Bill Lawrence was a natural leader. He had already had a remarkable Navy career. He had been brigade commander at the Naval Academy, a four-letter man, and president of the Class of 1951. After graduation, he was asked to remain at the Academy to rewrite the honor code. He was sent to test pilot school, where he graduated first in his class, and went on to fly the new F-4 Phantom. He had been one of the first members of his class, if not the first, to be selected early for lieutenant commander.
While commanding a squadron in Vietnam, Bill received word that Admiral Tom Moorer, the Chief of Naval Operations, wanted him to serve as his aide, the most prestigious assignment that a young officer could be offered. Bill asked that he be allowed to remain in Vietnam to finish his squadron command tour.
When I was moved to Little Vegas, many of our most senior officers were kept isolated from the rest of us. Bill was my immediate superior. He was a model commander, steady as a rock, always in control of his emotions, never excited, never despairing or self-consumed. Several guys in Vegas had been Bill’s classmates. Because he had been promoted early, he outranked them. Thus, Bill had to provide leadership not only to junior guys like me, but to his peers. He had to tell his classmates what to do. That is a challenging assignment, but I never heard a single man reject, dispute, or resent Bill’s commands. He was universally respected.
I used to tap him up on the wall for guidance all the time. I shared with Bill every question or concern I had. He had a way about him, very calm and reassuring, that put you at ease and inspired confidence in his judgment.
Some guys, burdened with despair, needed to be fired up. Bill would do it, convincing them that they were more than a match for their antagonists. Rambunctious and impatient, I needed a commander with quiet resolve who could help rein in my impulsiveness.
“Take it easy, John. Do the best you can, John. Resist as much as you can. Don’t let them break you completely,” Bill would caution me, gently warning me not to be so reckless that I plunged headlong into trouble. He was a remarkable commander.
Calcutta had space enough for only one prisoner. My dread of being confined in squalid, isolated Calcutta was alleviated a bit by the knowledge that my bad luck would liberate Bill. When I returned from Calcutta, considerably the worse for wear, Bill cheerfully thanked me for going to so much trouble to get him out.
I was a fairly skillful communicator, adept at tapping and better than average at recognizing and seizing unexpected opportunities for passing messages. I was not, I’m sorry to say, a very cautious one, and I often had reason to regret it. As was the case at the Plantation, the guards frequently apprehended me in the act.
Most of the punishments I received from 1969 on, some tolerable, others less so, were a result of my repeated indiscretions. Calcutta was one of the less tolerable punishments. I had been roughed up a few times, but not severely. Nor was the prospect of a few months’ solitary confinement particularly terrifying to me. I certainly didn’t welcome it, but I had survived worse before.
What made Calcutta so miserable was its location, at least fifty feet from the next occupied cell. It was impossible to communicate with anyone. Communicating was the indispensable key to resistance. Without that, it was hard to derive strength from others. Absent the counsel of fellow prisoners, I would begin to doubt my own judgment, whether I was resisting effectively and appropriately. If I was in communication only for a brief moment once a day, I would be okay. When I was deprived of any contact with my comrades, I was in serious trouble.
Calcutta was the first time since I had been released from the hospital that I was unable to communicate with anyone for an extended period of time. My isolation was awful, worse than the beatings I had been sentenced to for communicating. Compounding my misery was the cell’s poor ventilation, and I suffered severe heat prostration in the extreme warmth of a Vietnamese summer, one of the effects of which was a constant buzzing in my ears that nearly drove me crazy. I was seldom allowed to bathe or shave. The quality of my food rations worsened. I became ill with dysentery again, and started to lose weight.
During my confinement in Calcutta, I was periodically taken to an interrogation room for quizzes. Unlike the bad old days, quizzes were now comparatively benign events. We were seldom beaten for information. My Calcutta quizzes were usually pro forma attempts to persuade me to meet with delegations. Mindful of Jerry Denton’s order, I refused them.
On one occasion, an interrogator we called “Staff Officer” told me, “Everybody wants to see Mac Kane. They all ask about Mac Kane. You can see anybody you want.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint them,” I replied, “but I have to.”
I had become very accustomed to close contact with my fellow prisoners since I had been released from solitary confinement. My state of mind had become so dependent on communicating with them that I worried my spell in isolation would fill me with such despair that I might break again. Blessedly, my fears were unfounded.
I had been greatly strengthened by the company of the good men of Little Vegas, and my resolve was firmer than it had ever been. I was sustained by the knowledge that the others knew where I was and were concerned about me. I knew they were demanding my release. And, most important, I knew they would be proud of me when I returned if I successfully resisted this latest tribulation. This was especially comforting to me because I suffered still from the knowledge that I had usually been better treated by the Vietnamese than had most of my comrades.
I was finally released from Calcutta in September and moved with John Finley to a cell in the Riviera, two doors down from Air Force Colonel Larry Guarino, with whom we immediately established good communications. I also managed to cut a small hole in the louvers above our cell door. Standing on my upended waste bucket, I could talk to a great many prisoners from different parts of the camp who were, by this time, allowed outside for a few moments to exercise. In retaliation for my various offenses, I was denied this privilege and allowed outside only once a week to bathe.
In what had now become a routine occurrence, I was again caught communicating, and once more confined for a period in an interrogation room. There I encountered the only two prisoners of my acquaintance who had lost their faith completely. They had not only stopped resisting but apparently crossed a line no other prisoner I knew had even approached. They were collaborators, actively aiding the enemy.
I do not know what caused these men to forsake their country and their fellow prisoners. Maybe they had despaired of ever being released, fearing the war wouldn’t end before they were old men. They might have eventually fallen for routine Vietnamese denouncements of the “criminal American government,” and grown to resent their civilian commanders for leaving them in this godforsaken place. Maybe they bought the whole nine yards of Vietnamese propaganda, that the war was unjust, their leaders warmongers, and their country a craven, imperial force for evil. Or maybe they were that rarest breed of American prisoners in Vietnam, POWs who, in exchange for certain comforts and privileges, had surrendered their dignity voluntarily and agreed to be the camp rats.
Whatever the cause, it cannot excuse their shameful conduct. I cannot say I ever observed any trace of shame in them as they whiled away the months and years in their unique circumstances. Indeed, during the time I closely observed them, they seemed to thrive, apparently undisturbed by the contempt of the rest of us.