Chapter Seventeen: “We Chose to Be Together”
1. Sybil Stockdale diary, n.d., 213, SBSP.
2. Ibid.
3. Louise Mulligan to Helene Knapp and Phyllis Galanti, January 9, 1973, folder 49, section 3, PEGP.
4. Ward and Burns, Vietnam War, 512
5. Richard M. Nixon, “Address to the Nation Announcing Conclusion of an Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam,” January 23, 1973, American Presidency Project, accessed August 6, 2018, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3808.
6. Donald P. Baker, “We Chose to Be Together,” Washington Post, folder 118, section 4, PEGP.
7. Helene Knapp, email message to author, May 8, 2018.
8. Sybil Stockdale diary, n.d., 216, SBSP.
9. Phyllis Galanti diary, January 24, 1973, PPGPC.
10. Phyllis Galanti, gift list from Paul’s return home, PPGPC.
11. Loudon Wainwright, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again—or Doesn’t,” Life, November 10, 1972, 37.
12. Louise Mulligan, email message to author, May 4, 2018.
13. Wainwright, “When Johnny Comes,” 37.
14. Ibid.
15. Andrea Rander, email to the author, August 8, 2018.
16. Kathleen Johnson Frisbie, in conversation with the author, October 3, 2017.
17. Patsy Crayton and Karen Butler, in conversation with the author, January, 17, 2015; Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 439; “Home At Last!” Newsweek, February 26, 1973, folder 34, section 2, PEGP.
18. Jane Griffin, “POW Husband Due Back. For Mrs Galanti: Excitement,” unidentified publication, n.d., folder 34, section 2, PEGP.
19. G. Warren Nutter, Assistant Secretary of Defense, “When They Return: Plans for PW/MIA Repatriation Detailed,” May 11, 1972, 3, collection of Debby Burns Henry.
20. Wainwright, “When Johnny Comes,” 34.
21. Davis, Long Road Home, 491.
22. Wainwright, “When Johnny Comes,” 34.
23. Van Atta, With Honor, 235.
24. Dr. Roger Shields, email message to author, May 1, 2018.
25. Davis, Long Road Home, 494.
26. Rochester and Kiley, Honor Bound, 587–89.
27. Phyllis E. Galanti, Chairman of the Board, National League of Families (and wife of POW Paul E. Galanti), to Roger Shields, Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Washington, DC, December 20, 1972, record group 59, National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.
28. Davis, Long Road Home, 493.
29. Alvin Townley, “Jerry Denton: POW, Admiral, Senator, Hero,” USA Today, March 29, 2014; Denton, When Hell Was in Session, 235.
30. Davis, Long Road Home, 528–29.
31. Jeremiah, directed by Mark Fastoso (Birmingham: Alabama Public Television, 2015).
32. Denton, When Hell Was in Session, 236–37.
33. Griffin, “POW Husband Due Back.”
34. “Home At Last!” Newsweek, February 26, 1973, folder 34, section 2, PEGP; various newspaper clippings, collection of Judi Clifford.
35. “The Shift to Freedom Brings Happiest Week,” Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA), February 1, 1973, Merriann Boroughs scrapbook, Boroughs family private collection.
36. Ibid.
37. “Mr. POW” award, Boroughs family private collection, on loan to League of Wives exhibit, REDASC.
38. Jim Mulligan to Merriann Boroughs, February 17, 1973, Merriann Boroughs scrapbook, Boroughs family private collection.
39. Jim Stockdale to Merriann Boroughs, March 6, 1973, Merriann Boroughs scrapbook, Boroughs family private collection.
40. Andrea Rander, in conversation with the author, May 8, 2018.
41. Townley, Defiant, 348–49.
42. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 440–41.
43. Ibid., 441–43.
44. David Brown, “POW Aftereffects in McCain Unlikely,” Washington Post, May 23, 2008.
45. David J. Morris, The Evil Hours (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), 48–49.
46. Ibid., 49.
47. Ibid.
48. Andrea Rander, email messages to author, August 3 and 8, 2018.
49. Morris, Evil Hours, 49.
50. Helene Knapp, in conversation with the author, March 18, 2015.
51. Ibid.
52. Hearing on American Prisoners of War and Missing in Action in Southeast Asia, 1973, before the House Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments, Committee on Foreign Affairs, 93rd Cong., May 23, 30, and 31, 1973, 33, collection of Helene Knapp.
53. Ibid, 37, collection of Helene Knapp.
54. Kathleen Johnson Frisbie, in conversation with the author, March 1, 2018.
55. Andrea Rander, email message to author, August 8, 2018.
56. Memorandum of conversation between President Nixon and Dr. Roger E. Shields, April 11, 1973, National Security Adviser, Memoranda of Conversations, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, www
57. Graham, Personal History, 503–4.
58. Thomas, Being Nixon, 486.
59. Nixon, Memoirs, 867.
60. Various POW wives and spouses, in conversation with the author, 2015–2018.
61. Wiest and McNab, Illustrated History, 233.
62. Ibid., 236.
63. Karnow, Vietnam, 665–69; Burns and C. Ward, Vietnam, 555–562.
64. “Vietnam War Accounting,” Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, accessed May 10, 2018, www
65. James Rosenthal, “The Myth of the Lost POWs,” The New Republic, July 1, 1985, accessed April 23, 2018.
66. Helene Knapp, in conversation with the author, March 15, 2015; Kathleen Johnson Frisbie, in conversation with the author, May 15, 2018; Bruce Johnson Jr., email message to author, May 15, 2018.
67. Vietnam War POW/MIA List, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, accessed May 10, 2018, www
68. Helene Knapp, in conversation with the author, March 18, 2015; Helene Knapp to the author, May 30, 2019.
69. Kathleen Johnson Frisbie, in conversation with the author, October 3, 2017.