Imogen Farris, Staff Writer
A Vietnam veteran who was a prisoner of war in the early 1970’s spoke on the Marietta Campus last Wednesday morning.
Col. Robert G. Certain visited the Marietta Campus on March 18 to talk about the mission that led to his capture by the North Vietnamese on Dec. 18, 1972. For the mission, Certain was the navigator and bombardier in a B52 plane that departed from Guam to Vietnam. The goal of the mission was to hit a railroad yard that helped move supplies from China into North Vietnam.
When flying above the target, their plane was hit. “I turned to look over around my left shoulder behind me, through the bulk head door behind me,” Certain said. “And I could see a fire.” After escaping the burning plane with a parachute, Certain recalled that the wind helped drift him 15 to 20 kilometers west of the intended target, which was still considered a dangerous zone. “Search and rescue aircraft would not be coming, and we knew that,” Certain said. “My only chance of survival was surrender.”
Throughout his presentation, Certain showed pictures of the months he was kept captive in two separate prisons. The first location Certain was held was Hanoi Hilton where he was kept from late December to mid-January. The second location Certain referred to as the Zoo, an old officer’s area that was used by the French army during the First Indochina War. Certain was kept at the Zoo until his release in mid-March. “Hygiene was poor,” Certain said. “Medical treatment was awful, living conditions were entirely unsanitary and the food wasn’t at all sanitary. It had extra protein in it, you know what I mean.”
After months of being held as a prisoner with six other captured soldiers, Certain was finally released and he was taken to the Philippines and then home. “My wife and I have been married for 43 years,” Certain said. “We were together six weeks when I went over and I was due back the day I was shot down, which didn’t make her very happy.”
After his release, Certain became an Episcopal priest and has served different parishes from coast to coast. He even served as President Gerald Ford’s pastor for nine years and was the officiant at his funeral when he passed. Certain has not gone back to Vietnam since his release in 1973, and has said getting “back to civilian life was not easy.”
Jack Lipasek, a Vietnam veteran, attended the event with his friend Col. Gerald Pierce, a history professor on the Marietta Campus. “When we came back we were not treated very nicely,” Lipasek said. “Today it’s a lot different, which is good.” Pierce, who had seen Certain give a presentation at the Atlanta Vietnam Veteran Business Association, enjoyed seeing him again. “Everybody has a different story, you know,” Pierce said. “And when we meet each other we realize in terms of where were you and when where you, and we try to figure it out.”
Col. Robert G. Certain wrote and published a book titled, “Unchained Eagle: From Prisoner of War to Prisoner of Christ,” about his time in the Air Force, his capture and his life after release.
