Return with Honor

An episode in the WGBH The American Experience series, Return with Honor, narrated by Tom Hanks, recounts the story of American aviators held prisoner during the Vietnam War. Interviews with veterans and their wives, as well as North Vietnamese film footage, offer a chilling portrait of life at the "Hanoi Hilton," the POW's nickname for the prison in Hanoi where some were incarcerated for over eight years. While the stories of the survivors are inspiring, and their courage in the face of extremely adverse circumstances is admirable, one can only marvel at the tragic stupidity that put these men in harm's way. Whether one is critical of the idiotic rules of engagement under which these pilots operated (and several of the pilots voice just such criticism) or the anti-Communist mumbo-jumbo that served as the rationale for prosecuting the war in Vietnam, these aviators were flying in a no-win situation. An excellent documentary that is often as depressing as it is uplifting, Frieda Lee Mock and Terry Sanders' film brings into sharp focus an episode in the American experience that cannot help but continue to instruct and forewarn over a quarter century after the fact. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (P. Van Vleck)