Lauderdale: Vietnam POW bracelet comes full circle in Lowcountry

Susan Ketchum met Willard Gideon in the most random way.

She was a high school junior in Pittsburgh when she first saw his name.

It was etched into a nickel-plated POW/MIA bracelet: "Maj. Willard Gideon. 8-7-66."

All her friends got one of the bracelets. They paid $2.50 for them, and remembered to pray every day for the stranger on their wrists.

It was their way of coping with a war that dominated the nightly news with horrid death counts. It took away boys from down the street, and it gave loved ones random and scary lottery numbers.

Ketchum wore her bracelet for four years, until the war ended.

Her life took twists and turns of its own, and the bracelet was put away.

When she was packing last year to move from Hilton Head Island to Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton, Ketchum found herself going through a box of keepsakes. With her Girl Scout sash and badges was the silver POW bracelet of her youth.

"I wonder if Willard Gideon survived it," she muttered.

Last month, Ketchum and Gideon met face to face at his Lowcountry home.

'JUST A BELIEF'

Willard S. Gideon was 35 years old when his U.S. Air Force F-105D Thunderchief was shot down northeast of Hanoi.

He flew 55 missions in North Vietnam, on this day successfully destroying an enemy petroleum storage facility.

It was Aug. 7, 1966, the date on Ketchum's bracelet. Until March 4, 1973, Gideon was imprisoned in a tiny cell, subjected to psychological and physical abuse.

For four years, he didn't write to his wife and kids back home, knowing that being granted that favor would result in retribution down the road.

He knew his family was safe, and that they were aware he was captive. So he concentrated on what it would take to get out of the "Hanoi Hilton" alive.

"It was just a belief that my government would not disown me," he told me last week. "That they would get me out of there."

He said a lot of people talk badly about President Richard Nixon, but not the POWs. "We thought he was a great guy," Gideon said. "He got us out of there."

Gideon and his wife were invited to a large party Nixon threw at the White House for POWs. His wife thought a guy leaning against a wall looked like John Wayne. It was. She went back for an autograph, and he pulled one out of his pocket.

Gideon was upset last week that no mention was made in America's nuclear deal with Iran about freeing four Americans held there.

'PART OF LIFE'

Gideon served his country long after losing six-plus years of his life to a prison cell.

He retired in Charleston after serving 31 years. He left as a colonel, with a Silver Star, two Legion of Merit awards and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

He just turned 84 and darts around his Mount Pleasant neighborhood in a Corvette.

Hearing from Ketchum didn't stir up any old demons within.

"It's over and done with; that's the way I look at it," Gideon said about being a POW. "It's just one of those things that is part of life. I've kind of forgotten it, really."

Over the years, a number of people have mailed Gideon their POW bracelets with his name on it. Ketchum is the first one to come visit.

She took him a copy of the book, "Thirteen Soldiers: A Personal History of Americans at War," by Mark Salter and Gideon's fellow POW, John McCain.

Ketchum shook his hand and thanked him for all he did to secure the freedom we enjoy.

She offered him her POW bracelet, but he in turn gave it to her.

Read more here: http://www.islandpacket.com/2015/07/18/3842101_lauderdale-vietnam-pow-bracelet.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy