This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. And we love to hear

from you, our listeners. Send your stories to our Americanstories.com. They're some of our favorites.

And by the way, they don't have to be your stories. If you've seen or heard a story on your local

news or just around town, send us the link. We'll take it from there. Again, your stories are

some of our favorites. Up next, you're going to hear from Ken Wells and his wife, Candy. Ken served

our country in Vietnam and was captured and taken as a POW to the Prisoner of War camp known

as the Hanai Hilton. Let's hear from Candy and Ken sharing their remarkable story.

We were married in November of 69 and then went to one year of pilot training in Big Spring, Texas.

Ken achieved what he wanted.

He wanted to get an F-4 fighter plane,

which I didn't want him to get,

because I knew where he would be going.

But he did, and that's what he wanted.

I guess I'd wanted to fly ever since I was a little kid watching airplanes fly in and out of the Portland International Airport across the Columbia River from the dairy farm I grew up on. But I always wanted to fly a fighter aircraft,

and so that was my goal in pilot training and was able to finish high enough in the class to get the F4.

Like in the movie Top Gun where the lady tells Maverick that you're not happy unless you're going mock tooth, your hair on fire.

Well that's kind of...

Of course we're up fairly high, 25,000 feet doing that, so it's not like you're going supersonic at ground level,

which is also fun, by the way.

I've been supersonic at about 200 feet, and it's amazing.

We went on then to Victorville, California for F4 training for six months.

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