RETURNING TO A WORLD THAT NO LONGER EXISTED
In February and March 1973, dozens of flights on U.S. Air Force C-141A Starlifters began the journey home for 591 prisoners of war in Southeast Asia. The Paris Peace Accords, signed on Jan. 27, 1973, ended the U.S. military’s involvement in Vietnam and provided for the release of the POWs. Most had been held in North Vietnamese prisons and were freed in Hanoi. Others were freed near Saigon (the release site for Viet Cong captives held in South Vietnam) and Hong Kong (three prisoners who had been held in China).
To ease the POWs’ reentry into American life, the Defense Department created Operation Homecoming, a five-year multifaceted program that included not only the flight home but also procedures to evaluate the physical and mental condition of repatriated prisoners of war, collect data from those RPOWs for use in future wars, and help the men return as much as possible to their former life or move forward in a different direction, with a particular emphasis on reintegration into their family after a long separation.
I participated in that process as a senior Army psychologist working with Army returnees. I had served two tours in Vietnam as a combat infantry adviser (1966-67 and 1968-69). I received seven valor wards, a Purple Heart and an Air Medal. While earning a doctorate in counseling psychology, I wrote my dissertation on the adjustment of Vietnam veterans. Afterward, I continued my research on Vietnam vets.
The first stop on the Operation Homecoming journey was Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Onboard the aircraft were flight surgeons (because most RPOWs were pilots, the planners thought they would prefer flight surgeons to regular physicians), nurses and aeromedical technicians. Over several weeks, 54 flights transported 325 Air Force, 138 Navy, 77 Army and 26 Marine returnees, along with 25 civilians including two German nurses captured outside of Da
