“Where will he sleep?” she asked.
“With me,” Carol answered.
“And what will we feed him?”
In prison, I pictured my family as they had been when I last saw them: my wife healthy and happy; my sons, not much older than toddlers, rambunctious and curious; my daughter a contented, beautiful infant; all of them safe and sound and carefree. So few of Carol’s letters ever reached me that I had little detailed knowledge of how they were all getting along. I didn’t know how Carol was managing to raise the kids alone or how the children’s personalities were developing. The boys were now old enough to take an interest in sports, but I couldn’t think of them as budding athletes. I had a hard time even picturing them at their current age. Sidney was no longer a baby, but I couldn’t imagine what she looked like. When I closed my eyes, I just saw the small faces I had bid good-bye to, and I worried that the calamity that had befallen us might have touched them with a sadness they were too young to sustain.
I derived much comfort, however, from knowing that the Navy takes care of its own. Growing up in the Navy, I had known many families that had met with misfortune, the man of the house having gone off to war and not returned. And I had seen the Navy envelop them in a supportive embrace, looking after their material needs, the men from other Navy families helping to fill the void in fatherless households. I knew that the Navy was now looking after my family, and would, to the best of its ability, see to their needs and happiness, trying to keep the disruption caused by our misfortune from devastating their lives.
Our neighbors in Orange Park, many of whom, but not all, were Navy families, were extraordinarily kind and generous to my family while I was in Vietnam. They were the mainstay of my family’s support, and I owe them a debt I can never adequately repay. They helped with the maintenance of our home, took my kids to sporting events, offered whatever counsel and support were needed, and generally helped my family hold together, body and soul, until I could get back to them. During Carol’s long convalescence and therapy they were nothing less than an extended family to my family, and their love and concern was as much a mark of their good character as it was a blessing to the people they helped.
Today, at odd times, I find myself becoming quite sentimental about America. In the distant past, that was not how my patriotism typically found expression. I attribute much of my emotion to the good people of Orange Park, Florida. I no longer think of the country’s character in abstract terms. Now, when I think about Americans, and how fortunate I am to be included in their number, I see the faces of our neighbors in Orange Park, and give thanks that by a lucky accident of birth, I was born an American.
The Cat came to see me one day and asked that I meet with a visiting “Spanish” delegation. I told him that it would not be worth his while, because I wouldn’t make any antiwar or pro-Vietnam statements or say anything positive about the way prisoners were being treated. To my surprise, he said I would not be asked to make such statements.
I consulted Commander Bill Lawrence, the SRO of the Golden Nugget and “the Thunderbird,” another nearby building. He told me to go ahead. That night I was taken to a hotel to meet the delegation, which turned out to be one man, Dr. Fernando Barral, a Cuban propagandist masquerading as a psychiatrist and moonlighting as a journalist. He interviewed me for half an hour, asking rather innocuous questions about my life, the schools I had attended, and my family. When he asked me if I hoped to go home soon, I replied, “No. I think the war will last a long time, but the U.S. will eventually win.”
He then asked me if I felt remorse for bombing the Vietnamese. “No, I do not.” The interview was published in a Cuban publication, Gramma, and later broadcast over the Voice of Vietnam. In it my interviewer observed that I had the attributes of a psychopath, as I showed no remorse for my crimes against the peace-loving Vietnamese people. Near the end of the interview, Barral offered his professional opinion of my personality:
He showed himself to be intellectually alert during the interview. From a morale point of view he is not in traumatic shock. He is neither dejected nor depressed. He was able to be sarcastic, and even humorous, indicative of psychic equilibrium. From the moral and ideological point of view he showed us he is an insensitive individual without human depth, who does not show the slightest concern, who does not appear to have thought about the criminal acts he committed against a population from the almost absolute impunity of his airplane, and that nevertheless those people saved his life, fed him, and looked after his health, and he is now healthy and strong. I believe that he bombed densely populated places for sport. I noted that he was hardened, that he spoke of banal things as if he were at a cocktail party.
During the interview he quietly drank three cups of coffee and smoked one of the cigarettes the Vietnamese had placed on the central table.
After I returned to my cell, I reported the interview to Bill Lawrence and to Commander Jeremiah Denton, the SRO of Little Vegas. Bill thought I had handled the situation appropriately, but something about it must have troubled Jerry. He made no comment immediately, but a little while later, he issued a new policy, that prisoners were to refuse all requests to meet with “visitors.” Given that our enemies made some use of every such exchange, Jerry’s order was certainly a sound one, even though it deprived me of further opportunities to demonstrate my “psychic equilibrium” to disapproving fraternal socialists, not to mention the extra cigarettes and coffee.
About a month later, both John Finley and I declined to meet with another peace delegation. That afternoon I was taken to a courtyard of the prison and ordered to sit on a stool for three days and nights. I was not beaten, although Bug checked in periodically to threaten me. After my punishment had ended, I was taken to the Cat’s office, where I was puzzled to hear him apologize for my three days on the stool. He claimed he had been absent from the camp when the punishment was ordered. “Sometimes,” he allowed, “my officers do the wrong thing.”
In April, John and I were moved to a cell in Thunderbird, and were delighted to receive news that the POWs in Little Vegas would be allowed out of their cells for a period each day to play pool and Ping-Pong on tables set up in an empty cell. Our new recreation period, besides being a welcome distraction from prison drudgery, provided an excellent opportunity to improve communications between different parts of the camp.
I was designated as the Thunderbird “mailman,” responsible for carrying notes to and from Stardust, where Jerry Denton was held. Air Force Major Sam Johnson, a great friend and an imaginative and always cheerful resister, was the mailman for Stardust. We hid encoded notes behind a wooden light switch in our new recreation room and thus managed to disseminate Jerry Denton’s policies to all the parts of the camp under his command.
In June, I was involuntarily relieved of my duties as mailman. I was caught trying to communicate with Dick Stratton, who was held at that time in a cell in “the Riviera,” next door to the pool room. I declined when ordered to confess my crime, and spent a night sitting on the stool.
The next day, I was taken to “Calcutta,” a filthy punishment room, six feet by three feet, with only a tiny louvered window for ventilation. I would be confined there for three months.
Prior to my arrival, Bill Lawrence had been languishing in Calcutta for weeks. He had been shot down four months before me, taken to Hoa Lo, and locked in a torture room, known only by its number, Room 18. There he suffered five days of beatings and rope torture. From his cell he could hear the screams of his backseater, Lieutenant j.g. Jim Bailey, who was being tortured in a nearby room.