay respects to their peers left behind.

The most famous POW breakout is the 'Great Escape' in March 1944 from Stalag Luft III, a camp which held Allied aircrew. Plans for a mass escape from the camp began in April 1943, headed by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell.

William Nolde, the last American casualty of the Vietnam War. Army Col. Bill Nolde was killed by North Vietnamese artillery or rocket fire just hours after the peace treaty marking a formal end to the Vietnam War was signed on Jan. 27, 1973.

Although they expected to go home immediately after the end of the war in 1945, the majority of German prisoners continued working in the United States until 1946—arguably violating the Geneva Convention's requirement of rapid repatriation—then spent up to three more years as laborers in France and the United Kingdom.

How long can POWs be held? It depends. As a general rule, POWs must be released and repatriated without delay at the end of active hostilities. But some factors like a POW's health, parole policies, and special agreements among states can lead to earlier release.

In 1973, after the peace accords, Hanoi returned 591 American prisoners and said these were all the prisoners they had. Yet more than 2,200 American military men are still missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. Half or more of those men are known to be dead though their remains have never been recovered.

During the longest war in American history, the Vietnam War, 766 Americans are known to have been prisoners of war. Of this number, 114 died during captivity. Unlike previous wars, the length of time as a POW was extensive for many, with some being imprisoned for more than seven years.

Were any American POWs rescued from Vietnam? ›

American POWs did escape from camps in North Vietnam, some of them from camps in Hanoi. At least five escaped twice from camps in North Vietnam, some from established camps, others from guards while en-route to Hanoi.

Although North Vietnam was a signatory of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, which demanded "decent and humane treatment" of prisoners of war, severe torture methods were employed, such as waterboarding, strappado (known as "the ropes" to POWs), irons, beatings, and prolonged solitary confinement.

United States Army Colonel Floyd “Jim” Thompson, the longest held prisoner of war (POW) in American history, and his wife, Alyce, were products of the idealism of post-World War II America. When Thompson was shot down and captured, they began a journey that changed them forever.

Obama also used the Memorial Day setting to launch a twelve-year series of fiftieth anniversary events commemorating the years 1961-1973 of the war in Vietnam. The return of 591 POWs from Vietnam in February and March of 1973 was the symbolic end of the war for most Americans.

59 American women who served as civilians (including nurses) in Vietnam were also killed and died in that war. 4 were POWs.

On both sides, prisoners were tortured, abused and violated. This is shown by previously classified sources from the U.S. National Archives. NZZ / til. Much has been written in the United States about the treatment of American prisoners in North Vietnam.

Many of the women and children were held in prison camps in terrible conditions and forced on death marches. Some women were killed on sight and others were raped, beaten, and forced to become sex slaves. Much of the book showcases the words of the people who lived through this period.

The Midnight Massacre is remembered for being "the worst massacre at a POW camp in U.S. history". A museum was opened at Camp Salina in 2016.