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1 Introduction “We sometimes fondly say that we classify ourselves as one of the longest rescues in history.” William andrew (bill) Robinson, a bearlike man, grinned and gently shook with laughter as he finished recounting the outline of his capture story during an interview at the national Prisoner of War museum in andersonville, georgia. Robinson was not “rescued” in the literal military sense of the word— quite the contrary. he spent 2,703 days as a prisoner of the north Vietnamese. his use of the phrase refers to the incident that resulted in his capture. on 20 september 1965 Robinson and his fellow crewmembers of an air force search and Rescue team, call sign dutchy 41, departed nakhon Phanom Royal Thai air force base, Thailand, on a mission to recover an air force pilot, captain Willis e. forby, whose f-105d Thunderchief had been shot down in ha Tinh Province in north Vietnam, near the Laotian border. The Robinson interview took place some thirty years after he, two crewmembers, and forby returned to the united states following their seven and a half years as prisoners of war (PoWs). Perhaps the passage of time had softened the memories of that fateful september day in 1965, or maybe the laughter masked the pain of an omnipresent ordeal. still, the ability to laugh or see humor in the details of an agonizing period in his life speaks volumes to Robinson’s tremendous personal courage, honor, and love of life. in some ways, “the longest rescue” also signifies a type of emotional rescue from, or triumph over, the heartache of a difficult childhood and the long road to fulfillment following his release from captivity. finally, the phrase extends to the high regard with which many americans now view former prisoners of war, which has not always been the case, an about-face that stems to a degree from the public perception and memory of Vietnam-era PoWs.1 americans have been held as prisoners or captives since the frontier wars of the colonial era, but they have not always been viewed, or remembered, in heroic or patriotic terms. one recent study of american prisoners during the Revolutionary War has been aptly titled Forgotten Patriots, and its author, edwin g. burrows, explains 2 THE LONGEST RESCUE how “rank historicide,” animated by a desire for commercial development and “anglo-american reconciliation,” cast the Revolutionary War prisoners from “the bonds of memory.”2 in many respects, it was the plight of captured americans during the civil War that first shaped the nation’s public memory of prisoners of war, largely as a consequence of the tragic outcome at camp sumter in andersonville , georgia, where nearly 13,000 u.s. soldiers died. in the postwar years, former union prisoners of war were typically viewed as victims of southern atrocities, but they experienced great difficulty in obtaining pensions from the federal government for medical conditions and physical disabilities related to their time in prison.3 on four separate occasions the u.s. congress failed to pass federal pension legislation for former prisoners as a distinct group, although some former prisoners obtained them by virtue of special-order private pension awards granted by individual congressmen or as regular veterans.4 by contrast, former union prisoners of war could count on politicians to use them for political purposes, most noticeably as a component of a Republican political strategy known as “waving the bloody shirt,” but they did not always enjoy a place of honor and respect alongside the hallowed warriors who saved the republic.5 in fact, northern military and civilian leaders questioned the patriotism and the individual character of captured union soldiers who subsequently agreed to take an oath of parole from their confederate captors. These were men who returned to friendly lines and pledged not to bear arms against their captors until they were formally exchanged for an enemy captive. suspicions arose as early as september 1862, when the number of paroled prisoners increased at an alarming rate. Responding to the perceived crisis, secretary of War edwin m. stanton declared, “There is reason to fear that many voluntarily surrender for the sake of getting home.”6 america’s civil War generation was not the only one to struggle with reconciling the notions of martial honor and surrender. as the foremost scholar of the american prisoner-of-war experience, Robert c. doyle, has explained, “The american vision of success demands victory in war. capture initially signals defeat and failure; captivity...

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