‘It Was a Battle’: Navy Vet Everett Alvarez Says Belief in America Got Him Through 8½ Years as POW in Vietnam

ROCKVILLE, Md. — The passage of almost 60 years has done nothing to dim former Navy fighter pilot Everett Alvarez Jr.’s memories of the night that he was shot down in the South China Sea and began what would be the second-longest period of captivity for an American service member in the Vietnam War.