Then-Captain David E. Baker was shot down over Cambodia in 1972, and released from Vietnam in 1973. He states he was the first USAF POW released from South Vietnam. According to his bio, he was the only POW taken in Cambodia who was returned to the U.S.

He is one of the three Vietnam and Desert Storm Veterans you'll see listed in todays' "Missing in Action" post. Brigadier General David E. Baker retired from the USAF in 1997.

The following is a poem he wrote while in captivity, describing the POW camp and his experience there:

In this camp, there are seven men
All of whom Uncle Sam did send.
"To Vietnam to fight," he said.
So others can decide how they want to be led.

Gladly we went, but alas for us,
We were captured in battle in the heat and the dust.
Taken away from our families, out of the war,
Then chained to a cage, beaten and sore.

We are Army, Air Force, and Marine
And all of us are ready to scream,
About the inhumane treatment and care,
The Viet Cong call, "lenient and fair."

As prisoners of war we eat pork fat and rice,
But we think of steak and other things nice.
Our minds seem to dwell in the future and past,
Oh, how long can this war last?

I know that some day we will all be set free.
But, only the good Lord knows when that will be.
The United States, Friends and wives,
Surely it will be the happiest day of our lives.

Until that great and eventful day.
We must all stick together and pray.
And give thanks to God for being alive,
For surely it was He who let us survive.

We will be a little older, but much more wise,
And I don't mean from listening to Communist lies.
If there is one thing upon which seven men can agree.
That one thing is: Freedom is not free!