Recorded live at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum's 50th-Anniversary Reunion for former Vietnam War POWs in May 2023, Sid Stockdale, one of Vice Admiral Jim and League of Wives co-founder Sybil Stockdale's four sons, joins Tyler to discuss what he remembers of his parents' critical roles in the Vietnam POW crisis and how their impact reverberates five decades later. Sid's book, A World Apart: Growing Up Stockdale During Vietnam, is available now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ..read more

In November of 1970, fifty-six U.S. Special Forces soldiers executed the most ambitious rescue mission of the Vietnam War, raiding a North Vietnamese prison camp known as "Son Tay," just outside of Hanoi. In this episode, we hear from Terry Buckler, the youngest of the Son Tay Raiders. At the time, he was a 20-year-old Buck Sergeant who had never before seen combat. Despite this lack of experience, Terry was selected out of thousands of top-tier applicants to participate in this hazardous mission. Terry walks us through the events leading up to the raid and details what happened when their cho ..read more

In Part 2 of our two-part focus on the League of Wives, we examine how exactly this courageous band of women was able to organize under Sybil Stockdale and make a significant impact on the return of their lost men, with guidance from expert historian and author Heath Hardage Lee, We rejoin Andrea Rander, wife of Chief Warrant Officer Donald Rander, and Pat Mearns, wife of Lt. Col. Arthur Mearns, in 1967. Andrea has been notified that Don was a confirmed POW, being held in North Vietnam with several hundred other American servicemen; a surprising phone call in '69 launches her and fellow wives ..read more

In Part 1 of our two-part focus on the League of Wives, we are introduced to Andrea Rander and Pat Mearns, each young mothers to two girls when their husbands were shot down in North Vietnam. Guided by expert historian and author Heath Hardage Lee, we set the scene for the League's formation by tracing Andrea and Pat's experiences up until the notification, or lack thereof, that their husbands had been captured. In the next chapter, we'll focus on how exactly this courageous band of women was able to organize under leader Sybil Stockdale and make a significant impact on the return of their los ..read more

In this special episode, we depart from our central narrative and turn our attention to Washington D.C., where Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson & Richard Nixon were making a crucial impact on the treatment and release of the hundreds of American prisoners of war who were being brutally mistreated in North Vietnamese prisons. By way of recordings from the White House, curator & historian Bob Bostock walks us down President Nixon's path to the Presidency and examines how his administration's policies on Vietnam intersected with his personal attention to the POW crisis. Newly-unearthed archiv ..read more

Mike McDaniel was nine years old when his father, Capt. Red McDaniel, was shot down and captured in the jungles of North Vietnam on May 19, 1967. It would be three long years until he and the rest of the clan heard any further news on the status of their patriarch. Meanwhile, Everett hinged his optimism on the dream of an eventual reunion with his wife, whom had promised that she would wait for him forever. This episode focuses in on Red & Everett's communication (or lack thereof) with their loved ones back on US soil. Though their family members were not forced to endure horrific maltreat ..read more

18 months into Cmdr. Everett Alvarez's captivity, the North Vietnamese "torture regime" begins as he and fellow prisoners are forced to endure physical abuse, in addition to mental torture, amidst already-deplorable living conditions. After Capt. Red McDaniel is shot-down in May of 1967, he, too, is imprisoned in the 'Hanoi Hilton' and immediately subjected to an array of inhumane treatment.In this episode, Everett and Red share some of their most harrowing experiences in captivity, including how their heroic displays of duty & honor overlap in connection with a daring escape attempt. We e ..read more

18 months into Cmdr. Everett Alvarez's captivity, the North Vietnamese "torture regime" begins as he and fellow prisoners are forced to endure physical abuse, in addition to mental torture, amidst already-deplorable living conditions. After Capt. Red McDaniel is shot-down in May of 1967, he, too, is imprisoned in the 'Hanoi Hilton' and immediately subjected to an array of inhumane treatment.In this episode, Everett and Red share some of their most harrowing experiences in captivity, including how their heroic displays of duty & honor overlap in connection with a daring escape attempt. We e ..read more

On a crisp afternoon in August of 1964, Everett Alvarez Jr. found himself floating in the emerald waters of Hạ Long Bay, North Vietnam, having just ejected from his flaming A-4 Skyhawk aircraft. He was about to be captured by hostile militia, becoming the first American POW in the Vietnam War. While President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration escalated aerial bombing attacks in the North, in support of the South Vietnamese, it was said that a war had not "officially" been declared; from Everett's perspective, the so-called "conflict" was about to become all-too official... This part of our st ..read more

We rewind to the year 1964 and are introduced to 26-year-old Naval aviator Everett Alvarez Jr. Hear from the now-85-year-old Commander Alvarez himself, as we follow his journey from modest beginnings in Salinas, CA to the moment of being shot down over North Vietnam, leading to more than eight years as a prisoner of war (POW). Following a brief period of American peacetime between the years of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, during which he volunteered for duty, Everett would soon be one of a handful of servicemen flying directly into the eye of a brewing storm - one that would quickly become the ..read more