BAIRD, WILLIAM ALLEN
Deceased

Name: William Allen Baird
Rank/Branch: United States Army/E4
Unit: 23 INF DIV
Date of Birth: 07 June 1949
Home City of Record: Wooster OH
Date of Loss: 06 May 1968
Country of Loss:  South Vietnam/North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 163033 North  1073143
Status (in 1973): Returnee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident:
Refno:  1163

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File.

REMARKS: 730305 RELEASED BY PRG INJURED

Resides Ohio
-------------------------------
EDITED from the original

The Plain Dealer  Cleveland, OH
Wednesday, May 13, 1998

CLASSROOM GRIPPED BY POW STORIES  'BARBED WIRE HISTORY' CAPTIVATING FOR
STUDENTS, HEALING FOR VETERANS
BRIAN E. ALBRECHT  PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

   In this class, you will come to know torture and starvation, humiliation
and degradation, a bullet to the back of the head, your husband's hands
wrapped around your throat at night, the rare kindness of sworn enemies, and
the triumph of the human spirit.

  Just wave the white flag and step into "Barbed Wire History: The POW
Experience," a one-time course currently being taught by James Banks,
history professor at the Western Campus of Cuyahoga Community College in
Parma.

   The course links 25 students with former prisoners of war who provide
both personal testimony for the class and a video testament for future
generations.

  The effort originated when the Barbed Wire Buckeyes, a group of Ohio
ex-POWs, contacted Banks about erecting a memorial to America's prisoners of
war at CCC, the site of a military hospital during World War II.  Banks has
been involved in previous courses and documentaries dealing with military
history, and creation of the Veterans Memorial Gardens on the Parma campus.

  Banks said the POW memorial, which will be dedicated Sunday, got him
thinking, "My God, when you think of what they did, we really are looking at
the heroes of Little Round Top, only in the 20th century.  We should do
something to make that historical experience live through others."  That's
when the idea for a class took hold.

  Pairing students with POWs was an additional benefit, Banks said,
explaining, "History becomes more valuable when it touches other
generations."

  Before a single interview was conducted, students were briefed by Cissie
Clower, a psychologist and coordinator of the Senior Veterans Program,
Center for Stress Recovery at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in
Brecksville.

  "Basically I wanted to give them some advice on how they might talk with
some sensitivity to these men about their experiences," said Clower, who
counsels veterans and former POWs.

  "What the [CCC] course is doing in terms of applauding these POWs, and
validating them for what they did, is very healing for these men."

....................

  Student's hardships pale

  Bill Baird remembers the mine that shredded his legs and back in Vietnam.
He remembers his captors shooting him in the head to keep him from trying to
escape.

  Baird, 48, of Fredericksburg, Ohio, remembers five years of prison camps,
the dysentery, wormy food, nonstop propaganda broadcasts and more.

  And now, CCC student Joe Toth, 20, of Strongsville, can remember, too.

  "The biggest thing I've come to realize is that any kind of hardship I've
ever had in my life just pales in comparison to what this man went through,"
Toth said.

  "But he also is saying that all this stuff can happen, and you can still
move forward in your life and be a better person because of it," he added.
"It gives me a lot of enthusiasm for life."

  To Baird, whose injuries from the land mine left him partially paralyzed
from the waist down, it was sheer determination.  "I just got it in my head
that no matter if it's five years or 10, I will make it.  And if I make it
through this, I can make it through anything."

===================
Americal Division magazine
11/2002
SSG William A. Baird
Prisoner of War

William A. (Bill) Baird passed away on July 30, 2002 in Fredericksburg, OH.
Baird served in Vietnam with Co. A, 3/21st Inf., 196th LIB.  He was taken
prisoner of war in 1968 and held in captivity until 1973.

ADVA member Larry Watson, Wooster, OH, obtained a personal account of Bill
Baird's ordeal.  Larry remembers, "The last time I saw Bill was at a 4th of
July parade.  I was marching in a color guard with our local VVA chapter.
Bill was carrying a POW/MIA flag in his motorized wheelchair." Bill suffered
the loss of his wife Kathy earlier in 2002. Our condolences to the Baird
family and friends.  May he rest in peace.

William A. (Bill) Baird was born on June 7, 1949.  He enlisted in the
United States Army on August 15, 1967 in Cleveland, OH.  He underwent basic
training at Ft. Knox, KY and advanced training at Ft. Polk, LA.  He departed
for Vietnam from Ft. Lewis, WA on January 2, 1968.

Baird was assigned as an infantryman with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade
of the Americal Division.  He took part in patrols, search and destroy
missions, guard duty, and fought in the Tet Offensive in March 1968.

About 3:00 PM on the afternoon of May 6, 1968, thirty men of Baird's company
went out on patrol.  They were close to the de-militarized zone on the
border of North Vietnam.  Bill was pointman and a good 20 feet ahead of the
rest of the men.  They had no idea they were walking into an ambush. While
walking on top of a dike in a rice paddy, Bill stepped on a land mine. The
explosion not only rendered him unconscious, it also alerted the Viet Cong
and a firefight broke out.

Three hours later Baird regained consciousness and heard the action going
on.  Men were yelling, screaming, and shooting.  An artillery barrage was
going on and planes were overhead.  Bill began to take stock of where he was
and realized he must have stepped on a mine.  There was no one near to help
him.  He tried to stand up but discovered he had no feeling from the waist
down and through his efforts he passed out again.

As darkness approached things quieted down but Bill suffered the trauma of
being wounded and left alone.  Eventually he heard the voices of Vietnamese
approaching.  He had no idea if they were friendly or not.  Then as they
came upon him he heard, "Chu Hoi"', surrender or die.

The Vietnamese surrounded Baird and when he told them he was injured they
did not believe him.  They told him, "Americans are sneaky, lie, and can not
be trusted." Several times they tried to make him stand but he could not.
He then felt a sharp pain and a ringing in his head and discovered that they
had shot him. Fortunately the bullet hit no vital point, entering his neck
and exiting out his ear.

Finally convinced that Baird could not walk, the Vietnamese made a makeshift
stretcher and drug him along with them.  After dragging him for three or
four hours they stopped and gave him a bowl of rice.  Traveling to the north
they proceeded to show him off at all the villages they passed through and
the people would kick and spit at him.  This went on for most of a month.

Since there were no formal names for prison camps or locations, the American
prisoners gave the camps names that suited them.  The first organized camp
that Bill was taken to was called "Port Holes" because the cement building
had one door, a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and round
windows around the walls like port holes on a ship.

Bill remained here for a month and then was moved on to a camp known as D-1.
Not knowing where he was geographically, he thought he might be close to the
South China Sea because he was often given fish.  It was here that he saw
his first American.  He was a Green Beret and a dentist but he didn't seem
to want anything to do with Baird and did nothing to help him.  After two
months Baird was moved by truck to another place that he called the "Rock
Pile".  There were huge piles of rocks and debris that he thought might have
been from bombings.  This was only a stopover and after a month he was moved
to the "Plantation Gardens."

Some prisoners called this prison the "Chicken House" or "The Farm".
Prisoners were housed in three buildings in a row, like chicken houses, on
one side of the plantation.  The large mansion housed the Viet Cong officers
and their offices. Prisoners would be taken to the "Big House" for
interrogation, brain washing, or punishment. Bill thinks he was not beaten
as much as others because he became a showpiece for any dignitaries who came
through.  For this reason they allowed him to live. He remained at the
"Plantation Gardens" for four years before moving to the famous "Hanoi
Hilton" in January 1973.

After being tortured, starved, and kept in isolation most of his captivity,
Baird was moved from the "Hanoi Hilton" to a large building similar to a
large airplane hangar. Located here were between two and three hundred
Americans, many of them pilots.  Seeing someone who you had been with two or
three years earlier and had believed had been executed was indeed a
surprise.  All of the activity, talking, and carrying on was upsetting to
the guards who could not understand the Americans.

While at the "Hanoi Hilton" the prisoners were told of the American actress
Jane Fonda who had come to Vietnam as a friend of the Communists. This was
played up with those collaborators who made up the Peace Committee.

The prisoners knew of the negotiations between the two governments and
rumors about being liberated were strong. Food became a little more
plentiful and fluctuated from the earlier diet of one bowl of rice and a cup
of water to three or four bowls of rice a day. It was rare to have any meat
but now they were given bread, which they had never had.

On March 7, 1973 the Viet Cong told them to prepare to move.  They had done
this many times, taking their few possessions, but this time they were
allowed only what they wore.  They were told of the negotiations at the
Paris Peace Talks and that they were going home.

During his five years of captivity malaria, dysentery, worms, and
malnutrition caused Bill to lose between 30 and 40 pounds.  He departed for
the United States in March 1973 from Hanoi, North Vietnam by C-141 aircraft,
arriving at Clark Air Force Base, Philippines.  He spent time at Schofield
Barracks, Hawaii and spent six months at the Army hospital at Phonixville,
Pennsylvania.  He was discharged from Phonixville Medical Center on
September 27, 1973.

For his service, Bill was awarded the Vietnam Service Medal, Overseas Medal,
Purple Heart, and Prisoner of War Medal.