Via Chap (Otherwise known as the purveyor of uncommon and outstanding linkage, as in “How DOES he find this stuff?”)…another remarkable essay by Robert Kaplan: “Rereading Vietnam.” Here’s but a small taste of what you’ll find:
What Bud Day and other POWs specifically admired about Nixon was his willingness to strike back in a way that Johnson hadn't. Johnson's bombing halt in 1968 was seen as a betrayal by POWs, and caused disappointment and anger even throughout the U.S. military. Remember that these POWs were often combat pilots—professional warriors and volunteers that is, not citizen soldiers who were drafted. Professional warriors are not fatalists. In their minds, there is no such thing as defeat so long as they are still fighting, even from prison. That belief is why true soldiers have an affinity for seemingly lost causes.
In December 1967, a prisoner was dumped in Day's cell on the outskirts of Hanoi, known as the Plantation. This prisoner's legs were atrophied and he weighed under 100 pounds. Day helped scrub his face and nurse him back from the brink of death. The fellow American was Navy Lieutenant Commander John Sidney McCain III of the Panama Canal Zone. As his health improved, McCain's rants against his captors were sometimes as ferocious as Day's. The North Vietnamese tried and failed, through torture, to get McCain to accept a release for their own propaganda purposes: The lieutenant commander was the son of Admiral John McCain Jr., the commander of all American forces in the Pacific. "Character," writes the younger McCain, quoting the 19th century evangelist Dwight Moody, "is what you are in the dark," when nobody's looking and you silently make decisions about how you will act the next day.
Bud Day. John McCain. Admiral James Stockdale. True American Heroes, all. Kaplan relates some of their stories in thumbnail sketches and points us to books that contain the complete narratives, which makes Kaplan’s article worthwhile, if only for the reading list. But there’s much more than a reading list here. Do go read the whole thing. You’ll be inspired to go pick up a few new books.
Having recently had shoulder surgery, I do not know how prisoners can withstand torture, especially the act of hanging by your arms tied straight out behind you! Absolutely unbearable in my mine.
ReplyDeleteYou have to admire guys of this caliber.