James N. Rowe

James N. Rowe was a decorated U.S. Army officer and author best known for his memoir, "Five Years to Freedom," which chronicled his harrowing experiences as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. Commissioned as a second lieutenant after graduating from West Point in 1960, Rowe was captured by Viet Cong forces in 1963 and endured five years of brutal captivity before escaping in 1968. His firsthand account of survival under extreme conditions became a seminal work in military literature.

Following his retirement from the Army in 1974, Rowe was recalled to active duty in 1981 to develop the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training program, drawing directly from his POW experiences. This critical curriculum, now taught across U.S. special operations forces, remains his enduring professional legacy. Later assigned as chief of the Army division of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group in the Philippines, Rowe specialized in counterinsurgency operations until his assassination by communist insurgents in 1989. His contributions to military training and counterterrorism strategy continue to influence special operations doctrine decades after his death.