Tempe High School Class of 1969

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Tempe High School Class of 1969 - Famous People

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Body:	<i> This is an email i sent to Tommy W in response to an interesting story he told me about a friend that was shot down and captured in Vietman. My son Andy read my email back to Tommy and he said 'that guy is famous'. So I thought, he was famous, famous to me and the other guys who flew with him. Guess I've met two famous people, Arthur Godfrey at the urnial and Neal Black on the flight line. Tommy I went thru pilot training out at Willy in '74. ( joined the AF to see the world and went from Tempe to Chandler) Anyway, an ex-POW was in my class. His name was Neal Black and he was one of the longest detained POWs of the war. He was part of the first group of guys at the Hanoi Hilton and spent 7 yrs there in solitary. He was a door gunner on a rescue chopper and got shot down and captured. He didnt talk about it much, and we all understood, but the stories he did share were unbelievable. Some really sad, they beat the hell out of those guys, and some really funny. He lost all his hair in prison and it never grew back, he couldnt wear his toupe on the flight line for fear it would blow off and get sucked up in an engine, we razzed him pretty bad about wearin a rug on his head. After their release from Hanoi the AF gave them the choice of leaving the military or staying in and picking your job. He was an NCO at the time of his capture but he wanted to be a pilot so they gave him a comission and made him a Lt and sent him to flt school. Another intresting fact is Ford Motor Co. (the one that didnt take govt money) gave returning POWs their chioce of any car to keep, and the use of a sports car for one year, free. Neal kept a Crown Vic and drove a Pantera for a year. We will never know all the sacrifices those guys made. Jerry </i> *
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