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Five Years to Freedom
Boston, Little Brown, (1971). One of the early P.O.W. accounts, written by a Special Forces Major who was captured by the Viet Cong in 1963 and escaped five years later. Signed by the author. Additionally, this copy is inscribed and annotated by Elizabeth Starkey, a nurse at the 24th Evac. Hospital in Long Binh where Rowe was taken, identified in the text by Rowe as "my special benefactress, a nurse lieutenant colonel." About a dozen pages of the text tell of Rowe's stay at the hospital, and about half of those pages are annotated by Starkey. Inscribed by Starkey on the first blank, with a long paragraph telling her story, in part: "One does not forget Major Rowe once having met him -- a man of great inner strength." A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket with some internal tape-mending. A unique, noteworthy and informative copy of this P.O.W. account; Rowe was later responsible for helping to develop the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) course for American military Special Forces. He was assassinated in 1989 in the Philippines where he was working on counter-insurgency. [#032330] SOLD

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