National POW-MIA Recognition Day

By Lynn R. Mitchell

Arizona Senator John McCain. Virginia’s Naval Commander Paul Galanti.

These are two who sacrificed for America during the Vietnam War when they were captured by the North Vietnamese and held captive for almost six years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. There are no words to express the gratitude necessary for those who endured the horrors at the hands of the enemy during that war.

Today Americans across the nation honored prisoners of war (POW) who made it home, and paused to remember those who are still missing in action (MIA):

There are 1,741 American personnel listed by the Defense Department’s POW/MIA Office as missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War, as of April 2009. The number of United States personnel accounted for since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 is 841. About 90 percent of the 1,741 people still missing were lost in Vietnam or areas of Laos and Cambodia under Vietnam’s wartime control, according to the National League of Families website (cited in the United States Army website).

See also Talking over iced tea with living history … former POW Paul Galanti and Richmonder Phyllis Galanti … quiet POW crusader passes away, leaves legacy.

 

 

Richmonder Phyllis Galanti … quiet POW crusader passes away, leaves legacy

By Lynn R. Mitchell

“Lonely the days and nights, my love, that we have been apart. It seems almost forever since I held you to my heart. The moments are as restless as the waves that move the sea, but every second means a step nearer, my love, to thee.”

— POW Paul Galanti’s words to wife Phyllis after his release as a POW during Vietnam War, a poem he had shared with her before they married

Phyllis Galanti burst onto the world stage when her husband, Paul Galanti, a Navy fighter pilot shot down over Hanoi in 1966, became a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. She had never wanted to be in the spotlight, this quiet and unassuming lady, but in 1971, five years after her husband’s capture and imprisonment at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” she took her battle to have him released to the people of Virginia, America, and the world, and became a national celebrity.