It was late afternoon on Jan. 26, 1967, when the Air Force CH-53 helicopter dropped off Pham Ninh Ngoc and 10 other South Vietnamese at a clearing in North Vietnam, just across the Laotian border. The team, code named Hadley, was supposed to gather intelligence on supply convoys traveling the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but within a day North Vietnamese soldiers began rounding up the commandos. An iron shackle was secured to Pham with a stake driven through the flesh of his leg, and he was taken north. Once in prison, he spent hours hanging upside down in the sun with...
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