{"id":55547,"date":"2014-10-01T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=55547"},"modified":"2014-10-03T12:02:34","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T16:02:34","slug":"james-craig-phony-pow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=55547","title":{"rendered":"James Craig; phony POW"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"James<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Mary sends us her work on James Ron Craig who was featured in the Arkansas Harrison Daily Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Being shot down over Cambodia and spending 18 days in captivity has a way of changing a man.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I started to believe in something greater than myself,\u201d James \u201cRon\u201d Craig said.<\/p>\n

Craig was honored on August 19 by the presentation of medals he earned during his service in the Vietnam War. Doing the honor was Steve Gray, the military representative of Sen. John Boozman, and it came during a meeting of the Disabled American Veterans.<\/p>\n

In addition to his Purple Heart, Craig was presented with the Vietnam Campaign Medal; the Cross of Gallantry; the Vietnam Service Medal; the National Defense Medal; the Army Commendation Medal; the Bronze Star; and the Combat Infantry Badge, as well as his marksman bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 46 years later, but it\u2019s great,\u201d Craig said.<\/p>\n

Craig admitted during the event to having flashbacks of Vietnam. They included memories of the Tet offensive, which occurred in early 1968. He turned 21 during Tet, Craig said, but there were times when he thought he would never see that birthday.<\/p>\n

His service with Company D 2nd Battalion 7th Air Cavalry also included flying several missions in a gun ship helicopter. One of those missions ended in his being shot down along with seven other Americans. Craig managed to escape from his captors, but he later learned that his mother had been sent a letter informing her he was missing in action.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, well, he wasn’t a POW. According to DPMO<\/a>, the only Craig listed is Phillip Charles Craig, a Navy O-3 from Oneida, NY whose remains were brought home in 1986.<\/p>\n

Craig was indeed in D Co. 2\/7 Cav, in fact he was in the company when John Noble Holcomb<\/a> earned his Medal of Honor posthumously as a member of D 2\/7 Cav. But, Mr Craig didn’t earn a Purple Heart, either;<\/p>\n

\"James<\/a><\/p>\n

\"James<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary sends us her work on James Ron Craig who was featured in the Arkansas Harrison … James Craig; phony POW<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55547","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}