James Shively, 63; Spent 6 Years as Vietnam POW, Became U.S. Prosecutor

James Shively, a Vietnam prisoner of war who became a federal prosecutor in eastern Washington, died Feb. 18 after a long fight with cancer, his daughter said. He was 63.

Shively died 33 years to the day after he was released by the North Vietnamese.

“It was just like Dad to do everything right to the day,” Laura Watson, one of his four daughters, said Wednesday.

Shively entered the Air Force in 1964. In 1966, he was assigned to fly F-105 jets based in Thailand as part of the war effort in Vietnam. His jet was shot down over North Vietnam on May 5, 1967; he ejected and landed in a rice paddy near Hanoi. After capture, he was paraded through the streets of Hanoi and underwent weeks of interrogation and torture before being held at the infamous POW camp known as the “Hanoi Hilton.” He was released Feb. 18, 1973.

After a career spanning two decades with the Justice Department, Shively retired in 2004 as the first assistant U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Washington. He was acting U.S. attorney from 2000 to 2001.