SHIVELY, JAMES RICHARD DECEASED RIP 02/18/2006
Name: James Richard Shively Branch/Rank: UNITED STATES AIR FORCE/O2 Unit: Date of Birth: Home City of Record: SPOKANE WA Date of Loss: 05-May-67 Country of Loss: NORTH VIETNAM Loss Coordinates: 205230 North 1053230 East Status (in 1973): Category: Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D Missions: Other Personnel in Incident: Refno:
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: 730218 RELEASED BY DRV USAF Academy 1964 Graduate
No further information available at this time.
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Library of Congress files:
NVN: "Red Mortars Blast Hanoi; Hanoi Jeers Captured" Country: NVN
Name: James R. Shively
Subjects: Aircraft downed; PW transit; Photograph
Reel: 408
Volume: 4
Page: 158
Type of Document: Open Source
Date of Report: 67 05 07
Date of Information: 67 05 07
Category: CIA Files
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Jim Shively passed away 18 Feb 2006.
33 years ago, 18 Feb 1973, he was released from prison. Jim had been fighting a long battle with cancer.
He lived in Washington state with his wife until his death. =================================
Former POW and prosecutor dies
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPOKANE, Wash. -- James Shively, a Vietnam prisoner of war who became a federal prosecutor, has died at the age of 63 after a long fight with cancer.
Shively died on Saturday, 33 years to the day after he was released by the North Vietnamese.
"It was just like Dad to do everything right to the day," one of his four daughters, Laura Watson, said Wednesday.
Shively entered the U.S. Air Force in 1964, and was shot down in 1967. He spent six years in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton."
Shively retired in October 2004 as the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, after a career spanning two decades with the Department of Justice.
He was acting U.S. attorney from 2000 to 2001.
Shively was honored at a retirement reception in 2004 by several hundred friends, colleagues and family members.
"That's the kind of guy he was, a true gentleman," U.S. Attorney Jim McDevitt, who worked with Shively for three years, said Wednesday.
"After what he faced in Vietnam, it certainly put everything in perspective for him," McDevitt said. "He was the coolest head, no matter what. He was and still is part of the foundation around here."
Born in Wheeler City, Texas, Shively moved to the Spokane Valley with his parents when he was 5. He graduated in 1960 from West Valley High School.
He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1964 with a degree in civil engineering and later earned a master's degree in international relations from Georgetown University. He obtained his law degree in 1977 at Gonzaga Law School.
He was an Air Force fighter pilot and was assigned in December 1966 to fly F-105 jets based in Thailand as part of the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. His jet was shot down over North Vietnam on May 5, 1967, and he ejected and landed in a rice paddy 20 miles from Hanoi.
He was paraded through the streets of Hanoi and underwent weeks of interrogation and torture before being held at the POW camp. He was released by the North Vietnamese on Feb. 18, 1973.
"I'm not resentful, and I don't look on it as a real loss, but an experience from which I learned a lot," Shively said a month after his release as a POW.
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Jim,
I've lost two of my best friends. First was Loren Torkelson. Now, I've lost you, too.
Jim, it's bad enough to lose someone you love. But, it is an emotion most terrible to lose someone uniquely like you who I not only loved but liked, too. When we were cell mates you showed the rest of us how to live. You never said an angry word to any of us no matter how much we deserved it. And no angry words were ever spoken to you, either. When you suffered endless pain and discomfort, you never complained. In fact, you smiled. You showed us what real courage was.
Jim, these last few years you demonstrated your immense strength of character and your unbelieveable courage in the face of overwhelming odds. We are all humbled by this and doubt that we could ever be your equal under similar circumstances.
Jim, when we were cell mates you taught me so many things. You taught me Russian, politics, world history. But, the biggest lesson I learned from you was how to live; how much better we ourselves would be if we were like Jim Shively.
Remember the poem we read together? It was about soldiers in WWI. The last five lines of that poem are how I will bid my final farewell to you, dear Jim.
By your courage in tribulation, By your cheerfulness before the dirty devices of this world, You have won the love of those who have watched you. All we remember is your living face, And that we loved you for being of our clay and spirit.
Godspeed, Jim.
If anyone deserves a place in Heaven, it is you.
Your friend, Joe March 3, 2006
(REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION)