Former POWs Gather for a 20th Reunion

On this Independence Day weekend, 178 Americans are celebrating another kind of freedom--the 20th anniversary of their release from prisoner of war camps in Vietnam.

On Saturday, many of the former POWs, their wives and children visited Pikes Peak, where a young schoolteacher, Katharine Lee Bates, was inspired by the view to write “America the Beautiful” a century ago.

The reunion will be marked today by a memorial service at the Air Force Academy chapel, honoring fallen comrades.

For the most part, the POWs and their families were enjoying getting together and reminiscing amid activities that included ballooning, golf and gambling. There was barbecue, a concert and a fireworks display.

“We like to get back together again because we lived some pretty traumatic experiences together,” said Ross Terry, a Navy pilot from Pensacola, Fla., and a POW for nearly seven years. “We jell back together in our hearts and our minds thinking of the things we went through and how we had to help one another to keep our minds right.”

The former POWs watched for the first time videos of their release in Hanoi 20 years ago. They talked about each POW as they walked toward the transport plane carrying them to freedom.

Cole Black of Escondido, Calif., saw himself saluting an officer on the Tarmac, as each man did before boarding the plane, and saying, “Reporting back to duty, sir.”

“As I sit here looking at those now, I just remember that as a pretty happy time,” he said. “It was really a funny time too. They got us on this airplane and everybody was really quiet. We really couldn’t believe this was happening.”