Why didn't you get me out?

by Frank Anton

When Frank Anton took off in his chopper to fly another routine mission over Vietnam on January 5, 1968, he had no idea that he was setting out on a five-year journey through hell. Shot down and taken captive, he was marched to the first of five different jungle camps that served as makeshift prisons. Bound in by the hostile jungle, he watched helplessly as his fellow POWs died, one-by-one, of starvation and disease. Near death himself, he was eventually marched north along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to Hanoi where he spent the last two years of his captivity. After his release came an amazing revelation. During his intelligence debrief, he learned that the U.S. government had known of his exact location all along. He saw aerial photos of the camps in which he had been held and even saw a close-up photo of himself that was taken as he walked the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Stunned, the question formed immediately in Frank's mind: "Why Didn't You Get Me Out?" Years later, Frank has figured out the an