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LANCASTER — Tom Moe was a 23-year-old Air Force fighter pilot in Vietnam in January 1968 when a bomb fuse malfunctioned and blew up his F-4C jet over enemy territory.

Moe ejected, parachuted into a tree, scampered down and ran from enemy fire. He hid under a log and awaited rescue.

Instead, the North Vietnamese soldiers captured him and marched him into hell.

That's where he met John McCain.

"He was my next-door neighbor," Moe said.

Moe, now a 64-year-old retired Air Force colonel, was held for five years in prison camps in Hanoi, where he got to know McCain and other "guests" of the Hanoi Hilton.

Now that McCain is the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Moe's friendship with the senator from Arizona — forged in a POW camp — is being extended to the campaign trail.

Eighteen months ago, Moe agreed to campaign for McCain when another former POW asked him to come on board. Moe, who lives in Fairfield County near Columbus, is coordinating the veterans for McCain group in Ohio and spends hours each day on the phone and computer, campaigning for McCain.

He'll be a delegate for McCain at the GOP convention in Minneapolis later this year.

"I've never been in politics before in any form or another, but when I was called by John McCain's right-hand man, Orson Swindle, to work for John McCain in Ohio, there was no question I wanted to do this," Moe said. "I wanted to work with him, for him, because I believe in him. It's a new experience for me."

> Moe, McCain's friendship forged in Vietnam's infamous Hanoi Hilton

> Photos of Tom Moe | Watch our interview with Tom Moe

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