Captured By the NVA: From the Archive

Warriors In Their Own Words | First Person War Stories

Robert Kirk

History

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Colonel Leo Thorsness served as a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He was a Wild Weasel, whose missions required them to draw surface-to-air (SAM) missiles away from bombers, and then destroy the SAM sites. This meant that Weasels spent sometimes more than 20 minutes over the target, as opposed to the one or two minutes bomber pilots spent. On one mission, COL Thorsness’ wingman was shot down, forcing him to eject. As he parachuted to the ground, rescue helicopters were called in to rescue him, but they were threatened by encroaching enemy fighters. Despite being incredibly low on fuel, Thorsness fought off the enemy, saving his wingman and the rescue helicopters. Eleven days later, Thorsness was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese Army. He was captured, and became a prisoner of war. During his first three years in captivity, torture was common. After six years, he was released and sent home. Shortly after returning to the United States, COL Thorsness was awarded the Medal of Honor for saving his wingman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.
0:04.5	This medal is for the men who went down that day.
0:08.0	It's for the families of those who didn't make it.
0:11.0	Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.
0:19.0	On Medal of Honor, stories of courage, you'll hear about
0:22.5	these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor
0:28.3	wherever you get your podcast. Do you want to know what it's like to hang out with MS-13 El Salvador,
0:34.0	how the Russian mafia fought battles all over Brooklyn in the 1990s. What about that time I got lost
0:38.4	in the Burmese jungle hunting the world's biggest meth lab? I'm Sean Williams. And I'm Danny Gold.
0:43.7	And we're the host of the Underworld podcast. We're journalists that have traveled all over
0:47.7	reporting on dangerous people and places. And every week will be bringing you a new story about
0:52.2	organized crime from all over the world. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
0:56.4	If you like listening to Warriors in Their Own Words, check out our other show, The Medal of Honor podcast.
1:02.4	The link is in the show description.
1:19.8	Yeah. I'm Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors in Their Own Words.
1:27.0	In partnership with the Honor Project, we've brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever. Warriors, in their own
1:28.5	words, is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of
1:34.1	those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so honoring those who have
1:39.2	served. Today, we'll hear from Colonel Leo Thorntonis Thorsenus served as a fighter pilot in Vietnam.
1:47.0	He was awarded the Medal of Honor for saving his wingman's life
1:50.0	and was a prisoner of war for six years after being shot down.
1:54.0	A concept The concept obviously was this was the first war in which there were surface to air missiles.
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