who was the longest prisoner held captive in vietnam
Floyd James Thompson Floyd James "Jim" Thompson (July 8, 1933 â€“ July 16, 2002) was a United States Army colonel. He was the longest held American prisoner of war in U.S. history, spending nearly nine years in captivity in the jungle camps and mountains of South Vietnam and Laos, and in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War,[76] and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America (Vietnamese: Kháng chiến chống Mỹ) or simply the American War, was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union, China,[37] and other communist allies; the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies.[77] The war is considered a Cold War-era proxy war by some US perspectives.[78] The majority of Americans believe the war was unjustified.[79] The war would last roughly 19 years and would also form the Laotian Civil War as well as the Cambodian Civil War, which also saw all three countries become communist states in 1975.