Your Daily Briefing: How a Vietnam POW survived to salute the flag when he returned home

Gary Estwick, Nashville Tennessean
Updated ·3 min read
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Hey Nashville. I'm Gary Estwick. One of my many hats at The Tennessean is race and culture editor. I want to share a story.

I’ll never forget reporter Danielle Dreilinger’s message when she let us know she made contact with our first Vietnam War veteran. For me, the crowning achievement of our series.

We replied on our internal messaging app with GIFs and celebratory words. For Danielle’s task was about as close to a needle in a haystack as you can find in journalism: Track down three Americans whose actions during the Vietnam War were immortalized through Associated Press photographs.

Former POW and U.S. Air Force TSGT James R. Cook salutes the colors from his stretcher as he is carried from the C-141 aircraft. TSGT Cook was captured on 21 Dec 72 and released by the North Vietnamese in Hanoi 12 Feb 73. U.S. Air Force photo.
Former POW and U.S. Air Force TSGT James R. Cook salutes the colors from his stretcher as he is carried from the C-141 aircraft. TSGT Cook was captured on 21 Dec 72 and released by the North Vietnamese in Hanoi 12 Feb 73. U.S. Air Force photo.

To get started, Jeremy Harmon (regional photo editor) supplied dozens of historic photos circa the early 1960s to the mid-1970s.

A paratrooper from Tennessee holding a puppy as he groped about in a cave entrance on a river bank in Lam Dong Province. A corporal from Texas peeking over the top of his mortar tube as he waited for a shell to hit a target during fighting against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese northwest of Qunag Ngai in South Viet Nam. A staff Sergeant from Florida emptying his bunker in a rubber plantation near Bien Hoa, Vietnam, his helmet full of mud water.

Sanh. He placed a sign at this spot: HOME IS WHERE You DIG IT!

For weeks, Danielle canvassed America, searching for U.S. veterans and support staff in Associated Press photos. Far from an easy task when all she had as leads were photo captions listing names and hometowns of people pictured, information that sometimes proved to be inaccurate.

The search started with photos, but didn’t end there.

From Danielle: “We combed through the Associated Press archives, the Library of Congress, Getty, the National Archives and the U.S. Department of Defense Flickr collection, among other photo collections, looking for historic moments, visually striking shots, Southern residents, women and Black veterans. Where the subjects in the photo were bylined, we checked a range of directories, including Google, Ancestry’s Military Records collection, Lexis-Nexis public records, Together We Served, Legacy and Facebook, using a variety of spellings. We put out the word to various veterans’ groups and historians for specific military divisions and operations, prisoners of war, the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center and Operation Homecoming.”

There is little time for cleanliness or relaxation at Charlie Med, the makeshift hospital of Company, 3rd Marine Medical Battalion, handling the wounded at Khe Sanh, Vietnam, March 8, 1968. Doctors, working in the cramped area under continuous battle conditions, make daily life and death decisions in determining the order of who receives treatment for wounds. Using instruments and medicines stored in empty Howitzer cases, Dr. Joseph W. Wolfe, Rutledge, Tenn., center, works on a wounded soldier in the crowded underground hospital bunker at Khe Sanh while Dr. James Finnegan, left, of Philadelphia, and Dr. Edward M. Feldman, Forest Hills, N.Y., back to camera, stand by, all wearing protective flak jackets. (AP Photo/John T. Wheeler)

We started on Jan. 3. Less than two weeks later, Danielle reached her first U.S. veteran: Dr. James Wolfe. Within days/weeks, she tracked down Paul Longgrear and James Cook.

The story themes are similar: Through exhaustive interviews, Danielle explains what the three men were doing right before their actions were recorded in photos, and what’s going on in their lives in 2023.

In the series, we also wrote about:

We enjoyed creating these stories. And we think you’ll enjoy reading them. Let us know what you think.

p.s.

There's one veteran Danielle didn't reach in time. In her words:

"He spent his post-Vietnam life helping the indigenous people who fought beside him. It was captured in a striking photo I saw last year, before this project began. I called the number on his nonprofit paperwork. His friend picked up. When I asked for the veteran, I heard his friend suck down a quick breath. The man had died the week before.

"This generation is leaving the Earth."

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Daily Briefing: How a Vietnam POW survived to salute the flag when he returned home