Potomac Resident Recounts Life as a POW

On August 5, 1964, Everett Alvarez Jr. was shot out of the sky.  As his A-4 Navy Skyhawk aircraft burned and deteriorated, he ejected himself and hurtled towards the water below.

Alvarez became the first American shot down over Vietnam. His plane was brought down during aerial combat following what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Captured and held by the North Vietnamese for eight-and-a-half years, Alvarez returned to the United States as the second-longest held Prisoner Of War in American history.

On Tuesday, Alvarez recounted his story during a talk hosted by Montgomery County Public Libraries and the county's Commission on Veterans Affairs at the Rockville Memorial Library, just a few blocks from a post office named in his honor.

Alvarez joked that he likes to tell people that he was the first American tourist in Ha Long Bay, but his years of captivity leave little else to smile about.

Alvarez and other POWs were kept in a series of oppressive prison camps, including the ill-famed "Hanoi Hilton." He and his comrades were kept in filthy cells, denied proper medical care and subjected to torture by the North Vietnamese. 

"It was miserable, but as military personnel, we knew the only way to get through it was together — as a united military group.  We were always there for each other," Alvarez said. 

Though communication between cells was strictly forbidden, Alvarez and other POWs tapped Morse code through cell walls and even scratched messages to each other on the bottom of the prison's metal plates.  Alvarez said his first message from an American after eight months of near solitary confinement was a message that used an ethnic slur to ask if there were  "Any [Italians] in Hanoi?" scratched in such a fashion. 

Alvarez was released in 1972. His life today is with his wife and two sons.  He lives in Potomac. He has earned both a master's degree in operation research and a juris doctorate. He has established multiple successful consulting firms and also published a memoir of his POW experience in 2005 titled "Chained Eagle".

Alvarez has led the Pledge of Allegiance at the Republican National Convention several times. He was an elected delegate and honorary chairman of the Maryland delegation to the 2008 convention, where he saw Sen. John McCain, a friend and fellow former Hanoi Hilton resident, accept the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

A crowd of about 30 people, including current armed forces members and veterans, attended the talk. Many stayed and talked with Alvarez late after the library closed.