what was it like being a pow in vietnam what was it like being a pow in vietnam

At the start of the Vietnam War, the Saigon government insisted that the Viet Cong (VC) were little more than common criminals rather than enemy soldiers. Once one of the worlds poorest and most isolated countries, Vietnam is now a middle-income In a memo to the secretary of war, Davis wrote, No modern state, which is a party to international law, can sanction, either expressly or by a silence which imports consent, a resort to torture with a view to obtain confessions, as an incident to its military operations.. Part of the North's guerrilla and revolutionary warfare strategy, the trail would remain an important and continually growing pathway from North to South, though it often took more than one month to traverse. Despite McCains inconsistency in applying the same standards to the CIA, many still support his general position that using torture to interrogate captured militants is unacceptable. He was severely wounded and then captured at Anzio. American troops were using a form of waterboarding on captive Filipino insurgents as early as 1900. In a Wall Street Journal /NBC News poll taken in 1991, 69 percent of the American people believed that U.S. POWs were still being held in Indochina, and 52 percent had concluded that the government was derelict in not securing their release. It would hang above you in the torture room like a sadistic teaseyou couldnt drag your gaze from it. However, post-war France was vehement in its aims to reestablish a French empire, with Charles de Gaulle proclaiming that if the U.S. did not back France in its reconquest of Vietnam, they might ally themselves with Soviet Russians. ) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. A locked padlock The families were desperate, there was so much misinformation going around. Jessica Pearce Rotondi is the author ofWhat We Inherit: A Secret War and a Familys Search for Answers. I remember saluting an Air Force general who was sitting with a North Vietnamese officer, and when we saluted, we had been officially repatriated. The NVA are stripping everything off us anything they can use. This created a unique situation in most previous American wars, the majority of prisoners were enlisted men captured by the enemy, often times in groups. WebPOW Prisons in North Vietnam. Once Japan surrendered, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh successfully led Vietnam to independence, forming the short-lived Democratic Republic of Vietnam. And as McCain stated in his book: Eventually, I gave them my ships name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. You didnt know what to do. But in February 2008, McCain inexplicably failed to back another bill that would have restricted the Central Intelligence Agency to using only those techniques specified in the Army field manual. During the Vietnam War, for example, photographs and footage brought the conflict home to the American people. A plot far deeper then Kellys Heroes, and an unusual romance in B & W. Stalag 17 was made with no special effects. Bringing citizens and soldiers together to explore military history, military affairs and national security. In 1977 he married Linda, his high school sweetheart whom he had dated since 1962. All Rights Reserved. Due to consolidation at the Defense Department, the Air Force had been ordered to use them, too. A trail that was used to ferry both supplies and soldiers to South Vietnam, the Ho Chi Minh Trail snaked through the mountains and jungles of neighboring Cambodia and Laos. Beginning in 1969 and taking place over four years, the U.S. bombing of Cambodia is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of between 150,000-500,000 civilians. However, in the years since the first revelations about Abu Ghraib, there have been additional exposures of prisoner mistreatment at Guantanamo and other locations. Commander Denny Moore endured seven and a half years in eight different North Vietnam prisons But it isnt quite that simple. In the midst of parachuting, my back and right arm broke and my left arm was severely injured. That meant our plane was defenseless. He is among the finest American soldiers I have ever known. Find her on Twitter@JessicaRotondior at JessicaPearceRotondi.com. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Uncertainty is a killer. We were ecstatic, Harker said. In April 1970, Jerry also personally ordered and led a camp hunger strike, which was successful in obtaining my release from solitary confinement. Of the many precipitating events that followed, few were as pivotal as the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in setting the stage for the outbreak of the Vietnam War. While out, wed move about 1,000 meters a day and get resupplied every fourth day with c-rations if the helicopters could get through.. The North Vietnamese unloaded on the unit and killed two men. Americans at home were confronted with defeated, weary, and terrified airmen paraded around by their captors. They gave us western clothing and a travel bag and when they pulled us out of a holding cell wearing our red-striped pajamas we were given the clothes. Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) represents Texas 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. By the grace of God and the help of other men, we made it out. The cheers continued when they landed in the Philippines, Hawaii, and Andrews AFB, Maryland. 312-374-9333, Tuesday Saturday Only 661 officially recognized prisoners returned from that war alive and about 100 of those have since died, according to Defense figures. A group of school mates had gotten together and sold bumper stickers for a dollar each to buy me a car and they handed me the keys and a check for $1,100.. For about the next seven years, Boyd endured the hardships of Vietnamese POW (Prisoner of War) camps as he resisted interrogation, torture, and harsh living Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Dan Brinzac/New York Post Archives /NYP Holdings, Inc./Getty Images, Kim Komenich/The LIFE Images Collections/Getty Images, Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images, Lost Tuskegee Airmans Body May Have Been Found, third of captured Americans died in captivity, mishandling and misidentification of American remains, What We Inherit: A Secret War and a Familys Search for Answers, https://www.history.com/news/missing-in-action-mia-vietnam-war, Missing in Action: How Military Families in Tortuous Limbo Galvanized a Movement. Three former Vietnam War POWs appeared before a gathering of U.S. Of the 15 men who entered the rice paddy that evening, only four made it out. In the ensuing years, the government instituted reeducation and relocation policies for former South Vietnamese citizens. The court-martial board acquitted Glenn, but the Judge Advocate General of the Army, Maj. Gen. George B. Davis, registered a fierce dissenting legal opinion of the verdict. My dads supervisor said he could get me in the National Guard, but I thought that would be shirking my responsibility. After basic and advanced infantry training, Harker was approached and offered an opportunity to go to Officer Candidate School. I reserve that title for my wife, Shirley, who held our family together while I was rotting in a cell in the Hanoi Hilton for nearly seven years during the Vietnam War. Army Pfc. But that begs a more fundamental question: Does it work? McCain, who died Saturday at age 81, was held 5 years as a prisoner of war. Commemoration of the war must account for these servicemen who underwent so much hardship for their nation. There must have been 10,000 people at the Lynchburg airport when we arrived I had no idea there would be that welcome and response my big extended family the high school band was there. At what point do the compromises to our most cherished ideals as a nation start to corrupt our institutions and corrode them from within? The following story was written The POWs of Vietnam speak to the horror of war and the struggle to persevere on a very personal level. Eventually we were moved to Alcatraz, a special prison located in a courtyard behind the North Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense, along with eight other diehard POWs. He eventually signed a confession written by his captives in the stilted comic-opera language of Communist rhetoric, admitting to black crimes and other vague generalities. Vietnam was a heavily publicized conflict, much more so than Korea. Starvation, isolation and torture were constant companions. Harkers first prison was in Quang Nam Province, a difficult, mountainous country that made food scarce and meant deplorable living conditions for the POWs. There wasnt a place to grow food, so most of our calories came from manioc, Harker said. That experience gave him a pretty strong clue that all the Nazi propaganda about the savage and barbaric Americans might not be quite accurate. Nearly fifty years later, the prisoner of war issue remains a principal part of the American collective memory of the Vietnam War. After he returned from Vietnam, Harker took some time off, but eventually returned to Blacksburg and finished his business degree from Virginia Tech in 1976 and found his way to work as a probation and parole officer. My father-in-law was a squad leader in the German armys Infanterie Lehr Regiment during World War II. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. John McCain spent 5 years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam. B-52s bombed all night long after talks broke down. No digital enhancement and a cast that was selectively chosen for talent and filling their roles perfectly. But a few days later we got out. California's road to recovery runs through D.C. Republicans, Why New Jerseys ventilator guidelines may favor younger, whiter patients, Rhode Island ends specific restrictions on New Yorkers by making them national. On a human level, the war was disastrousan estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed, and over 1 million Vietnamese soldiers lost their lives. After landing, I struggled to get to higher terrain and, while trudging through the jungle, was quickly found by a flood of North Vietnamese soldiers, who eventually took me to Hoa Lo Prison, the infamous Hanoi Hilton where I would spend the next almost seven years of my life held captive by the Vietcong. In part as a result of the fallout from the oppressive and violent policies in Diem's government, the U.S. indicated support for a military-led coup in South Vietnam. With the help of God, I did my best to defy my captors, stand up for freedom and return with honor. In doing so, youre agreeing to the below guidelines. Did You Know? Reporters were brought to Vietnam and shown seemingly content prisoners inhabiting well-maintained prisons. However, American Air Force, Marine, and Naval aviators are officers, which made the vast majority of POWs in Vietnam officers rather than enlisted. In one incident, a military judge advocate named Captain Edwin Glenn was actually court-martialed for his direct role in super vising the water torture of a Filipino prisoner. I Spent Seven Years as a Vietnam POW. Then there were the battles Americans lost that precluded the recording and burial of fallen American soldierslike the Battle of Chosin, where 1,200 Marines were lost. Many others do not. Finally, in March, the U.S. landed its first major deployment of ground troops at Da Nangwith the intended purpose of defending U.S. air bases. Being home with his family, Harker said he learned how much anxiety and frustration and worry his parents went through while he was captive. The POWs returned after the Paris Peace Accords arrived from captivity under North Vietnam, the NLF, and other militant groups. His funeral was attended by 250,000 mourners, including the Soviet Premier and the Chinese Vice-Premier. Never mind that the planes had no bombing system for air-to-ground combat, which the Air Force needed for ground support, no gun and no sight system for bomb targeting and dogfighting. How many American POWS are still in Vietnam? WebThe greatest war film every made. To publish, simply grab the HTML code or text to the left and paste into Control of North Vietnam had long been ceded to his successors by this point, but Ho had remained involved in North Vietnamese affairs and was a deeply symbolic figure for many Vietnamese. Free shipping for many products! Naval Academy He said it meant a lot to him that we were able to do that to make sure those people could go to the polls and not get hurt. When you have a rifle and youre in front of the enemy, its different. It kept our spirits up and saved our sanity. Phisayavong has found that with the passage of time, locals are more willing to help in recovery efforts: I feel that now when I go to missions, people openly cooperateThe first time, villagers did not fully cooperate. The April protests garnered the participation of hundreds of thousands across multiple U.S. cities, with a number of prominent public figures attending, including the Rev. Thus began the First Indochina War, a conflict that would eventually morph and spiral into the Vietnam War. The majority of those on both lists are Vietnam veterans, and several of them have written for or been interviewed by Vietnam Magazine over the years. Captain Belcher had been in a province southwest of Saigon where we were providing security for elections, Harker said. HANOI, Vietnam (AP) In October 1967, John McCain was a 31-year-old Navy lieutenant commander on his 23rd bombing round over North Vietnam when he was shot out of the sky and taken prisoner. Yet the POWs of Vietnam seem to occupy a special place in the narrative and legacy of the war. Since July 3, 1863, there have been many calls for Confederate flags to be returned to their home states, and in particular, for the 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment flag return to Virginia. Nor do most of them have sons or daughters serving on the front lines of the present fight. Forty-two of those months were spent in solitary confinement with 10 other fine American patriots because the Vietcong labeled us diehard resistors. The Vietnam War was a conflict with profound international implications that changed the landscape of American international policy for decades to comea phenomenon called Vietnam syndrome. The Vietnam War lasted from 1964-1973the longest war in American history until it was overtaken by the one in Afghanistanand servicemen typically did one-year tours of duty. If they think these methods work, theyre woefully misinformed. Nearly 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War, and more than a quarter century since the normalization of U.S.-Vietnam relations, Vietnam is This form of protest would continue for much of 1963, and the impact it had on the Diem government gave it the label "the Buddhist Crisis.". The battle resulted in the deaths of 2,200 French soldiers and the capture of almost 11,000. As such, the North Vietnamese released the POWs they still held. Theres a guy with a rifle telling me to get up. In the end, I was the last man to be released from solitary, after three and half years. So, they open the door and it was such a rude awakening when the door opened. Lock As such, the North Vietnamese released the POWs they still held. Between February and March 1973, 591 American servicemen were released by the North Vietnamese. Today, the mistreatment of American POWs and the suffering they endured remains a powerful legacy of the Vietnam War. I was in the 3rd of the 21st in an area of operations at Que Son, Harker said. Bob Greene. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS We were interrogated when we were captured, Harker said, but we knew the Code of Conduct and so wed give that information. Kakuk poses with the flag and a mockup of a bamboo POW cage he uses to dramatize the cause. I thought it was odd he was in front of me and I had been taught that you always try to escape. This isnt to say that the United States has never tortured or mistreated prisoners before. It produces bad intelligence. Closed Sunday & Monday. So in many ways this debate is nothing new to anyone who knows a little history. Glory Denied: The Saga of Jim Thompson, America's Longest-Held Prisoner of War, Oral History: John Borling, Major General, Medal of Honor Recipient Jon Cavaiani Interview, American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day, Medal of Honor Recipient Leo K. Thorsness Interview, Vietnam POW John Borling on holidays endured at the "Hanoi Hilton", 2022 Pritzker Military Museum & Library. A person being tortured will simply say anything he thinks his tormenters want to hear in order to stop the pain. Bow to their captors or take a beating. One such argument asserts that our enemies are a bunch of barbarians who launched a devastating surprise attack against us, do not adhere to even the basic rules of civilized human behavior and, therefore, do not deserve civilized treatment. By Harkers estimation only about 150 U.S. soldiers were captured in South Vietnam most of whom were taken during the Tet Offensive. While the North Vietnamese maintained several prisoner camps, the most famous was the Ha L Prison, which American servicemen named the Hanoi Hilton. He still drives it today. HANOI, Vietnam American prisoners of war locked up for years in North Vietnam knew the drill. The Hanoi Hilton Is No Trump Hotel. "Johnnie" Johnson, a prisoner of war in North Korea, risked his life to secretly record the names of 496 fellow prisoners who had died during their captivity. Rosaire Bushey is the public affairs officer at the Salem VA and an Air Force Veteran. You may also like: A timeline of WWII, one of the most devastating conflicts in world history. They gave us food and told us the peace agreement was broken and we were right back down in the depths of despair. Ask a veteran, and most will tell you they are not heroes. A brand new Mustang was awaiting his arrival. They kept him alive until a collecting party recovered all three of them, and then he and the two Americans were evacuated to a field aid station, side by side in the same ambulance. The guards of Trung Son didnt physically abuse their prisoners. It was not invented in response to 9/11. American servicemen were imprisoned in large numbers during the Korean War, and many were horribly mistreated and left to die by their captors. Yet the POWs of Vietnam seem to occupy a special place in the narrative and legacy of the war. Part of the reason why the POW issue remains an enduring part of the Vietnam War has to do with the media. Experience shows that slow, methodical, long-term rapport-building interrogation tactics always produce better results. I think he understood the condition there was a common situation and appreciation among soldiers., Wed get to a camp every day where we got hot white rice better than we had at the mountain camp. For years, recovery efforts in Southeast Asia were hampered by lack of resources, governments wary of letting Americans back in and locals who remember the conflict all too well, says Sompatana Tommy Phisayavong, a research analyst at the Department of Defense who works with teams recovering remains from the C.I.A.s Secret War in Laos. Le Duan had been a prominent and influential figure throughout Vietnam's early 20th-century history, and he is generally considered to have had a more militaristic approach than Ho Chi Minh. The whole theory was that we needthe Vietnam veterans needa place they would be recognized, says Jan Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In one incident, a military judge advocate named Captain Edwin Glenn was actually court-martialed for his direct role in super vising the water torture of a Filipino prisoner. The Paris Peace Accords marking the end of the Vietnam War were signed on January 27, 1973. I learned firsthand that the trying times do have a purpose and that we must choose to let them make us stronger. Eventually we were put on a train, in a box car, and taken to Hanoi, to Plantation Garden, an old French plantation with bars in the walls. Torture brought each man to his breaking point, and many prisoners were forced to write confessions or sign statements under atrocious coercion. Email. Before I could get his .45, he stabs me in the side with his bayonet. Wed hear doors open and activity and they came and said, youre going, and youre going, and youre going dividing us up into groups that would be repatriated. Great story, I hope to meet you someday at an American reunion. I remember that because he died in the rice paddies when we were ambushed.. WebMore individuals have experienced a prisoner of war or hostage situation than most people realize. Seniors, students, and teachers with valid IDs -$8.00Members,children under 12, First Responders, and Active Military - FREE In defiance of his captors, he repeatedly blinked his eyes in Morse code during the interview, spelling out the word T-O-R-T-U-R-Eand thus confirming to U.S. intelligence for the first time that we were indeed being tortured. I didnt think about the possibility of being killed. 10am - 4pm CT. Search our catalog and scope out our consortial partner, the Consortia of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) and other libraries worldwide. This operation marked the beginning of the use of chemical warfare by the U.S. in Vietnam, known most infamously as Agent Orange. Over the course of the Vietnam War, hundreds of American aircraft were shot down by the North Vietnamese. Feb 3, 1989, 11:00pm PDT. Museum Every POW gets a casualty assistance officer whose job it is to let the family know when they hear something anything about their son, Harker said. Life in Vietnam under French colonial rule was brutal, with Vietnamese people granted few civil liberties and subjected to constant exploitation. We had very little to eat so people died from starvation, infectious diseases malaria was rampant dysentery. Cybercrime and identity theft are rampant, but you can follow a few best practices and tips to keep your information safer online. Dan Bullock (December 21, 1953 June 7, 1969) was a United States Marine and the youngest U.S. serviceman killed in action during the Vietnam War, dying at the age With nearly 40,000 young men being drafted every month, disillusionment spreading in particular through universities, and news of battlefield casualties reaching the American population, antiwar protests began to gain in size. I drew a picture of a ships deck with a large swimming pool on the fantail, the captains quarters in a chain locker, and various other imagined embellishments.. Released American POWs Wendell B. Rivers and James Bond Stockdale, being escorted by an officer on February 12, 1973. When my German father-in-law asked me that question for the first time right after the news broke about abuses in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, I didnt have a good answer for him. A series of widespread and coordinated assaults on South Vietnamese cities by North Vietnam and the NLF, the Tet Offensive was a turning point in the war, marking an end to the American narrative that the war would wrap up quickly. A newspaper clipping shows when David Harker returned home. The staff judge advocates at MACV headquarters quickly realized that if American GIs were going to have any chance whatsoever of surviving their captivity, the Saigon government had to be convinced to change its policy and start giving POW status to captured VC and treating them in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. That was a lesson I learned myself during the war in Vietnam. In the subsequent March, the North Vietnamese began a massive offensive that would result in the full-scale retreat and ultimate defeat of South Vietnamese forces. His first-person account of that harrowing ordeal was published in U.S. News & World Report on in As a result, our names were blacklisted together as hardcore resistors. By that time there are a bunch of rifles pointing at me. In a famous incident in 1966, prisoner Jeremiah Denton, Jr. blinked the word torture in Morse code during a televised propaganda interview, confirming suspicions of mistreatment. Another argument goes that Al Qaida and the Taliban are transnational terrorist organizations, gangs of thugs, not armies of established states, and that since their fighters are illegal combatants rather than real soldiers, they are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They didnt pursue it much. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. I remember the day when David returned to Preston Glenn Airport in his hometown of Lynchburg, VA. Resulting in the deaths of 305 American troops, and an estimated 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, the Battle of Ia Drang Valley pivoted the war from one primarily of small conflicts to full-fledged assaults. We must choose to keep a positive attitude. In part a test of Vietnamization, U.S. troops were not permitted to cross into Laos, though they did provide air support. I was 35 years old, a husband and father of three small children. The symbol of the POW/MIA movement is the POW/MIA flag, the brainchild of Mary Hoff, whose husband, Navy Lt. Cmdr. I think of all the love behind it every time I drive it.. Thats what made it so hard to answer his question. During a routine torture session with the hook, the Vietnamese tied a prisoners hands and feet, then bound his hands to his anklessometimes behind the back, sometimes in front. If your organization is interested in becoming a Stacker I was doing my junior year at Virginia Tech and my grades were low, so I had to take a quarter off in 1967 and during that time, because I wasnt a full-time student, I had to let the government know. Furthermore, as McCain so correctly points out, this debate isnt about themits about usabout who we are and what makes us different from the enemy we are fighting. Because the Korean War never officially endedno peace treaty was ever formally signedthe recovery of American remains is complicated. Ho remained North Vietnam's chief of state and continued to exert influence on the state's government until his death in 1969, but operated largely behind the scenes. In the north they beat pilots and used a lot of torture techniques.. A native of Lynchburg, Virginia, Harker is the third of seven children. They wanted to get us away from the battlefield but a few days later they did it again. We also had better medical care there as they had a doctor to attend to us.. After the ambush, he was the ranking person and he held us together.. But if you subject any of them to enough torture, you will get the most amazing pieces of information, all of them exactly what you want to hear. | Photo courtesy of Congressman Johnson's office. Admittedly, harsh interrogation techniques do produce answersfast answers. Where is the line? So, when they let everyone out, and then gave us reading material, they knew it was over. After an extended period of ill health, Ho Chi Minh died of heart failure at his home in Hanoi. Meyers, whose remains were identified due to advances in technology, was declared missing in action in December of 1950 after his unit was involved in combat operations near Sonchu, North Korea.  Over 100 veterans, most of them World War II as well as veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars, marched to demand an accounting of the American veterans in South East Asia on January 24, 1982. 27 Apr 2023 04:34:24 1 It Was America Versus North Vietnam U.S. Army The Myth: This one's basically self-evident, since we Americans decided to call it the Vietnam War. At the same time, they portrayed their care for prisoners as benevolent despite their stated belief that American prisoners did not deserve good care, hoping to win international support. American soldiers were used as propaganda pieces and were forced to suffer indignities. McCains amendment passed, and has since been called the Detainee Treatment Act. Over 25,000 Vietnamese civilians were killed, and an estimated 1 million were displaced as a result of this conflict. But theyd have a guy with a lantern and theyre asking for information about your unit, its size, and I just kept repeating. Congressman Sam Johnson. WebA Vietnam POW spent nearly seven years in captivity. This soldier remains in good spirits after being relieved from the dangerous operation a month prior. Many Americans were being tortured in horrendous ways, and a significant number did not survive their imprisonment. As one clear indicator of the long-term and devastating impact of colonialism, in Vietnama state that had existed for centuries before the French invasionbefore French colonial rule, a majority of the population was literate. John Doc Hofer B 5/46, 198th Bde, Americal. Between February and March 1973, 591 American servicemen were released by the North Vietnamese. Six weeks later, he was a POW. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. As a number of U.S. advisors watched a movie in the mess hall of the South Vietnamese Army's compound at Bien Hoa, six guerrillas infiltrated the facility and opened fire with automatic weapons. The planes we were flying, F-4 Phantom IIs, were really Navy aircraft designed for fleet defense. Facing backlash on the heels of the massacre at My Lai, and million-strong protests of the war, President Johnson slows the pace of U.S. bombing in Vietnamcalling for peace negotiationsand announces that he will not run for reelection. Under the George H. W. Bush administration, the Senate convened a Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs chaired by Vietnam veteran John Kerry to investigate whether or not American prisoners were left behind in Southeast Asia. Staging his protest in front of the Pentagon, Morrison was a Quaker and pacifist from Baltimore, and though his actions did not lead to any direct changes in policy from the U.S. government, he was lauded in Vietnam for his sacrifice.