Harry C. Stonecipher, president and chief executive officer of McDonnell Douglas, presented a grant check to Brig. Gen. (Ret.) James P. Ulm, chairman of the Air Force Academy Association of Graduates and Freida Lee Mock, an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, at ceremonies here Monday. Also attending the ceremony at the Air Force Academy's war memorial were U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald R. Fogleman and six former Air Force and Army POWs.

Using the McDonnell Douglas funds, the Association of Graduates will sponsor the 90-minute film. It selected Mock's American Film Foundation to produce the feature documentary in time for public television airing in 1998, the 25th anniversary of the return of American POWs from Vietnam.

"No group of people better exemplifies the quality of courage than the U.S. service men and women who not only fought for our country, but who endured the pain and suffering of falling into enemy hands as POWs," Stonecipher said in presenting the check to the Association of Graduates.

"We at McDonnell Douglas are proud to act as sponsors of a documentary devoted to telling their story in their own words -- through a series of first person accounts.

"This inspiring film will make people across our country a little more proud of what it is to be an American -- knowing of the great courage of those who remained true to themselves, their faith and their country under the most difficult of circumstances," he said.

General Ulm explained to those attending the grant announcement that "the film will benefit future generations of officer trainees, honor a very special group of Americans -- our POWs -- and create a public awareness of their sacrifices on behalf of our nation."

The documentary was conceptualized by the Academy's Class of 1965, which sponsored as its 25th anniversary gift to the school an oral history project of interviews with Academy graduates who were Vietnam POWs. Using those 39 histories as a starting point, the film concept has been expanded to include POW aircrew members from all our nation's modern day conflicts.

General Fogleman said the documentary will ensure that the POWs' accomplishments, spirit and will -- as well as an understanding of what people are able to endure, face and survive -- will live well into the future.

"The future of this country will only be boundless so long as we have men and women who will step forward and serve her in the fashion that the individuals we will honor by this project have done in the past," he said.

The film will be produced by independent filmmakers Freida Lee Mock and Terry Sanders of the American Film Foundation, based in Santa Monica, Calif. Mock is a director, producer and writer who won the 1995 Academy Award for the best feature documentary film for Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. Lin is the architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Freida Mock explained that when approached about the project by members of the Class of 1965, she and her colleagues were "riveted by the possibility of making this important story, one the American public has not fully understood or has been privileged to know.

"We believe this film will add to the reconciliation and the healing that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Maya Lin have done," she said.