He describes his time in captivity, including the interrogations he endured and living conditions. He also discusses his subsequent career as a chaplain and the therapy he received to help him deal with the trauma of his captivity. This interview is from the Veterans History Project and was conducted by the Atlanta History centers kenan research center. Robert i was born in savannah you never grow up, you can grow older i spent my earliest years in Garden City and my father worked for the Georgia Railroad and was transferred to Washington Dc i was 15 at the time and finished high school in washington and came back to georgia to attend emory university in atlanta where i got a Bachelors Degree and four years of Air Force Rotc and regular commission out of rotc in 1969. Host and that would have been active duty . Robert immediately. 10 days later, i was in sacramento at the Air Force Base to enter navigating training. Host a comment was made earlier about you are a little younger than mo
Them and 1963. He was transferred to Washington Dc. So i i was 15 at the time finished high school in washington came back to to georgia to attend emory university in atlanta, where where i got my Pastors Degree and four years of Air Force Rotc commission regular commission out of rotc 1969. And that would have been active duty immediately immediately. So 10 days later. I was its in sacramento at Mather Air Force base to enter Navigator Training. Yeah, comment was madE Earlier about your little younger than most of us. This would be in. How old were you and you actually became . A pilot i was not a pilot. I was a navigator. I told i told pilots where to go. I was 21 when i graduated and was commissioned so in night my first Combat Tour as a Combat Navigator with b52 was in. 1971 i was born in 47, so its actually 23 when i went over for my first deployment. It was 25 when i was shut down and captured. The Air Force Training do you want to give us any insights into how that progressed ye
Captioning performed by vitac ordered me out of the ditch. The civilians were throwing rocks at me, so i put the helmet back on, but i took that away. They stripped me down. Took my boots. Took off the flight suit. That was an effective way of searching somebody and tied me up, roped me tied my elbows together behind my back. And then i was hit with rocks on the head by somebody who didnt like me very much. The militia drove them off, kept them back. Somebody grabbed my tshirt and ripped it loose on my shoulder, my right shoulder. And then the Militia Guy tied it together back up on top which i thought was a little weird. I was barefoot now walking on railroad tracks over to a trail and into a village. They showed me the Pilots Body there, made threatening gestures. Got my they pulled stuff out of my uniform. They had my dog tags. Dog tags were actually in the ditch. They were wrapped the chain was wrapped around my Oxygen Hose so when i took the helmet off the first time, i had to bre
o sullivan and r.k. russell and s.e. cupp and comedian helen hong. come on in. it is a grand reopening for all of the best, all of the worst 2021. i m tom foreman, welcome and congratulations. we all survived a tough 12 months packed with upheavaled and conflicts and difficulties and victories and hope and happiness. that is saying something given we are were up against a raging pandemic and the deepest social divide the united states has seen in decades. so how did we make it through. let s sort that out by starting with the biggest news. that sounds like gunshots. worse story of the year. the violent invasion of the u.s. capitol by people angry over joe biden winning the last presidential election. the idea that 2021 was going to be better, i think probably lasted for about exactly six days. the january 6 insurrection was straight up crazy. the losing candidate then president trump stoked the fury with the big lie that he had won. they rigged an election. th
we all survived a tough 12 months packed with conflicts, difficulties and yet also victories, hope, and happiness. that s saying something considering we were up against a raging pandemic and the deepest social divides the united states has seen in decades. so how did we make it through? let s sort it out by starting with the biggest news. worst story of the year. the violent invasion of the u.s. capitol by people angry over joe biden winning the election. the idea that 2021 was going to be better i think probably lasted for about exactly six days. the january 6th insurrection was straight up crazy. the losing candidate, then president trump, stoked the fury with the big lie that he had won. they rigged an election. they rigged it like they ve never rigged an election before. it was really traumatizing and tragic to see the people s house overtaken by american citizens. police were beaten, congress ran, people died. hundreds would be arrested. the best response, l