Col. Ed Hubbard, USAF, Vietnam, POW

Ed Hubbard has been fascinated by flight since he can remember. When he was a kid, his parents dropped him off to watch planes at the local airfield for hours at a time. He joined the Air Force Reserves in hopes of becoming a pilot. He later went on active duty, became an officer and earned his wings. While serving in Europe in the mid-1960s, orders came for Hubbard to take his family back to the U.S. and prepare for service in Vietnam.

While serving on a reconnaissance flight over North Vietnam in July 1966, Hubbard's plane came under fire. Explosions near the aircraft caused the plane to catch fire and Hubbard quickly ejected.

In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," Hubbard expertly shares what happened on that ill-fated mission, what he thought about and planned as he parachuted to the ground, his attempts to evade capture by the North Vietnamese, and what happened to him once he was taken prisoner.

From there, Hubbard tells us what life was like as a prisoner of war - from the interrogations and torture to the conditions in the prison to the tap code and other communications that served as a lifeline to the prisoners. And he tells us what it was like to taste freedom again after nearly seven years of captivity and how his experience as a POW gave him a mindset that has served him well ever since.