{"id":42922,"date":"2014-04-10T08:45:56","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T12:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=42922"},"modified":"2014-04-10T09:15:01","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T13:15:01","slug":"one-reason-we-do-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=42922","title":{"rendered":"One Reason We Do This"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most TAH readers have heard about the POW held second-longest in Southeast Asia \u2013 CDR Everett Alvarez Jr., US Navy.\u00a0 He was taken prisoner on 5 August 1964, and was released on 12 Februray 1973.\u00a0 He was held POW for over 8 1\/2 years.<\/p>\n<p>And yes &#8211; you <em>did<\/em> read that correctly.\u00a0 CDR Alvarez was <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not<\/span> the US POW held longest by our enemies in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n<p>That individual was COL Floyd James Thompson, 7th Special Forces Group, US Army.\u00a0 Thompson was captured well before CDR Alvarez &#8211; on 26 March 1964 in South Vietnam.\u00a0 He was not released until 15 March 1973 &#8211; over a month after CDR Alvarez.\u00a0 In total, he was held captive for 8 years 355 days &#8211; \u00a0<em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">10 days short of 9 years<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0 He was the longest-held US POW in any conflict in US history.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;d heard of Thompson myself \u2013 until the other day.\u00a0 I ran across an article that mentioned him.<\/p>\n<p>The article <a href=\"http:\/\/csswebsrv.stripes.com\/content.php?file=GSS_GSS_260314\">can be found here<\/a>, on pages 16-18; it\u2019s in Adobe PDF.\u00a0 It covers \u2013 briefly \u2013 each man\u2019s captivity and post-Vietnam life.\u00a0 Books have also been written about both men.<\/p>\n<p>Fair warning:\u00a0 especially regarding Thompson, the article is somewhat depressing.\u00a0 Both men were abused horribly in captivity, and much of Thompson\u2019s post-Vietnam life was not pleasant.\u00a0 If you\u2019re having a bad day, you might want to defer reading the linked article until another time.<\/p>\n<p>Any time someone asks, \u201cWhy do we care about false [POW\/Purple Heart\/other military claims]?\u201d, I wish I could take about 50 copies of this article, roll them into a hard, tight roll \u2013 and whack them <i>hard<\/i> a few times across the mouth with that roll.\u00a0 Then I\u2019d like to stuff a copy in their mouth and tell them:\u00a0 \u201cRead this, asshole.\u00a0 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">That\u2019s<\/span> who they\u2019re stealing from when they make false claims about being a military \u2018hero\u2019.\u00a0 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">That\u2019s<\/span> why it matters.\u00a0 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">That\u2019s<\/span> why we care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, CDR Everett Alvarez Jr. is still with us.\u00a0 Regrettably, COL Floyd James Thompson passed away 16 July 2002 \u2013 aged 69 years and 8 days \u2013 at his home in Key West, Florida.\u00a0 May he rest in peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most TAH readers have heard about the POW held second-longest in Southeast Asia \u2013 CDR Everett &hellip; <a title=\"One Reason We Do This\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=42922\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">One Reason We Do This<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical","category-we-remember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}