A Night of Honor for Ex-POWs

A quarter of a century ago, President Richard M. Nixon welcomed them back to the White House, a group of U.S. prisoners from the Vietnam War honored for their dedication and duty in the face of the country’s most unpopular war.

Nixon is gone, but on the grounds where he was buried, 174 men--the largest reunion of POWs since that White House visit--gathered Monday at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda to commemorate their repatriation and remember comrades who died in that long battle.

Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state who negotiated the Paris Peace Accords with the North Vietnamese that ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, welcomed the POWs home a second time, just as he did back in 1973 with Nixon at his side.

“These were the people we were thinking of for four years,” Kissinger said of the men assembled in their coats and ties, surrounded by their families. “These are the people we were trying to bring back in a way they could be proud of us.”

The first prisoners were released in February 1973, and three months later, were Nixon’s guests at the White House, where they drank champagne from crystal flutes and ate strawberry mousse from fine china.

Monday’s reunion was highlighted with a special dinner prepared by the same chef--Henry Haller--as it was 25 years ago from the same menu: sliced roast strip loin of beef au jus, a seafood ring of scallops, crab meat and lobster and strawberry mousse. Nearly 400 people in all attended the dinner.

“This is a moving and tremendous occasion for me,” Kissinger told the POWs. “You carried the honor of the United States. Whatever went wrong was the responsibility of others and the division of our country that we should never repeat.”

In the early evening, the veterans gathered for a group photo of themselves and their families, followed by a cocktail hour, where they were entertained by a Marine jazz ensemble from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

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Men gave each other bear hugs and thunderous pats on the back, knowing that few outside their world understand what they went through or how they willed themselves to emerge from years of captivity. Their wives stood off to the side, some in tears, as they listened to their husbands recount the personal terror of those days.

Some were able to laugh about their captors, openly joking about their torture sessions.

Ben Purcell, 70, of Clarkesville, Ga., was an Army lieutenant colonel when he was captured just west of Quang Tri on Feb. 8, 1968. He escaped twice from prison camps, the first time on Dec. 7, 1969, near Hanoi by persuading a North Vietnamese farmer on a bike to give him a lift.

“I told him I was a Frenchman and he gave me a ride to Hanoi,” Purcell said. “My intent was to go the French Embassy and ask for political asylum. Instead, he dropped me off at a police station. I tried to convince the police I was a Frenchman and had lost my identity card. Instead, after about two hours, two Vietnamese officials from my prison camp arrived and picked me up.”

Purcell, who spoke Vietnamese but not French, was placed in isolation and severely beaten for the escape.

At various times between 1968 and 1973, Purcell was held captive with Chuck Willis, of Pocatello, Idaho, one of many civilians who ended up as prisoners of war and endured the same harsh conditions as the servicemen.

Willis, now 72, was the Voice of America manager in Hue, when the city was captured by Communist troops on Feb. 1, 1968. Willis said 24 of his 27 employees were executed by communist troops. Only he and two Filipino engineers were kept alive and taken captive.

“Reunions like this mean a lot because it reminds us that we were the lucky ones,” said Willis, who has kept in close touch with Purcell over the years. “There were a lot of good men and women who died in captivity because of the awful conditions in the [prison] camps.”

Many of the men were grateful to be at the site of Nixon’s boyhood home and the museum that contains the highlights of his presidency and political career. They credit the 37th president of the United States, who died in 1994, with negotiating their release and ending the Vietnam War.

“It was President Nixon who brought us out and brought us home with honor,” Purcell said.

Besides Kissinger, the group was greeted by retired Adm. James Stockdale, a prisoner of war, Medal of Honor winner, and independent presidential candidate Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992. Perot was expected to make an appearance but was unable to attend.

Bob Hope, who entertained the troops each year in Vietnam during the war years, showed up with his wife, Delores. The POWs presented him with a giant birthday card signed by each of them and sang “Happy Birthday to You.” Hope turns 95 next month.

Hanoi released 591 prisoners held in North Vietnamese prisons, but more than 2,000 Americans, including some who were known to be captured alive, remain unaccounted for.

Although various administrations in Washington have insisted over the years that all living U.S. prisoners were returned home when the peace accords were signed, some ex-POWs still believe that dozens of Americans were left behind.

Frank Anton, a former Army helicopter pilot who was a POW from January 1968 to March 1973, said he does not believe that hundreds of men were left behind as some POWs-MIA groups have charged. But he thinks that some didn’t make it out.

“We do know that we left 47 men in prison camps in North and South Vietnam,” said Anton, who wrote a book about his POW experience. “There is ample evidence that these men were alive when the war ended.”

“I don’t understand why it’s so wretched for our government to admit this . . . . This is part of war,” he said. “It is going to happen in every war.”

Willis said he talked to two Navy pilots who were alive and held captive at the infamous Hanoi Hilton just before the war ended and knows they were not repatriated.

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“I talked to them during the last two months before we were sent home, but they never returned,” Willis said.

Most of the veterans at Monday’s reunion had been held captive in prisons in North Vietnam, but a few were also locked up in jungle prison camps where conditions were horrible and many men died from starvation and disease.

Anton was imprisoned at seven of those jungle camps.

He remembers anticipating his release in March of 1973 but he recalled his heart sinking when his captor told him one day: “You will stay longer because we like you.” Anton was set free soon thereafter.

On Monday, the ex-POWs listened intently to one of their own, Navy Cmdr. Everett Alvarez, who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965 and was the longest-held POW in U.S. history. Alvarez was the former deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration.

“We maintained our honor and integrity and sacrificed without expectation,” he said.