On December 2, 1966, while attached to the 559th Tactical Fighter Squadron based out of Cam Rahn Bay in South Vietnam, he was flying his 176th combat mission when he was forced to eject over North Vietnam after his F-4C Phantom jet took a direct hit from a surface-to-air missile. He was immediately captured and spent the next six years, three months and two days as a Prisoner of War before being released during Operation Homecoming on March 4, 1973.
