Posted on 05/16/2023 7:34:06 PM PDT by bitt
ROCKVILLE, Md. — The passage of almost 60 years has done nothing to dim former Navy fighter pilot Everett Alvarez Jr.’s memories of the night that he was shot down in the South China Sea and began what would be the second-longest period of captivity for an American service member in the Vietnam War.
At 85 years old, Alvarez still vividly remembers his Douglas A4 Skyhawk filling with smoke and coming apart as he had just a few seconds to make a series of life-or-death choices.
“I was really low. I knew I had to get out right there,” he said Wednesday in an interview at his suburban Washington, D.C., home. “I was trying to get altitude, I was trying to get out to the sea [away from the North Vietnamese coastline], I was trying to maintain control, but I couldn’t do it.”
Then a lieutenant junior grade, Alvarez made one final radio transmission to his wingmen from the USS Constellation before he hit the ejector seat and bailed out into the stormy darkness on Aug. 5, 1964 — only three days after the Gulf of Tonkin incident that triggered America’s full-scale entry into the war.
“I’ll see you guys later,” he told them.
Alvarez would ultimately spend 8½ years as a prisoner of war — much of it in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.”
He was the first American to be shot down over North Vietnam and the first to be taken prisoner there. This week, he’s also among many veterans who are being honored with a “Welcome Home” celebration on the National Mall by the Vietnam War Commemoration to remember the 50th anniversary of the end of U.S. involvement in the conflict.
Only Floyd James Thompson, an Army Special Forces officer advising the South Vietnamese, was imprisoned longer. He was captured in South Vietnam on March 26, 1964 — more than five months before the Gulf of Tonkin incident — and held for nearly 10 years. He died in 2002.
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bttt
Something tells me today’s young men would cry the whole time.
I salute you and your courageous service.
He’s doing good for his age, and despite all that he’s been through.
I guess it’s true that ‘whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/navy-investigation-finds-us-sailors-captured-in-iran-did-not-meet-code-of-conduct-iran-broke-the-law
Thanks again to all who suffered like that for our country.
Alvarez never broke even as his sister (I believe that was her relation to him) sold out to Hanoi.
Much more to this story which will never be made public by this heroic flyer until he passes way. He is too much of an Officer and a Gentleman to do it.
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