Bill Reeder’s New Book “Through the Valley: My Captivity in Vietnam”

I had a wonderful conversation with our friend Bill Reeder the other evening.  Bill and I have known each other for many years through the OV-1 Mohawk Association; he was a pilot in the 131^st Aviation Company at Phu Bai, one of our sister units.  He holds the distinction of being shot down twice in Vietnam; once while flying a Mohawk mission from which he was rescued and again in while flying an AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunship.  On that mission during his second tour he wasn’t so lucky.  He tells his story in Through the Valley: My Captivity in Vietnam which has just been released in printed book form and also electronically by Amazon.

I have just finished reading Through the Valley, and it is an amazing account of what several GIs, both American and South Vietnamese, endured as prisoners of war by the North Vietnamese during that war so many years ago.  The following are a couple of reviews that I found on Amazon:

Reeder's account of his shoot down, capture, and subsequent trek to Hanoi is spellbinding. A true 'page turner', which must be regarded as one of the best first-hand accounts of what our POW's had to endure at the hands of their captors. Written with gut wrenching detail and emotion, it is a story of triumph and the bonding of strangers brought together by fate and war. –Amazon Customer

“Colonel Reeder's story of how he became the last soldier captured by the enemy in South Vietnam and how he endured captivity and then a forced march north up the Ho Chi Minh Trail is awe-inspiring. His will to survive, and the courage and sacrifice demanded of him, make this book hard to put down.” ―Joseph L. Galloway co-author of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young and We Are Soldiers Still

I am sure this is a story to which we all can relate, especially since Bill is a friend of many of us and also a Mohawker.  I cannot imagine what he and his fellow POWs went through, although I remember some of my own thoughts as a 22-year-old (photo lab tech-company clerk-flight follow observer) about the possibility of crashing as I sat for hours in the right seat during many of the 225^th Aviation Company’s flight-follow missions.  We were keeping track of our guys as we flew orbits at ten to twelve thousand feet as they flew their photo, IR or SLAR missions on the deck below us.

I’m looking forward to seeing Bill in DC in just a few days as he is the main speaker at our annual OV-1 Mohawk Association Reunion!  And be sure to get his book...it’s a definite must read for any of us who was in Vietnam!