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 Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina.[86][A 3] Most of the funding for the French war effort was provided by the U.S.[87] The Việt Cộng, also known as Front national de libération du Sud-Viêt Nam or FNL (the National Liberation Front), a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North, fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region, while the People's Army of Vietnam, also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in more conventional warfare, and had launched armed struggles from 1959 onward. U.S. involvement escalated in 1960 under President John F. Kennedy, with troop levels gradually surging under the MAAG program from just under a thousand in 1959 to 16,000 in 1963.[88][89]