Army buddies find out each is alive after 42 years

July 4, 2009

BY MARTIN C. EVANS
martin.evans@newsday.com

Horrific day of fighting that separated two Vietnam War buddies 42 years ago this month was undone last Sunday with the turn of a page.

While reading Newsday's LI Life special section on the Vietnam War, part of the paper's Summer of '69 coverage, Kenneth Thompson of Huntington saw a photograph of former Uniondale resident Richard Perricone, who spoke of being a prisoner of war in Cambodia.

In their Army unit, the two men had been almost inseparable until July 12, 1967, when Perricone, after an intense fire fight, was captured near Cambodia, and disappeared into North Vietnam's prisoner of war gulag.

"We got ambushed, and we got hit pretty hard, then one of the sergeants yelled out that Perricone was missing," said Thompson, whose eyes welled often during an interview in his living room. "I've lived with this for 42 years - flashbacks, nightmares."

Until Sunday, neither man - now in their mid-60s - knew whether the other had survived the war.

"I called out to my wife in the kitchen and said, 'Tina, Perricone is alive!' " Thompson said. "I was shaking and crying. I looked him up and called him right away. My wife said it's too early to call, but I said I've been wondering about this man for 42 years."

A number of other readers also saw the story and contacted Perricone, including members of his graduating class at Uniondale High School, who invited him to the 45th anniversary celebration of their graduation, on July 11. At least two Long Islanders who had worn his POW bracelet to raise awareness of his captivity also have reached out to him.

A very special phone call

But Perricone's old Army buddy Thompson was the first to call.

Perricone, who spent nearly six years in captivity before being released in a 1973 prisoner exchange with North Vietnam, said his phone rang at 8:15 a.m. last Sunday, while he was still in bed.

"When he said, 'This is Ken Thompson,' I said, 'You must be kidding,' " Perricone said. "It shows you the bond that was between us. When you serve together like he and I did, you become tight because you sleep, eat and ---- together. When you go to war you depend on each other. He never forgot me even though he didn't know if I were alive or dead."

Theirs is a friendship born of shared sacrifice and the terror of war. Neither has been able to let go of what they experienced in Vietnam.

Thompson was 21 and Perricone 20 when they trained in the same four-man mortar squad at Ft. Riley, Kan. They made the 21-day trip from Oakland to South Vietnam aboard the USS General William Weigel troop transport. They had walked harrowing infantry patrols in the Mekong Delta, and had relaxed together while on leave in Saigon.

That summer of '67, Perricone and Thompson were sent to replenish a unit that had been overrun near South Vietnam's northern highlands. When their unit was also overrun, Perricone and five others were captured. For days, Thompson was among the troops searching for them. For him, of course, the mission was deeply personal - this was his close friend.

Through the years, memories of that day often returned unbeckoned, Thompson said. When they did, he said he retreated to his bedroom for days at a time, calming himself with cigarettes and alcohol.

POW camp in Cambodia

After his capture, Perricone was hustled over the border to a POW camp in Cambodia and, after an escape attempt failed that November, spent years shackled in a bamboo "tiger cage" hidden in the jungle. Finally, 2,064 days after his capture, on March 5, 1973, Perricone was released from North Vietnam's infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison.

He returned to New York, and managed real estate in Manhattan until he retired to Apopka, Fla., six years ago.

Meanwhile, Thompson, a native of Newark, returned home in 1968, distracted by, among other things, the self-imposed task of tracking down the spouse of another of their buddies - Pfc. Frank Montemayor - who had been killed in a friendly fire incident.

Along the way, Thompson married a woman from Huntington, found work as a long-haul trucker, and tried to put the war behind him.

But for each man, finding the other has soothed some of the pain the war continues to impose on them.

"He never knew if I was alive or dead," Perricone said. "But he never forgot me."