|  SOURCE: WE CAME HOME copyright 1977 Captain and Mrs. Frederic A Wyatt (USNR Ret), Barbara Powers Wyatt, Editor P.O.W. Publications, 10250 Moorpark St., Toluca Lake, CA 91602 Text is reproduced as found in the original publication (including date and spelling errors). UPDATE - 09/95 by the P.O.W. NETWORK, Skidmore, MO DAVID W. WINN Brigadier General - United States Air Force Shot Down: August 9, 1968 Released: March 14, 1973 I was born in Austin, Minnesota, and had a totally unspectacular childhood. I went off to Carroll College, just outside of Milwaukee, to get two years of college in order to qualify for the Army Air Corps. When the age and college requirements were dropped following Pearl Harbor, I dropped school, and graduated from pilot training in February 1943. During the next five years, I flew nearly all the fighters we had, but my World War 11 combat flying was in Martin B-26's and the photo version of the P-38. I instructed gunnery for three years at Williams Field, Arizona in P-47's, P-51's and P-80's until 1948, when I switched to the Minnesota Air National Guard to look for a wife and an education. Without achieving either, I was recalled to active duty in February 1951. But Mary Flumerfelt married me on Flag Day in 1952, and the Air Force Bootstrap program got me a University of Minnesota degree in Journalism in 1958. We had a most rewarding year in Yorkshire (flying Hawker Hunters and English Electric Lightnings, Mk. 11) plus eight months at Fighter Command Headquarters at Stanmore on exchange with the R.A.F. Mary finally added a daughter, Helen, to our family of sons, David Jr., Frank and Peter, while we were in England. After two puzzling years in the Pentagon, my prejudices were totally shattered by a very rich year at the National War College at Ft. McNair, during which I completed graduate studies in international relations. The post, post-graduate training in Hanoi was next. I was a two-time loser, having been downed in April 1968 and again on 9 August. I don't know how to put those 55 months at Hoa Lo and the Plantation into words right now - maybe someday. For me, that experience has to marinate awhile. Meanwhile, there is work to do and a determination to be worthy of all the prayers and efforts on our behalf - for those of us who came out. We are the lucky ones and we know it. I reckon we ought now to get even-to make our lives important for those who couldn't come back, and for those whose steadfast vision and determination gave us our freedom and a chance for freedom to all of Southeast Asia. Proverbs 25:11 says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." Further on, in Ezekiel 36:24-28 are some apples which, to me, write a fitting finis to the episode: "For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you from out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. "A new heart also will I give you, and new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stoney heart of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. "And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." December 1996 David Winn retired from the United States Air Force as a Brig General. he and his wife Mary reside in Colorado.
 
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