In March 2016, Norm McDaniel, one of our long time neighbors on Monterey Circle, went to Vietnam again. This time he had a return ticket before he departed. The first time, the trip was to be a one-year tour flying combat missions over North Vietnam from Takhli Air Base, Thailand starting in February, 1966. However, that one-year tour became a seven-year tour because Norm’s plane was shot-down near Hanoi in Jul, 1966 where he and four of his five other crew members were captured and remained Prisoners of War (POWs) of the North Vietnamese until February, 1973. One of the six crewmembers of the EB-66C Airplane in which he flew did not survive the shoot-down by a Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM).
Norm’s return to Vietnam was his first since being repatriated in February, 1973 as part of Operation Homecoming. His return trip was part of a College of the Ozarks’ patriotic history class that provides selected students the opportunity (biennially) to visit a country and sites where U.S. Military Forces have fought. The College of the Ozarks located in Point Lookout, MO has been conducting such trips for the past 20 years to include such places as England, France, Korea, and Vietnam.
The group consisted of 12 students, 12 Vietnam War veterans, and six College of the Ozarks staff members (including the class instructor). Student selection was very competitive because only one out of 10 of those who applied was selected. Departing from the San Francisco, CA Airport on March 13, 2016, the group arrived in Saigon. During the following two weeks, moving from South to North, the group toured locations and sites (battlefields, buildings, museums, cities, and former U.S. bases) in the former South Vietnam and North Vietnam including Saigon, Tay Ninh, Bien Hao, Cam Rahn, Nha Trang, Ban Me Thuot, Pleiku, Qui Nhon, Da Nang, Hue, Dong Ha, and Hanoi. In Hanoi, the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” was toured. The Hanoi Hilton is a name given to the prison complex by captured American flyers held there where they were tortured and exploited. Its formal name is Hao Lao Prison. At each place visited, the Veteran on the tour who was stationed (or served) in that area briefed the rest of the tour group on what happened during the time he served there, and how the area is now in comparison to the 1960s or early 1970s. In Hanoi, John Fer and Norm (the two ex-POWs) briefed the group on the Hanoi Hilton, how it was laid out, and what happened to us and the other American prisoners held there.
The group departed Hanoi, flew to Taiwan, and after changing flights, flew to San Francisco. At that point, the tour group members dispersed and took flights to their individual destinations, with Norm returning to Washington-Reagan National Airport on March 26, 2016. Norm’s account of the trip is that it was great, but “There’s no place like home!” It’s truly great, and a real blessing to be a citizen of the United States of America.