Vietnam pows: from hell to happily ever after

Tammy’s job put her in contact with VIPs, and some conspired to foster a romance between the couple. Everett invited her to a White House gala for returning prisoners hosted by President

Richard Nixon, and the ex-POW stayed in D.C. for a week afterward as the romance flourished. They wed 49 years ago. Talking about their union, he says: “It’s very important to support each

other’s dreams. We never go to bed angry, we say our prayers before falling asleep, and we say, ‘I love you.’”  TOM AND YONA MCNISH, SAN ANTONIO Tom McNish, flying an Air Force F-105

Thunderchief, was shot down over North Vietnam in September 1966. After months of “torture and starvation,” he escaped mentally by fantasizing about his ideal wife. Tom and Yona McNish were

set up by mutual friends after he returned from Vietnam. Courtesy Tom and Yona McNish She would be Christian, tall, brunette, never married, no kids. He planned to date for a year but not

get serious — with anybody. In Alabama, his future wife, Yona, had married and had two daughters. In 1965, she got to know a woman at a beauty salon who also had two kids. The friend’s

husband was shot down in Vietnam, and Yona had her own cross to bear: Her husband succumbed to cancer. When five POWs returned to Maxwell Air Force Base, Yona accompanied her friend to a

welcome home ceremony. At the microphone Tom gave thanks, then blurted out: “I’m a 30-year-old bachelor with a lot of living to catch up on!” “Right on, baby!” Yona cried out, though Tom

didn’t hear her. Still, mutual friends set them up — never mind that Yona was 5 feet, 2 inches, blond and Jewish. Tom’s prison fantasy went up in flames as their courtship heated up. They

were inseparable. They recall being feted at a White House celebration and remember, around midnight, Nixon decreeing: “The band will keep playing and the bartenders will keep pouring until

the last one of you leaves.” Tom proposed to Yona in the White House Green Room, and their marriage has lasted 48 years. After the war he became a physician and, later, the chief of flight

medicine for the Air Force. The couple, who also have a son, say they share values including Judeo-Christian beliefs about right versus wrong. Tom loves the Hebrew word _beshert_, meaning

destiny, or in this case “one person whom an individual is destined to marry.” Says Yona: “It was just meant to be.”                      _You can _subscribe here_ to _AARP Veteran Report_,

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