May 27, 2013 - This weekend, nearly 200 former prisoners of war gathered in California for a double celebration.They marked 40 years since their release from North Vietnamese prisons, and the heroes' welcome they received at the White House.
It may have been the last large reunion of American POWs from the Vietnam War.
"In many ways it's going to be a final salute to the guys because we are losing them," said Everett Alvarez, who was the first American shot down in Vietnam.
He was beaten and tortured in captivity.
"[I was in captivity] a total of eight and a half years," Alvarez said. "We had a code: It was return with honor. Our dignity, our character that brought us through."
When Alvarez and 590 other POWs finally came home in 1973, it was a moment a war-weary nation could celebrate.
"Those are the last known prisoners of war," Walter Cronkite said at the time. "That part of the Vietnam tragedy is over." read more>>>
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