Georgia Military Veterans’ Hall of Fame Spotlight
Orson George Swindle, III
2018 Georgia Military Veterans’ Hall of Fame Inductee (Valor)
Attention All Georgia Military Veterans!
Georgia, or entered the military in Georgia, or have lived in
16 | November 2019 | Real Hero Report
packets are accepted through the
last Friday in August. All packets are
The GMVHOF is located in the Floyd
Veterans Building across the street
website at www.GMVHOF.org or
United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel (Retired)
Orson George Swindle, III from Camilla, Georgia was
inducted into the 2018 Class of the Georgia Military
undaunted heroism, and unwielding devotion to his fellow service
members in connection with military operations against armed
enemies of the United States in Southeast Asia and subsequently
as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam.
Upon graduation
from Georgia Tech
in 1959, he was
commissioned, earned
his Navy wings in
F-8E Crusader on 204
missions in combat.
On Veteran’s Day,
November 11, 1966,
then-Captain Swindle
was shot down over
North Vietnam and
was captured. For the
following six years,
four months and four
days, he endured
a continuous, hellish, and inhumane nightmare of beatings,
hundreds of hours of interrogations, torture, wounding, and
depravation at the hands of his communist captors in the prison,
infamously known as the Hanoi Hilton.
Throughout these seemingly endless sessions, he was able
to convince his captors that his shrewdly fabricated, false,
and plausible details to be factual and were interpreted by his
interrogators as totally factual and proved to be of great value
for survival of his fellow POWs. Under threat of death, Captain
Swindle nonetheless assumed complete care of other sick and
wounded fellow prisoners.
the other POW’s repatriation. Undaunted by his interminable and
the A-4 Skyhawk.
War, he was awarded the Prisoner of War Medal, the Navy
Commendation Medal for Valor, thirteen Air Medals, two Purple
Hearts, two Bronze Star Medals, two Legions of Merit, and our
nation’s third-highest award for valor, two Silver Stars.
Swindle continued to serve in the public sector and twice served
in Presidential appointment positions.
/www.GMVHOF.org