"President Nixon came into the room and said that the bartenders would keep pouring and the band would keep playing until the last one of us left, and for many, it was daylight before they left," retired Col. Thomas McNish recounted.
The dinner, honoring the 591 service members who had recently returned to the United States after spending time in Vietnam camps as prisoners of war, was the largest ever hosted at the White House when it took place on May 24, 1973.
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Fifty years later, those same attendees marked the anniversary of that event with a Wednesday reenactment hosted by the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California.
McNish, who spent about six and a half years in Vietnamese captivity after getting shot down on his 45th combat mission in Southeast Asia, attended the homecoming with "this beautiful young woman" whom he had met eight days after he returned to the U.S.
"My then-girlfriend and I decided we were going to wander around the White House since [Nixon] said we had full access to the White House with everything except their living quarters," he told the Washington Examiner in an interview. "So, we wandered into the Green Room, and I did the smartest thing I ever did in my life — spontaneously asked her to marry me. And so at 2 a.m. in the Green Room, we got engaged."
The party celebrated the culmination of Operation Homecoming, the name given to the effort to secure the release of American POWs following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on Jan. 27, 1973. Over the ensuing months, the American service members held in captivity were released in waves, and Nixon's bash was to honor their return.
Retired Cmdr. Porter Halyburton, who spent more than seven years as a POW, said of the party: "It was really something, and there were lots and lots of celebrities there. Bob Hope and John Wayne and Irving Berlin was there. I don't remember all of the people, but it was pretty incredible."
The party represented a closure of the war in Vietnam, ending a moment in history that bitterly divided the country with a rare show of unity.
Halyburton, nearly 60 years ago, was forced to eject himself from his aircraft on his 75th combat mission on Oct. 17, 1965. His plane took fire, the pilot was killed, and he lost his oxygen mask, so he had no ability to radio in before ejecting from the plane, he told the Washington Examiner.
He was pronounced dead, and his wife spent a year and a half believing she was a widow. He only found out about being declared killed in action when a new POW arrived at the camp surprised, and happy, to see his comrade whom he thought had been killed.
"I'm really glad to know you're here, because you are declared killed in action," Halyburton said, recounting the conversation between him and another service member he identified as Al Carpenter.
Both men highlighted the importance of the bonds they shared with the other POWs as they struggled to survive. Specifically, the POWs used tap code, a nonverbal way to communicate based on tapping to indicate a corresponding letter, to support one another in the camp.
"It was what really saved our lives over there, was our ability to communicate, even though that was their greatest effort, was to keep us from communicating," McNish added. "They were never able to beat us, that was, in prison — that was really our greatest victory."
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Both men joined fewer than 200 others who returned to the U.S. in Operation Homecoming to mark the 50th anniversary of the White House shindig. With no detail being too small, Wednesday's event included the same menu and table centerpieces as the party 50 years ago.
"I've lived nothing but a blessed life since I got home," McNish, who is weeks away from celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, said.