TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — A post office in Tupelo now bears the name of an Air Force colonel who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for nearly a decade.
During his captivity, Carlyle “Smitty” Harris wrote a letter to his wife, Louise, that ended up at the same post office, the Daily Journal reports. It was renamed for him at a ceremony on Friday.
“This post office has been in our lives for about 57 years,” Harris said.
He still had the letter he sent his wife and pulled it from his coat pocket as he spoke. The letter was delivered to the post office in 1965.
Harris was shot down over North Vietnam on April 4 of that year and spent the next eight years as a prisoner of war.
A bill to rename the post office was introduced in Congress by U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly and signed into law by President Joe Biden in August.
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