Pows

When House Republicans needed a John McCain-like war hero to lead their fight against Democratic assaults on President Bush's Iraq strategy, they turned to another former POW, a Texas Republican named Sam Johnson. Though less known than Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), his onetime cellmate in Vietnam, Johnson spent nearly seven years in a prisoner of war camp, about half of it in solitary confinement.

White House officials from President Bush on down bristle at the idea that the war in Iraq bears any parallels with the Vietnam War, which ended with the United States' dramatic evacuation of its embassy in 1975. But as Bush and Vietnamese officials have focused on the future during the president's weekend visit here, that bitter past continues to intrude.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. George S. Prugh, 86, who was credited with helping to save the lives of American prisoners of war in Vietnam, died July 6 in Moraga, Calif., of complications from Parkinson's disease. In his role as an Army lawyer, Prugh persuaded the South Vietnamese to grant POW status to Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers during the war. The U.S.

ADAM WEST said he made a decision 20 years ago to make peace with his signature role as Batman. "There was a time when I had to deal with a terrible stigma because nobody could imagine the actor who created Batman could do anything else," West said. "In the last 20 or so years I've made a beneficial agreement with the role of Batman, and that is to enjoy it and the response it gets."

Retired Air Force Col. Laird Guttersen, 80, who spent five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp and later became an advocate for families of missing military personnel, died June 13 in Tucson of complications of a stroke, according to family members. His F-4 Phantom was shot down over North Vietnam in 1968. After his release in 1973, he began calling on the U.S. government to give the public a complete accounting of Americans missing in action or still captive overseas.

A Dallas man who spent years recounting his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam has been revealed as a fraud. John Powell, 57, told his wife, friends, veterans and others that he spent more than three years in captivity, even sharing his story in articles and videos, the Dallas Morning News reported. But when he tried to get a fishing boat under the guise of being a former POW, veterans investigated and discovered he never served in Vietnam.

Terence Sumner Kirk, 89, a World War II prisoner of war who built a pinhole camera from cardboard scraps and used smuggled-in photo supplies to take photographs of fellow malnourished Marines, died Wednesday at his home in Burleson, Texas, after a heart attack. Kirk risked death at the hands of his Japanese captors to build the camera, because he wanted to document the horrors the POWs endured. He took eight photographs and managed to develop six.

After good news about his surgically repaired left knee, California forward Leon Powe made himself eligible for the NBA draft Wednesday but does not plan to sign with an agent yet, giving him the option to return for his junior season. Powe announced the decision a day after he was examined in Colorado by Dr. Richard Steadman, who performed operations on Powe's knee two years ago. Powe has until June 18 to withdraw and go back to school. The 6-foot-8, 240-pound Powe averaged 20.5 and 10.

Good news rarely comes in the hours after midnight, and this was no exception. After the California Golden Bears defeated Oregon in double overtime late Friday at Staples Center, Leon Powe learned that the reward was not a Pacific 10 Conference tournament title game against UCLA in prime time. Instead, it would be at midafternoon. "I was thinking like later, so we could chill in bed," Powe said.