Commentary
April 30, 2025, marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. As a second-generation military veteran, I commemorated that occasion by visiting the Vietnam exhibits at the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, D.C., and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia.
Fast-forward to May 21, and I had the honor and pleasure of attending a presentation given by a Vietnam veteran who had been a prisoner of war (POW) in North Vietnam’s infamous Hỏa Lò Prison, better known as the “Hanoi Hilton.” The speaker was retired U.S. Navy Commander Porter Halyburton, and the title of the event was “Reflections on Captivity.” The venue was the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum’s (NASM) Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
Preliminaries and Backstory
Opening remarks were given by Christopher Browne, NASM’s John and Adrienne Mars director, followed by curator Michael Hankins, who officially introduced Cmdr. Halyburton and also gave some backstory. Then-Lt. Cmdr. Halyburton had been serving with VF-84 (the “Jolly Rogers”) as the Radar Intercept Officer on the F-4B Phantom II. On Oct. 17, 1965, Halyburton was on his 76th combat mission when his plane was struck by North Vietnamese antiaircraft artillery fire. Sadly, his pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Stan Olmstead, did not survive the shootdown.Halyburton’s Remarks
Cmdr. Halyburton spoke for over an hour, and though he’s now 84 years old, he was full of pep and vigor in his speech delivery. I couldn’t possibly do justice to the entirety of his talk within the short confines of this article, but I shall at least attempt to convey what stood out for me as most memorable and salient points.Halyburton started off by introducing his lovely wife, Marty, to whom he has been married for 62 years. From there, he mentioned that the first time he truly feared for his life as a POW was the July 1966 Hanoi March, when he and 51 fellow prisoners were handcuffed and chained together and then paraded in front of an extremely hostile crowd in the streets of the North Vietnamese capital.
Halyburton was not allowed communications with his family for the first five years of his captivity; it wasn’t until after Ho Chi Minh’s death in 1969 that family letters were allowed and the treatment of the POWs improved.
Leadership and communication (especially the “Tap Code”) at all levels was key to the POWs survival, including (but not limited to) senior officers like then-U.S. Navy Captain (eventual Vice Admiral) James Bond Stockdale, then-U.S. Navy Col. Robbie Risner, and then-U.S. Navy Capt. Jerry Denton.
Back home, Halyburton was initially presumed to have been killed in action, and indeed a tombstone was engraved to honor his supposed death. “Not too many people have their own tombstone, but I do, and it feels good to be able to look down on the damn thing!” he joked during his speech. “Marty found out I was alive about the same time I found out that I was dead!”
One day, his captors told him “You must care for Cherry.” The “Cherry” in question was then-U.S. Air Force Maj. (later Col.) Fred Vann Cherry, Sr., an African-American. The captors assumed that pairing an African-American with a Southern white man (readers should bear in mind that the Civil Rights Movement’s fight against Southern segregation and Jim Crow laws was in full swing at this time) would cause friction and disunity.
However, the captors’ assumption proved faulty, as Halyburton and Cherry became very close friends, and Halyburton credits his cellmate experience with Cherry as being a life-changing event: “I saved his life, but it also saved me in terms of my outlook on life as a POW.”
Book-Signing and Personal Conversation
Afterwards, Cmdr. Halyburton stuck around for a book-signing, inscribing copies of both of his books, “Reflections on Captivity: A Tapestry of Stories by a Vietnam War POW” (2022), and “Old Pine and Other Poems From a Long and Fortunate Life” (2023). Porter was nice enough to make small talk with those of us who waited patiently in line for his autograph.For example, the gentleman standing immediately in front of me in the line—who coincidentally was one of my fellow U.S. Air Force Officer Training School graduates—asked the author if he knew why Doug Hegdahl, the youngest and lowest-ranking POW at the Hanoi Hilton, a mere 20-year-old Seaman Apprentice (pay grade E-2) at the time, never received a medal in recognition of his heroic exploits at the Hanoi Hilton (other than the Prisoner of War Medal that’s routinely conferred upon all American POWs). Halyburton replied that he didn’t know why this was the case, but on a pleasantly surprising note added that Hegdahl will soon be inducted into the Surface Warfare Association Hall of Fame.
When my turn came, being the military aviation technology geek that I am, I asked Halyburton a question true to my geekish nature. I asked him what his professional opinion was on how much of a disadvantage the early versions of the F-4 Phantom had against the North Vietnamese MiG-17s and MiG-21s due to the lack of a cannon, and how much of a difference-maker the addition of the gun was to the later Phantom variants.
“Well, if we had ever run into any MiGs, it would’ve made a big difference,“ he replied. ”Because we had to do a visual identification we were going to shoot down, and that negated most of our missiles. So yeah, I think later on, when MiGs did come up to fight, the tactics were, you had two: one would go in for the visual identification and gets the word and shoots from there.”
Thank you for that, Cmdr. Halyburton. As I type these words, it’s Memorial Day weekend. God bless all who served.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
