On May 24, 1973 President Richard Nixon hosted the largest dinner in White House history in honor of the Vietnam prisoners of war. 

Retired Air Force vet, Tim Ayres, 78, of Conroe was there. Ayres was captured and held in North Vietnam from May 3, 1972 to March 28, 1973. 

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Nearly two months after his release, he was shaking John Wayne’s hand at the White House and dining at the same table as Delores Hope, wife of comedian Bob Hope. 

The 50th anniversary of this dinner took place on May 24.

Ayres again was there to commemorate the coming together of this special band of brothers who were once “guests of the Hanoi Hilton” — a nickname for the North Vietnam building where they were imprisoned. 

 “I believed in what we were doing and felt privileged to be able to contribute,” he said. 

While he’s been able to meet up with his military buddies about once a year through the NAM POW organization that he’s a part of, he said this 50-year event was special. 

“They tried to recreate the first event as closely as possible, right down to the plates and silverware,” he said. 

This dinner was hosted by the Richard Nixon Foundation and welcomed nearly 150 POWs for several days of events at the Nixon Library campus. Victor Uher was the principal at Armstrong Elementary in 2006 when the school had a Veteran’s Day tribute. Tiffany Moore, was a teacher there and Ayres’ daughter. 

That’s how he first became acquainted with Ayres POW story. When he heard about the anniversary dinner from television reports, he called Moore and was happy to find out Ayres would be returning for the occasion. Uher watched some of the video interviews that were a part of the anniversary celebration, including Ayres. 

“He was very humble like ‘it was a job to do and we did it,'” he said of visiting with Ayres. 

Pilot’s course

Ayres grew up on Houston’s southwest side and graduated from Bellaire High School. His grandfather was in World War I and his father was in World War II. 

As a boy, one of his parents’ friends was an Air Force bomber pilot. The soldier took young Ayres and showed him the planes and let him explore inside. 

Ayres had met his future. He wanted to be a pilot. 

“It’s all I ever wanted to do,” he said.

He attended the U.S. Air Force Academy Prep School for one year before gaining admission into the full academy. He graduated in 1968. Then to pilot training in Georgia and then overseas for his first tour in Quang Ngai, South Vietnam as a Forward Air Controller. 

But he was determined to be a fighter pilot. After his first tour, he volunteered for a second. 

This time he was stationed in Ubon Royal Thai AFB, Thailand as a fighter pilot flying the fast F-4 Phantom II. 

Shot down

On May 3, 1972 Ayres plane was shot down in enemy territory. He and “back seater” Theodore “Tad” Sienicki were doing a “fast mission” at medium altitude seeing what they could see and report from behind enemy lines.

Both used their parachute to exit the damaged aircraft. 

Sienicki was picked up by the enemy right away. Ayres crawled into a nearby thicket and hid for five hours before being discovered. U.S. pilots wanted to begin a rescue mission, Ayres waved them off, saying it was too dangerous.

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“A boy who looked to be about 12 years old found me. His eyes got real big and my eyes got real big,” he said. “He lowered an AK-47 and I thought ‘Well, this is it.’ Then he raised the gun in the air and fired off a bunch of shots that he’d found me.” 

Guest at ‘Hanoi Hilton’

It took 19 days to transport the men to Hanoi by truck with the prisoners staying in villages along the way. 

Once they arrived, they were placed in solitary confinement as they were interrogated. Ayres said interrogation was about a month-long process.

He spent this solitary time formulating and rehearsing the story he’d tell the enemy. 

After capture, he expected the worst in terms of treatment. What he found that harsh conditions had lessened at the prison following the death of Ho Chi Minh, the president of North Vietnam in 1969. 

Meals consisted of pumpkin soup and potato soup both from rotten pumpkins and potatoes. Pig fat with a hint of meat, bread and soup made with greens. Rice was reserved for the enemy. 

For entertainment some of the guys could recite movies word for word and they’d act out scenes from movies. 

They learned to communicate inside the prison with “tap codes” by tapping in sequence on the walls. Ayres said they also used hand signals to communicate instructions from those who had been there longer and high-ranking officers. 

Path to freedom

Representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed a peace agreement in Paris in early 1973, ending the direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.

Toward the end, Ayres said they began to receive packages from the American Red Cross containing proteins like cans of meat and fish. They began to send soldiers back home. 

The ones who had been there longest went first. Ayres was in the second-to-last group to leave. 

He was given a month off when he returned and the use of a car from Ford. He used the Fastback Mustang to visit friends around the country. 

He continued on in the Air Force and then the Air Force Reserves before finally retiring in 1995. He was a commercial pilot through his retirement in 2005. 

He and his wife, Sharon, have two daughters. One is a teacher in Conroe, the other is a pilot in Houston. 

“When we come together at these events, we are all very proud of our country and thankful for the time we spent in service,” he said. “We experience those feelings again when we come together as a group.”