Last week the Nixon Presidential Library, in Yorba Linda, Calif., held a reunion of veterans – former prisoners of war held captive in North Vietnam – who were hailed as heroes, a word that still makes them uncomfortable.
“As POWs, we don’t want people to honor us or call us heroes; we’re not heroes,” said Lieutenant Commander Mike McGrath. “We just served our country, and we got back with our families.”
McGrath was a Navy pilot when he was shot down over Vietnam. He spent six years in captivity at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” enduring brutal interrogations. “They tortured us. They broke every single one of us,” he said.
Lieutenant Jack Ensch, a Navy pilot who was shot down in 1967, said, “I had a wife and three little girls back home. I certainly wanted to see them again.”
R&I~Smit
Anothermike
Article URL : https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-vietnam-war-pows-reunited-insist-they-are-not-heroes/