Vietnam Veteran Ex-POW finds trip to Hanoi Hilton healing

Vietnam POW seeks healing at Hanoi Hotel

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Ernie Suggs
December 30, 2019

The mission back to Vietnam was designed to help veterans who are still struggling with some level of post-traumatic stress disorder. The hope is that they’ll reach closure by seeing the place of their greatest trauma in a different light.

Photo: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

When retired Lt. Col. James W. Williams returned to Southeast Asia this past fall, to the site of the worst 313 days of his life, the last thing he expected to find was himself.

For a period spanning 1972-1973, Williams, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, was a prisoner at the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

As he walked through what’s left of the prison, now a propaganda-filled museum, someone stopped him in his tracks and pointed at a photograph on the wall.

There he was.

Tall. Handsome. Full afro. The only black soldier, he was leading a line of POWS, the last to leave, out of Vietnam.
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Megyn Kelly schooled Jane Fonda!

'Our Souls at Night' Team: Jane Fonda-Robert Redford Film Is an Older "Coming-of-Age Story"

"While the story follows characters of an older generation, the cast and crew argue that the film will appeal to all audiences. "I think it's a film that has no particular limits," said Fonda."

The film ended up limited because of who they picked to be in it!

When I was watching Fonda's face freeze with the question about plastic surgery, all I could think of what the witch in the Wizard of Oz melting...

Megyn Kelly, on behalf of the Vietnam veterans I know, thank you very much for reminding people what she put them through!

Megyn Kelly slams Jane Fonda’s ‘poor-me routine’
NBC News
by CLAIRE ATKINSON
JAN 22 2018

The war of words between Megyn Kelly and Jane Fonda escalated Monday after Kelly delivered a stern rebuke to the actress and attacked Fonda's anti-Vietnam War activism.

In September, during an interview with Fonda during her hour of "Today," Kelly brought up Fonda's plastic surgery, and Fonda seemed to take offense. Fonda has subsequently criticized how Kelly handled the interview, joking about it on another hour of "Today" earlier this month. Then, over the weekend, Fonda described Kelly as a poor interviewer in a conversation with Variety magazine, suggesting she would come on the show again when Kelly had “learned her stuff.”

That led to Kelly's blast at the end of her show on Monday.

"This is a woman whose name is synonymous with outrage. Look at her treatment of our military," Kelly told the audience, which clapped as the remarks continued.

Kelly mentioned that Fonda — an activist against the Vietnam War in the 1970s — had posed on an anti-aircraft gun that was used to shoot American pilots.

"She called our prisoners of war 'hypocrites and liars,'" Kelly said. "She referred to their torture as 'understandable.' She still says she is not proud of America. So the moral indignation is a bit much." read more here

UPDATE 1/25/2018
From Daily Mail
Insiders say Megyn Kelly 'got approval' from NBC bosses for Jane Fonda attack but execs are 'shocked at how far she went'

Vietnam Veteran held as POW returns to Hanoi Hilton

Vietnam POW returns to the Hanoi Hilton in search of closure
Stars and Stripes
By Paul Alexander
Published: August 12, 2014

HANOI, Vietnam — North Vietnam wasn’t on many Americans’ radar until President Lyndon B. Johnson went on radio 50 years ago to tell them about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a naval clash off the coast of the Southeast Asian nation that escalated U.S. involvement there.

The next day, Aug. 5, 1964, American bombers were pounding targets in the communist country. Antiaircraft fire hit a Navy Skyhawk piloted by Everett Alvarez Jr. near Hong Gai.

Alvarez ejected and was captured. First held nearby, he was transferred to Hanoi on Aug. 12, becoming the first U.S. prisoner of war to be taken to the Hoa Lo prison.

For seven months, Alvarez was the only POW there. Then other aviators trickled in until the cells were crowded. Using gallows humor to cope with their poor treatment, they came up with a nickname for their harsh accommodations:

The Hanoi Hilton.

Returning to Vietnam

Alvarez had been a POW for three years and three months when Air Force Lt. Lee Ellis’ F-4C Phantom jet went down on Nov. 7, 1967, during a mission to pound the guns that protected the Quang Khe ferry near Route 1A, the main thoroughfare for transporting supplies to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He and Capt. Ken Fisher had just dropped their bombs when their plane was hit.
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McCain Was Not Tortured, POW Guard Claims

McCain Was Not Tortured, POW Guard Claims

By John Hooper, The Guardian. Posted October 15, 2008.



An interview with the chief prison guard of the North Vietnamese jail in which McCain was held claims, "We never tortured McCain."

The Republican US presidential candidate John McCain was not tortured during his captivity in North Vietnam, the chief prison guard of the jail in which he was held has claimed.

In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Nguyen Tien Tran acknowledged that conditions in the prison were "tough, though not inhuman". But, he added: "We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded."

McCain, who fell into enemy hands after his plane was shot down in 1967, has frequently referred to being tortured and has cited his experiences as a reason for vigorously opposing the endorsement by the Bush administration of the use of techniques such as "water-boarding" on terrorist suspects.

Shortly after his release in 1973 McCain told US News & World Report that his prison guards had beaten him "from pillar to post". After being worked over at intervals for four days, he said, he had become suicidal and agreed to sign a "confession" admitting to war crimes.

In his 1999 autobiography, Faith of My Fathers, he described how after his capture he was subjected to inhuman treatment in an effort to force him to disclose his ship's name, squadron number and the target of his final mission. He was threatened with the withdrawal of medical assistance and, while still suffering from his crash injuries, his guards "knocked me around a little".

For his service in Vietnam and his actions as a POW, McCain was awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, the Navy Commendation Medal and the Purple Heart.

Tran, now 75, said McCain reached Hanoi with the worst injuries he had seen in a downed pilot. But he denied torturing him, saying it was his mission to ensure that McCain survived. As the son of the US naval commander in Vietnam, he offered a potential valuable propaganda weapon.
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Another Vietnam POW comes out against John McCain

POW Imprisoned with McCain Goes on TV: McCain 'Not Cut Out to be President'
Brave New Films
Sep 02, 2008
September 2, 2008, Los Angeles, CA - Dr. Philip Butler on McCain: "I think I can say with authority that the Prisoner Of War experience is not a good prerequisite for President. John McCain is not somebody I would like to see with his finger near the red button. Dr. Philip Butler, a highly decorated combat veteran who was imprisoned alongside John McCain at the infamous 'Hanoi Hilton' prison in Vietnam, has gone on record with his opinion of the GOP presidential candidate in a short video interview with Brave New PAC. Click here to watch the video of Philip Butler.
Dr. Butler was shot down over North Vietnam in April, 1965 and was brought to the Hanoi Hilton prison, two and a half years prior to McCain's arrival. He spent eight years in captivity. Butler is critical of McCain's habitual use of his P.O.W. story to advance his presidential campaign.
"John has allowed I think the media to make him out to be the P.O.W., the hero, and in fact there were over 600 just like him who performed just as well." Echoing a similar assertion from General Wesley Clark two months ago, Butler continues, "I think I can say with authority that the Prisoner Of War experience is not a good prerequisite for President of the United States."Having lived across the hall from John McCain at the U.S. Naval Academy prior to combat, Butler was a close witness to McCain's famously volatile temperament. "He was very sensitive and touchy and just easy to anger," says Dr. Butler. "John McCain is not somebody I would like to see with his finger near the red button." Butler continues, "John McCain's temperament makes it clear that he is not cut out to be President of the United States."
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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/11054