June 2, 2026 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, retired U.S. Navy Captain Mike McDaniel takes us back to the day he was a third-grade boy sitting on his bed when his mother told him his father had been shot down during the Vietnam War. His father was Eugene “Red” McDaniel, the famed Navy pilot who disappeared on his 81st combat mission and would spend nearly six years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
Mike reflects on what it meant to grow up as the son of a missing serviceman and how his family endured the harrowing ordeal together, sustained by a deep faith and the hope that his father would one day come home.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories, and this one
is a military family story, and you're gonna hear right
now from Mike McDaniel, the son of a naval aviator
deployed in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
We grew up as a Navy family. We had a
many gatherings where the families would get together, the wives
and the children, so we kind of a community within
the aviation squadrons. And I remember one day. I can
remember like it was yesterday, May nineteenth. It was a
beautiful day outside, Friday afternoon, happy go lucky third grade
(00:44):
kid walking home from school, couldn't wait to get hope,
spend the weekend playing with my buddies in the neighborhood.
And as I approached the house, I noticed there were
about a dozen cars in the driveway and along the street.
And again not atypical for a or a Navy family,
because they get together, so I didn't think anything out
of it. So I went in the house. And as
soon as I walked in the house, Missus Miles, who
(01:09):
was a wife of another squadter made of my dad's,
came up and she says, you're gonna come home with
me for the weekend, and spend the night and with
Gary and Larry, there were her sons that were kind
of two of my good friends. Oh okay, so I
didn't really have anything planned, but it sounded okay. So
we got in her car and on the way to
(01:29):
her house, we stopped at a High's ice cream store.
High's ice cream stores at that time were like candy
heaven for a kid. You get get ice cream, multi flavors,
and they had these candy racks. You can remember, they
were like, you know, they were huge as as I
remember them as a kid. And she said to me, Michael,
get whatever you want as much as you want. Red
(01:52):
flag something something's not right here, but hey, what a
great opportunity. So I remember going up with the candy
rack and stuff in my arms and glancing over her
every once in a while to see if I kind
of was reaching the threshold, and she just was like,
you know, go up for it. So literally, as much
as I could carry, I took up to the counter.
So whatever, So we went and we had spent the
(02:13):
night and we you know, did what little kids do,
you know during our sleepover. And then the next morning
she brought me back and I remember they used to
have these big bubble gum sticks. Back when we were kids,
there were called big buddies and there were these long
s things of bubble gum. And I remember, about five
minutes out from the house, I tore that thing open.
I stuffed that whole thing in my mouth and she
(02:38):
got let me out say goodbye. So I walked in
the house and my mom met me at the door
and she said, let's go back to your room. I
need to tell you something. So we walked back to
my bedroom and she said, let me hold your bubblegum
because what I'm gonna tell you is gonna make you cry.
And then she said that my dad had been shot
(02:58):
down the previous day over Vietnam and was currently in
the jungle of North Vietnam and they were gonna hopefully
rescue him later that day. And that was the last
thing we heard for the next three years. So for
those first three years of his six year time away,
we didn't know if he was dead or alive. And
(03:20):
I remember my dad telling me, and one of the
last things he said to me was take care of
the family while I'm gone. So here we were. I
was in the third grade, my brother was two years younger,
and my sister was only four, and at the time,
the Navy had told my mother for us not to
tell anybody that he had been shot down, family or friends.
(03:43):
And I was just like, how do you do that?
How do you go without a father and do this.
I remember wanting to think he was okay, but not
wanting to think he was okay if he really wasn't.
So that was kind of a bound tough thing to
think through as a young young boy. Day I can
tell you everything that happened. It was three years later,
(04:04):
and it was a day of the solar eclipse in
Virginia Beach. I remember the full solar eclips of the sun,
which is kind of a big deal. The community was
really played it up. And I had a little league
basketball championship game, and I was a pretty decent basketball
player back then, and I was spending the night with
Pete Bowerman, whose dad was our coach. We had the
(04:25):
early game. It was like an eight thirty game and
it was a championship game. Missus Bouerman or one of
them came in the room and you know, we were
just waking up and she says, Michael, your mother's on
the phone. I remember these words too. She said, Michael
had some wonderful news. And up until that point, anytime
she had said that, I thought something about Dad, something
(04:45):
about Dad, but it would be something like the grandparents
are coming to town for the weekend, or we're going somewhere.
It was like a letdown. And this time I remember
vividly thinking the grandparents are coming to town for the weekend,
and she says, a list came out today, The no
Fit these released a list of fourteen names of men
being held officially as POWs in your dad's names on it.
(05:07):
We know he's alive. And it was like the weight
of the world came off of my shoulders. I went
to the basketball game and I normally scored about ten
twelve points, and I think I made to score two.
I could really care less what happened with the game.
And then the reality said it, Okay, he's alive. Now what, Well,
let's get this war over with and let's get him home.
(05:30):
So I started watching the news, you know, constantly, to
try to find out what was happening. That was about
the time where they were arguing about whether to sit
around a round table or a square table to negotiate
and I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
My dad's being held as a prisoner of war and
they're arguing about what size of tables going to be
(05:51):
to talk about. That was the very tumultuous time of
the war. Now I understand it better, you know, because
I have the history of it. But hoax, you men
have died. Lot of changes were taking place in Vietnam,
but the streets were wild with protesters and the anti
war movement, and it was just like everything was spinning
out of control, and here's your dad languaging into prison somewhere. Okay.
(06:13):
Then let me fast forward to when we found he
was coming home. The ceasefire had taken place, and the
Paris peace talks where they were negotiating, and then they
announced they were going to release the first wave of
POW's that were there the longest, and my dad was
going to be part of the second wave of prisoners
to come home when the first wave came home, and
that was such a joyous occasion. I can remember Jeremiah
(06:35):
Denton walking off the plane and doing his God Bless America.
It was just wonderful, and you knew my dad was
going to be in that next wave of those that
were released, and then the peace treaty broke down and
so they delayed the release. It was like a bad dream.
It's just a horrible feeling. Then they they finally did
(06:56):
have the release date. But something else that happened because
of the first wave that came out and started getting
their debriefings. Because they started that right away, they found
out about what my dad had gone through. In nineteen
sixty nine, there was an escape attempt. The Navy psychologists
came and sat down with us as children and told us,
your dad went through a real rough go. There was
(07:18):
some real severe torture. We're not sure what kind of
shape he's going to be in mentally, and that scared
me to death as a kid, And I guess I
appreciate them trying to prepare us, but that's not something
you say to a fifteen year old and a thirteen
year old and a ten year old. I remember being
horrified by what now, what else is coming? So they
(07:40):
take off from Hanoi and we know he's on his
way to the Philippines, and this is before internet, this
is before cable television, just network television at the time.
The plane was going to land in Clark Air Force
Base in the Philippines, like at four in the morning
our time on the East Coast. The mom comes into
(08:01):
each of our bedrooms while we're asleep before she wakes
us up and takes a polaroid picture of us sleeping
before she wakes us up. I think I'm laying there
with my dog going on, my mouth wide open or something.
So she wakes us up as we all gather around
the television and my mom she's on the floor on
her knees in front of the television, and you see
this plane land and then a taxi's up to the
(08:22):
TARBAC and they bring the ladder up. They open the
door and the pw start coming out one by one
and you see this guy. You could tell he was tall,
and he's there and all you see is fromout the
chest down and he's adjusting his belt line we call
a gigline in the Navy. You can make sure your
(08:43):
your shirt is lined up with your pants, trousers and
your belt buckle. It's just a Navy thing, don't you know.
And you just knew it was him, and my mom
dissolves into tears on the floor. I mean, she's just
on the floor, just sobbing, and we're like, Mom, not now,
not now, you gotta watch this. So she never saw it.
She had to see on the reruns the next day.
(09:05):
Then he walks down the ladder. There he is as
large as life. Your dad getting on free soil. You know,
that was so cool. So then let me go back
to the time where they were supposed to come into
Norfolk Naval Air Station, Norfolk, and there were like thousands,
probably ten thousand people that had come to the airfield
to watch this, watch these men come home. They were
(09:25):
going to fly at a Travis Air Force Base then
to Naval Air Station Norfolk, but it got fogged in
and again it's like what next, you know, it was
like one more thing that was delaying it. So what
they did. They ended up flying into Oceania and then
driving from there to the hospital and ports withit through
that they were going to be So the crowd never
saw that, but they transferred us to the hospital. This
(09:49):
black sedan drives up into the conclave of the hospital
and the door opens out pops the sky. This navy
hecky full dress uniform who you've been waiting for for
seven years because he was almost at towards an end
of a year long deployment, large as life, looking so sharp,
(10:14):
even though he's pretty skinny, but he just rushes to
the family, out to my mom first, and picks up
my sister in his arms, and they all kind of
gather around, and he says a few words, and it was.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Like, yes, we're there, Yes, and you're hearing a grown
man recalling a really tough time in his life, almost
breaking down and crying. Mike McDaniel's story, his dad story
here on Our American Story
And we continue with our American stories, and this one
is a military family story, and you're gonna hear right
now from Mike McDaniel, the son of a naval aviator
deployed in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
We grew up as a Navy family. We had a
many gatherings where the families would get together, the wives
and the children, so we kind of a community within
the aviation squadrons. And I remember one day. I can
remember like it was yesterday, May nineteenth. It was a
beautiful day outside, Friday afternoon, happy go lucky third grade
(00:44):
kid walking home from school, couldn't wait to get hope,
spend the weekend playing with my buddies in the neighborhood.
And as I approached the house, I noticed there were
about a dozen cars in the driveway and along the street.
And again not atypical for a or a Navy family,
because they get together, so I didn't think anything out
of it. So I went in the house. And as
soon as I walked in the house, Missus Miles, who
(01:09):
was a wife of another squadter made of my dad's,
came up and she says, you're gonna come home with
me for the weekend, and spend the night and with
Gary and Larry, there were her sons that were kind
of two of my good friends. Oh okay, so I
didn't really have anything planned, but it sounded okay. So
we got in her car and on the way to
(01:29):
her house, we stopped at a High's ice cream store.
High's ice cream stores at that time were like candy
heaven for a kid. You get get ice cream, multi flavors,
and they had these candy racks. You can remember, they
were like, you know, they were huge as as I
remember them as a kid. And she said to me, Michael,
get whatever you want as much as you want. Red
(01:52):
flag something something's not right here, but hey, what a
great opportunity. So I remember going up with the candy
rack and stuff in my arms and glancing over her
every once in a while to see if I kind
of was reaching the threshold, and she just was like,
you know, go up for it. So literally, as much
as I could carry, I took up to the counter.
So whatever, So we went and we had spent the
(02:13):
night and we you know, did what little kids do,
you know during our sleepover. And then the next morning
she brought me back and I remember they used to
have these big bubble gum sticks. Back when we were kids,
there were called big buddies and there were these long
s things of bubble gum. And I remember, about five
minutes out from the house, I tore that thing open.
I stuffed that whole thing in my mouth and she
(02:38):
got let me out say goodbye. So I walked in
the house and my mom met me at the door
and she said, let's go back to your room. I
need to tell you something. So we walked back to
my bedroom and she said, let me hold your bubblegum
because what I'm gonna tell you is gonna make you cry.
And then she said that my dad had been shot
(02:58):
down the previous day over Vietnam and was currently in
the jungle of North Vietnam and they were gonna hopefully
rescue him later that day. And that was the last
thing we heard for the next three years. So for
those first three years of his six year time away,
we didn't know if he was dead or alive. And
(03:20):
I remember my dad telling me, and one of the
last things he said to me was take care of
the family while I'm gone. So here we were. I
was in the third grade, my brother was two years younger,
and my sister was only four, and at the time,
the Navy had told my mother for us not to
tell anybody that he had been shot down, family or friends.
(03:43):
And I was just like, how do you do that?
How do you go without a father and do this.
I remember wanting to think he was okay, but not
wanting to think he was okay if he really wasn't.
So that was kind of a bound tough thing to
think through as a young young boy. Day I can
tell you everything that happened. It was three years later,
(04:04):
and it was a day of the solar eclipse in
Virginia Beach. I remember the full solar eclips of the sun,
which is kind of a big deal. The community was
really played it up. And I had a little league
basketball championship game, and I was a pretty decent basketball
player back then, and I was spending the night with
Pete Bowerman, whose dad was our coach. We had the
(04:25):
early game. It was like an eight thirty game and
it was a championship game. Missus Bouerman or one of
them came in the room and you know, we were
just waking up and she says, Michael, your mother's on
the phone. I remember these words too. She said, Michael
had some wonderful news. And up until that point, anytime
she had said that, I thought something about Dad, something
(04:45):
about Dad, but it would be something like the grandparents
are coming to town for the weekend, or we're going somewhere.
It was like a letdown. And this time I remember
vividly thinking the grandparents are coming to town for the weekend,
and she says, a list came out today, The no
Fit these released a list of fourteen names of men
being held officially as POWs in your dad's names on it.
(05:07):
We know he's alive. And it was like the weight
of the world came off of my shoulders. I went
to the basketball game and I normally scored about ten
twelve points, and I think I made to score two.
I could really care less what happened with the game.
And then the reality said it, Okay, he's alive. Now what, Well,
let's get this war over with and let's get him home.
(05:30):
So I started watching the news, you know, constantly, to
try to find out what was happening. That was about
the time where they were arguing about whether to sit
around a round table or a square table to negotiate
and I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
My dad's being held as a prisoner of war and
they're arguing about what size of tables going to be
(05:51):
to talk about. That was the very tumultuous time of
the war. Now I understand it better, you know, because
I have the history of it. But hoax, you men
have died. Lot of changes were taking place in Vietnam,
but the streets were wild with protesters and the anti
war movement, and it was just like everything was spinning
out of control, and here's your dad languaging into prison somewhere. Okay.
(06:13):
Then let me fast forward to when we found he
was coming home. The ceasefire had taken place, and the
Paris peace talks where they were negotiating, and then they
announced they were going to release the first wave of
POW's that were there the longest, and my dad was
going to be part of the second wave of prisoners
to come home when the first wave came home, and
that was such a joyous occasion. I can remember Jeremiah
(06:35):
Denton walking off the plane and doing his God Bless America.
It was just wonderful, and you knew my dad was
going to be in that next wave of those that
were released, and then the peace treaty broke down and
so they delayed the release. It was like a bad dream.
It's just a horrible feeling. Then they they finally did
(06:56):
have the release date. But something else that happened because
of the first wave that came out and started getting
their debriefings. Because they started that right away, they found
out about what my dad had gone through. In nineteen
sixty nine, there was an escape attempt. The Navy psychologists
came and sat down with us as children and told us,
your dad went through a real rough go. There was
(07:18):
some real severe torture. We're not sure what kind of
shape he's going to be in mentally, and that scared
me to death as a kid, And I guess I
appreciate them trying to prepare us, but that's not something
you say to a fifteen year old and a thirteen
year old and a ten year old. I remember being
horrified by what now, what else is coming? So they
(07:40):
take off from Hanoi and we know he's on his
way to the Philippines, and this is before internet, this
is before cable television, just network television at the time.
The plane was going to land in Clark Air Force
Base in the Philippines, like at four in the morning
our time on the East Coast. The mom comes into
(08:01):
each of our bedrooms while we're asleep before she wakes
us up and takes a polaroid picture of us sleeping
before she wakes us up. I think I'm laying there
with my dog going on, my mouth wide open or something.
So she wakes us up as we all gather around
the television and my mom she's on the floor on
her knees in front of the television, and you see
this plane land and then a taxi's up to the
(08:22):
TARBAC and they bring the ladder up. They open the
door and the pw start coming out one by one
and you see this guy. You could tell he was tall,
and he's there and all you see is fromout the
chest down and he's adjusting his belt line we call
a gigline in the Navy. You can make sure your
(08:43):
your shirt is lined up with your pants, trousers and
your belt buckle. It's just a Navy thing, don't you know.
And you just knew it was him, and my mom
dissolves into tears on the floor. I mean, she's just
on the floor, just sobbing, and we're like, Mom, not now,
not now, you gotta watch this. So she never saw it.
She had to see on the reruns the next day.
(09:05):
Then he walks down the ladder. There he is as
large as life. Your dad getting on free soil. You know,
that was so cool. So then let me go back
to the time where they were supposed to come into
Norfolk Naval Air Station, Norfolk, and there were like thousands,
probably ten thousand people that had come to the airfield
to watch this, watch these men come home. They were
(09:25):
going to fly at a Travis Air Force Base then
to Naval Air Station Norfolk, but it got fogged in
and again it's like what next, you know, it was
like one more thing that was delaying it. So what
they did. They ended up flying into Oceania and then
driving from there to the hospital and ports withit through
that they were going to be So the crowd never
saw that, but they transferred us to the hospital. This
(09:49):
black sedan drives up into the conclave of the hospital
and the door opens out pops the sky. This navy
hecky full dress uniform who you've been waiting for for
seven years because he was almost at towards an end
of a year long deployment, large as life, looking so sharp,
(10:14):
even though he's pretty skinny, but he just rushes to
the family, out to my mom first, and picks up
my sister in his arms, and they all kind of
gather around, and he says a few words, and it was.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Like, yes, we're there, Yes, and you're hearing a grown
man recalling a really tough time in his life, almost
breaking down and crying. Mike McDaniel's story, his dad story
here on Our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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