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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: PBS Paramount
Salesrank: 59066
Released: May 17, 2005 |
| Our Price: $11.24 |
| Used Price: $10.92 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
RETURN WITH HONOR tells the powerful, moving story of American pilots shot down over North Vietnam and their challenge to survive with honor as POW's. A tribute to heroism, endurance, and brotherhood under duress, the film recalls the transformation from top-gun aviators to captives. Told in their words, rich with survivor humor, and complete with North Vietnamese archival footage, the film is a universal story of honor and duty.
Description of Return With Honor: The American Experience:
Men who piloted the hottest fighter planes in the world found themselves suddenly transformed from hotshots to humiliated prisoners during the Vietnam War. The story of how American prisoners survived in North Vietnam's notorious prison camps is dramatically told in this documentary, an installment of the American Experience series on PBS. The men, who survived appalling treatment, relate their experiences, and vintage footage, including propaganda films shot by their captors, portrays what they endured. A former POW describes how he was coached before being put on public display, yet he spelled out the word "torture" in Morse code by blinking his eyes, a defiant action that can clearly be seen in footage that the North Vietnamese provided to the world's media. Another former prisoner, who somehow survived massive injuries despite being denied medical care, describes how he had to lie on the concrete floor of his cell for nearly a year, just trying to get his arms and legs to function again. These inspirational stories lead up to an emotional climax as the prisoners, including Arizona Senator John McCain, describe what it was like to be freed after their long captivity. This is a deeply moving and inspiring story told by men who overcame great depths of human suffering. --Robert J. McNamara
Return With Honor: The American Experience Reviews:
Review of "Return With Honor" 
2009-02-03 - This DVD provides an outstanding overview of what our POWs went through
in Vietnam. Tom Hanks did an excellent job in producing this program. I know a number of the returned POWs and found the DVD to be very accurate. An inspiring story! I highly recommend it!
The Courage Of The Human Spirit Defined
2008-06-07 - "Return With Honor" is a documentary that everyone should see. Unlike a typical war documentary, this focuses on the inner strengths and emotions of the military men in question, in this case American pilots shot down, imprisoned, and tortured in North Vietnam. I have been privileged to have met many pilots who flew in Vietnam, and a handful of POW's, and can attest that without exception, these are a truly exceptional group of men: this documentary brings their story to life better than any other.
The film profiles multiple prisoners with both current interviews and vintage footage, much of it from North Vietnamese archives (the North Vietnamese film of an F-105 on fire still haunts me). The ultimate lessons here are of courage, the indestructibility of the human spirit, and honor. Despite brutal torture these men had a strict code of honor, and although many were offered early releases in exchange for propaganda useful to the North Vietnamese, their motto was "Return With Honor" and they lived up to it. Far from being mindless military automatons as they were (and still sometimes are) frequently depicted, these men had a keenly intelligent and insightful world view. One thing that amazed me was the degree of forgiveness that the men themselves had for their former captors: one even became the first US Ambassador to Vietnam after political relations were restored. As for specifics, I was disappointed that Leo Thorsness, F-105 pilot and Medal of Honor winner, was not profiled, but I was considerably more impressed with John McCain after viewing this documentary than I previously had been.
The extras on the DVD are all worth watching. I especially liked the biographies of all the men profiled and the "making of" feature. I was amazed by the amount of cooperation and freedom the filmmakers received from the government of Vietnam, and was impressed by the fact that Pete Peterson, a man imprisoned in Hanoi for over six years, was appointed and accepted the Ambassadorship to Vietnam in 1997. Truly the ability of humans to heal and forgive is a wonderful thing and this film shows better than any other I can recall the indomitable nature of the human spirit.
One of the best you'll ever see.
2008-05-03 - One of the best war documentaries I have ever seen.
US pilots held as POW's in North Vietnam for years and years.
Interviews, footage of the time (US and North Vietnamese), illustrations of torture tactics, and a narrative structure that keeps you riveted.
I've watched this one many times.
See it.
Very well done
2007-12-29 - As an educator, I have looked for different videos that cover the POW experience. Either they concentrate too much on the political and downplay the human element or they try to tell too much at one time.
This video is the best I have seen. In an hour, it explains the POW issue from the prisoners themselves. It is real, it is emotional, it is hard to watch and hear the stories but it lets the story tell itself without a lot of commentary from historians who weren't there.
Excellent. I would recommend this to anyone who teaches Vietnam in the classroom or to anyone interested in the POW experience.
Not Forgotten 
2006-07-11 - A classic in the genre of Vietnam documentaries. This 1999 film is about American POW airmen, and their ordeal throughout the Vietnam war. What I love about this film is that there is no political angle - these men tell their own stories in their own words, framed by America at the time. No one can walk away from this film and not feel touched.
