For Charlie Plumb, a retired Navy captain shot down after 74 successful missions, seeing many of the guys he was held with in a North Vietnamese prison was an indescribable experience on Tuesday, May 23.
“Seeing these guys I haven’t seen in a long time is really neat, especially when you’re in a prison cell with nothing else to do; you get to know these guys really well,” said Plumb, who spent six years in the “Hanoi Hilton” prison. “It’s a bond that can’t be replicated and can’t be broken. Some of the guys saved my life, and some guys said I saved their lives.”
Nearly 170 American prisoners of war, including Plumb, marked on Tuesday the 50th anniversary of their release following the Paris Peace Accords that ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War with a visit to the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda. It was the first day of what will be three days of events at the library.
Nixon’s administration negotiated the release of 591 American prisoners, who returned home in February and March 1973. On May 24, 1973, the president and his wife, Pat, hosted the largest dinner in White House history – still to this date – in honor of the POWs. This week’s Reunion includes a formal dinner in the library’s replica of the White House East Room that is meant to recreate that state dinner, down to the menu items and centerpieces.
The Reunion started Tuesday with a parade…
