Joe Crecca was born in 1940 in East Orange, New Jersey. He was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force in September 1964 via the Air Force Officer Training School at Lackland AFB, Texas. He completed F-4C Weapons Systems Officer training in June 1966 and reported to the 480th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing, "Gunfighters," at Danang Air Base in the Republic of Vietnam, in August 1966. While flying his 87th combat mission—and his 75th into North Vietnam—in only 92 days, Crecca's F-4 was hit by a surface to air missile and he was forced to eject just northwest of Hanoi. He was immediately taken as a Prisoner of War and spent the next six years and three months in captivity, learning the tap code (which was scratched into an interrogation table), teaching physics and math, and smoking Albanian Lekas before being released during Operation Homecoming on February 18, 1973.