Vietnam: The POW Experience

On November 10, the Ninth Annual Conference featured a panel on the POW experience in Vietnam. The panel, which was televised live and on replay on C-Span, featured Maj. General Edward Mechenbier, Captain Jack Fellowes, Lt. Colonel Marion Anthony Marshall, and Colonel George “Bud” Day—recipient of the Medal of Honor his heroism while a prisoner of war. The panel was moderated by Taylor Kiland, co-author of the book, Open Doors: Vietnam POWs, Thirty Years Later and currently V.P. of Communications at the U.S. Navy Memorial. In this issue of Valor, we print an excerpt from this panel of distinguished veterans of Vietnam.

Taylor Kiland: Good Morning, my name is Taylor Kiland. I am the co-author of a museum exhibit and book called Open Doors: Vietnam POWs, Thirty Years Later, which takes a close look at the current lives of thirty former Vietnam POWs, including the four with us today, in words and pictures. There have been many articles and documentaries written about the POW experience—especially the Vietnam POW experience—and that’s because this is a unique group of men, and their families are just as unique. They were the longest held group of POWs in our nation’s history. Many of them were held for years—one, three, and some of them even nine years. Their families did not know of their fate for years. Not days, not months, but years. These were the days before CNN, before the Internet, and before cell phones. Back then, communication took a lot longer. So many of these families did not know the fate of their loved ones for a very long time.

This is also a unique group because our country was not unanimously appreciative of the service and sacrifices of these men. As Dr. Lewis Sorley said, there is this lingering negative stereotype of the Vietnam veteran as the downtrodden, alcoholic, jobless, unemployed veteran. And while our objective in this book and exhibit was to celebrate these men specifically, if we are able to defy that lingering stereotype that is all-the better.

We are lucky to have Colonel Day’s wife, Doris Day, with us today. And we also have Colonel Marshall’s sister, Sue Marshall, here. These are two family members who waited very patiently for years. Many of the families of the POWs felt alone and quite helpless when they were waiting for them to come home. They felt cut off from the news from their husbands, sons, and brothers, and they were isolated from each other. So what was it like when these men returned home, when most of the country wanted to forget about Vietnam? I call it the “Rip Van Winkle effect.” Many of these men left in the early to mid-1960s. As most of you know, before 1965 much of our country still resembled the way things were in the 1950s. The men returned home in 1973. Think about the cataclysmic political, social, and cultural changes that occurred while they were gone. So what was it like for these men to go back to work or to read a newspaper? Many of them are pilots; what was it like for them to get back in the cockpit? One of the POWs told me that when he left for Vietnam, his wife had on long skirts and his son had short hair. When he came home, his wife had on a short skirt and his son had long hair. He was eager to reestablish himself as head of the household so he grabbed his son by the ear got him down to the barber and got his hair cut. He said that in retrospect it was the most damaging thing he had done to their relationship and it took years to repair. So how did these men adjust when they came home and what can these men teach us about how to overcome adversity and take advantage of the second chances that freedom offers you?

These men took the lessons gleaned from captivity and from war, and incorporated them into their lives, but focused on the positive things. And that is the goal of the museum exhibit and the book I co-authored with my friend, photographer Jamie Howren. But these men also have many lessons for us, and also for many of the soldiers and sailors now returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Some were wounded physically and some were wounded in spirit.