Community honors Gulf Breeze veterans
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Pam Brannon/Gulf Breeze News The Villas of Gulf Breeze partnered with Covenant Hospice to honor the Veterans who are living at the assisted/independent living residence. The Gulf Breeze High Jr. ROTC assisted in the ceremonies, pinning each veteran and presenting them with a certificate. Pictured here is army veteran Charles Houston being pinned by the JROTC.

Ralph Gaither of Gulf Breeze recalled last week how he can still remember so well walking about 12 miles a day for seven and a half years in a six foot by nine foot cell. Gaither was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam war for over seven years, and recounted his experiences of capture and prisoner status for residents at The Villas assisted living residence in Gulf Breeze last week. The Villas held a special ceremony to honor all military veterans who live there, with the cooperation of Covenant Hospice.

"I don't consider myself a hero any more than anyone who has faced the challenges of being a father or mother, or the challenges of building a family," Gaither said. "Everyone in this room has faced challenges. For seven and a half years, these were my challenges. But I knew, every minute there, that you folks back home would never leave us there and would eventually, one way or another, come for us and rescue us. It was just a matter of waiting."

Franklin Hayes/Gulf Breeze News AT LEFT: Gulf Breeze Middle School (GBMS) student Savanna Deloach (right) listens as John Owens shares military memories with other veterans sitting near by. Grace Freeman's eighth grade advanced history students prepared breakfast for local veterans for the second year in a row on Nov. 9.

Gaither said he was the youngest pilot in the U.S Navy at the time he was shot down. He was 23 years old and had 72 bombing missions under his belt at the time of capture.

"On Nov. 17, 1965 I was piloting a F4B Phantom, which went 1,000 mph," Gaither said. "I thought I was the hottest pilot there was. We were returning from a successful strike on a railroad when some hotshot shooter on the ground got the best of us. We got hit at 500-foot altitude going 600 mph. By the time I ejected the plane was a ball of fire," he recalls. "And I landed, with a bright orange and white parachute, right in the middle of a peanut farm. Since peanuts don't grow too tall, I was found real quick."

Submitted photo AT RIGHT: Gulf Breeze Elementary School (GBES) welcomed local veterans for a special lunch buffet on Nov. 9. Many local vets, including parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends came to GBES to be honored and to have lunch with GBES students. Leslie Jolly, her third grade class and Larry Dixon worked tirelessly on decorations, music, special tables and wonderful food prepared by Kim Schmidt and the Gulf Breeze Elementary cafeteria staff.

He said he ran up a stream and hid under the only tree for a couple miles, so it was not hard to capture him. "By midnight they had captured me and the other man on my plane and we were headed for Hanoi," he said.

He remembers the first year and four months he was in solitary confinement, but the prisoners made their own code to communicate between cells. "For the first five years my parents had no idea whatsoever if I was alive or dead," he said. They were outfitted with two sets of clothing, mosquito netting and two blankets. "Then in August 1969, after Ho Chi Min died and another fellow took over, things got better for communication back home. We were actually allowed to receive letters then," he recalls.

"Torture comes in many forms - both mental and physical," Gaither said. "We went through everything mentally and physically that the enemy could think of. Seven of my prisoner buddies died there. I just have been always blessed with being pretty strong and healthy, so I survived."

He said things changed drastically in the early 1970's.

"I could have told you then that nothing would be done to release us until after 1970. The North Vietnamese were just waiting to see if Nixon would be reelected. We had stopped bombing Hanoi in 1968. So we were just sitting there, waiting for someone to come and rescue us. As soon as he was re-elected, and they sent bombers back over Hanoi, the enemy got a whole new realization of what war with us could be again. That started things moving," he said.

Then in January 1973 he was moved.

"We knew something big was happening. I was near the China border, and 208 of us prisoners were suddenly moved all at the same time to jails in Hanoi. Then one day one of those guards, who just can't stand it when he knows something, came to us and said in his broken English and sign language that Kissinger had signed something for us to be released."

Gaither was among the first group boarding three C141's heading back to America. "The main thing we all remember, getting off those planes, was not the bands or the dignitaries, but all those homemade signs by loved ones of the prisoners saying 'Welcome Home, we love you'," he said.

In addition to the ceremony at the Villas, veterans were honored by a parade in Milton, and breakfasts at Gulf Breeze Elementary and Gulf Breeze Middle.