Ralph Galati was born March 22, 1948, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He grew up in that city in the 1950s, attending Catholic school and choosing Air Force ROTC when he went to college.  Ralph remembers the 60s as an exciting but tumultuous time, one which saw a very polarized America, especially in terms of the war in Vietnam.  He graduated from college in May 1970 and immediately went to flight school, and he was trained to be a weapons system officer on an F-4 Phantom, a fighter jet.  He was stationed in Thailand and had been there for about 90 days when he flew his 69th mission and was shot down over North Vietnam.  On that fateful mission, Ralph and his pilot were acting as forward air control, finding and marking targets for the aircraft following them.  They were targeted by a surface-to-air missile (SAM) and forced to bail out, falling into the hands of North Vietnamese villagers who almost beat them to death.  A local cadre took them into custody though, and they were transported to Hanoi, and eventually to the infamous Hanoi Hilton.  Conditions during that year and a half of imprisonment were difficult:  they included solitary confinement, interrogations and beatings and torture, manipulation and degradation, and starvation and manipulation.  As much as he endured Ralph is quick to point out that there were other men who were there much longer than he was, and together they found ways to survive and to communicate – and to live up to the code of conduct that they were expected to follow.  They heard the B-52 bombings while they were being held, and when they stopped in late 1972 the men were hopeful that the end of the war was near.  It turned out that they were correct, and they were given civilian clothes and transported by bus, all of which they expected to be a North Vietnamese ploy until they saw the American officers and the C-141 waiting for them on the tarmac.  They were handed over to the American air force personnel and were on their way to the Philippines, and soon to home and family, and for Ralph that meant the daughter he had not yet seen.  Ralph stayed in the air force a number of years, but even so he recalls the divided America he returned to – Vietnam had scarred the soul of America.  He also recalls the adjustment issues he had – what he would later come to understand as PTSD.  He has dedicated himself to advocating on behalf of veterans and to educating people in the community about his military service and what he and other veterans experienced.  Ralph Galati was interviewed over zoom by Crestwood students in May 2025.