Posted on 07/09/2008 11:00:58 AM PDT by kristinn
THOMPSON FALLS — Rod Knutson is hardly the recluse dug up by John McCain’s campaign, as some bloggers and critics of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee contend.
The former prisoner of war is a decorated war hero who earned two Silver Stars, served 32 years in the U.S. Navy, moved up the ranks at the Pentagon, lectured at the prestigious Top Gun flight school, wound up in the popular 1986 movie of the same name, lived in as many ports on the West Coast as on the East and after retirement, sailed with his family throughout the Caribbean for 4½ years before settling down in Mexico for another 11.
Reclusive, Knutson is not.
The McCain campaign did indeed ask him to speak on the Arizona senator’s behalf at the Montana Republican convention in Missoula last month. And there, Knutson touched on his 7½ years of captivity in a North Vietnamese prison camp, where he met McCain, the POW who lived in an adjacent cell at various times during their long imprisonment.
The accusations and mud-slinging that accompany politics make Knutson prefer his quiet life in western Montana — he has retired to Thompson Falls — these days to one on the campaign trail.
Though he’s not particularly partisan or political, Knutson refuses to discuss issues, hasn’t seen McCain in about a decade and doesn’t agree with him on every issue. But he can attest to McCain’s bravery and knows firsthand how imprisonment and torture by a wartime enemy shape a person.
“I don’t have any hang-ups. I don’t worry about it. I don’t think about it on an everyday basis,” Knutson said in an interview at his home last week. “It’s not a negative at all. People worry about McCain and I’m just, ‘Hey, he’s fine.’ If you talk to any POW, he will tell you, ‘I’m a better person today. I’m a better father. I’m a better husband. I’m a better American. I was a better naval officer because of that experience.’ ”
Having grown up in Billings, Knutson returned two years ago to Montana a move he never thought he’d make. The torture he suffered in prison caused permanent nerve damage that makes cold weather brutal to his 69-year-old body. But he made the sacrifice to be close to his aging parents.
The small forested subdivision in Thompson Falls popped up in a Google search of “mountain homes” and “cedar homes.” He ended up in one of them.
Black-and-white photographs, plaques and model airplanes garnish the shelves and walls of his home office. They tell a story of Knutson’s 37-year military career including the painful times.
A hazy picture of a young Knutson with sunken eyes and pronounced cheekbones was taken in a California hospital 48 hours after his release from a North Vietnamese prison. Another photo shows a grimy North Vietnamese jail cell. Just above that is a photo taken at the Hanoi airport 10 seconds after Knutson, weighing 110 pounds, was released into American custody.
“That photo, that particular photo, every time I look at it, it’s with warmth,” said Knutson. “That’s freedom day.”
Flag-waving Americans this weekend celebrated the country’s independence by lighting off fireworks and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” Friday. But Knutson’s Independence Day is not July 4. Though it warms him to see so many Americans celebrating their freedom, his Independence Day is Feb. 12 the day he was released from captivity some 30 years ago.
Growing up, it was not whether Knutson would serve his country, but which branch of the military he’d choose. He enlisted as a Marine, but later joined the Navy, as had several of his uncles.
The 27-year-old’s deployment to Vietnam was his first. Knutson eventually flew 77 combat missions, but nothing could have prepared him for the events of Oct. 12, 1965, the day the F-4B Phantom fighter he piloted was shot down over North Vietnam.
Knutson was traveling more than 500 mph at an altitude of 300 feet when white-hot shells the size of tennis balls filled the sky.
“You know your hind end is in deep pucky,” said Knutson, who remembers hearing what sounded like a pencil being repeatedly poked through tinfoil. The jet was hit.
The pilot ejected from his plane. Bullet holes punctured the parachute before he hit the ground. His knee was dislocated and he injured his back upon impact.
It didn’t take long for the North Vietnamese to find Knutson, who managed to kill two militiamen with his .38 “survivor” pistol before being captured. The last thing he remembers was the muzzle of a rifle four inches from his head.
Then black.
When consciousness returned, Knutson’s arms and legs were bound and he was face-down in the bed of a military transport truck. He was taken to Hao Lo prison, known as the “Hanoi Hilton.”
At the time, the camp held about 35 prisoners of war, Knutson said. Following the Paris peace agreement of 1973, Knutson and about 600 other prisoners captured in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia returned to the United States.
Knutson believes he was the first American prisoner of war to be severely tortured by the North Vietnamese.
The walls in the interrogation room looked like sandpaper. A blue tablecloth covered the table in the center of the room and a wobbly three-legged stool sat in the corner.
The North Vietnamese interrogated him into the early hours of the day, probing for details about his mission and squadron. Name. Rank. Serial number. Date of birth. That’s all the Military Code of Conduct allows captured soldiers to disclose. Other than that, Knutson replied: “I can’t answer that question.”
At one point, a guard handed him a fountain pen and a piece of paper with 11 questions, only to have Knutson stab the paper with the pen, and throw the paper in the guard’s face.
“That led to a very severe torture session, and I could tell you about that, but you don’t want to hear about it,” said Knutson, his voice becoming very hushed. “Trust me. You don’t want to hear about it.”
As he spoke, the details emerged.
Knutson refers to the group of six men as the “goon squad,” all toting rifles and bamboo clubs as they entered his cell. Each unanswered question resulted in a blow to the head, back or thighs.
By the time the beating ceased, Knutson remembers the blood on the walls and described his backside and thighs as “hamburger meat.” His teeth were broken, his nostrils full of blood and his tongue so swollen that only a small airhole remained.
Eventually, the guards took Knutson into a separate room. They rotated his arms bound behind his back over his head, dislocating his shoulders, and hung him from the ceiling by his wrists. Pus ran from the cuticles of his purple fingers.
“I was begging to die,” Knutson recalls. “I wanted to be dead. I wanted to pass out, but it didn’t happen. The pain keeps escalating and there’s no end in sight.”
It’s unclear how long Knutson hung there. Maybe minutes, but not longer than several hours. His mind had gone by that point. Knutson endured several similar episodes before agreeing to talk.
He couldn’t easily walk to the interrogation room. The blood on the back of his legs turned into a pancake-like scab, welding the fabric of his flight suit to the back of his thighs.
He told the guards he was the swimming pool officer; that he scooped buckets of salt water from the ocean into a swimming pool on the boat deck; that he replaced a sick pilot in the fighter jet that crashed; that he was from Farm District No. 1; that he lived on Farm District No. 1 Road, and that his father was a chicken farmer.
None of this was true, of course, which the guards later realized. Still, Knutson was overcome by guilt for having violated the Military Code of Conduct.
“I consoled myself, but I gave them nothing of value,” he said. “In my own mind, I made idiots out of all of them. That was a great strength-builder. All the time I was a prisoner, I made idiots out of them. That was my own self-reward. I got in trouble for it all the time, but that was my way of fighting them and winning the battle.”
In the nearly 7½ years Knutson was imprisoned, he experienced about a dozen torture sessions equal to that first beating. Prisoners were constantly pushed and beaten, but not to the same level of brutality, he said.
“You could not believe the hate we had for them when we were there,” Knutson recalls of the North Vietnamese. “We hated the communist philosophy. We hated the abuse. We hated the treatment. We hated how they treated their own country.”
Knutson’s memory is impeccable when recalling dates and names of fellow POWs. His answers are exact and delivered with confidence. For 88 months, he had nothing else to think about.
While in prison, Knutson recalled the name of every teacher and classmate. In his mind’s eye, he re-customized his 1949 Ford coupe from high school, and memorized every state in alphabetical order and the capital.
Resolving disputes was nearly impossible.
When a fellow POW awoke one morning and said, “Happy spring,” Knutson bet him a lifetime subscription to Playboy magazine that he was wrong. Some years later, Knutson, who lost the bet, followed up on his end of the bargain. The magazine had stopped offering lifetime subscriptions, but Knutson coughed up an equivalent flat fee.
(An aside: The San Francisco Playboy Club heard about the bet and extended a personal invitation to Knutson, who in return, rounded up all the “bunnies” and brought them back to the hospital so his POW buddies could meet them, too. That photo is hanging on his wall.)
Some things, however, were important to memorize like the name of every captured American soldier.
Word would spread every time another was captured.
Every morning, Knutson would recite the list of POWs. He’d count on his fingers, knowing he had made a mistake if his name fell on the wrong one. At one point, he could recite the names of 450 POWs.
“That’s how I got John McCain’s name,” he said. “I had to plug him into my list. He went right next to McGrath.”
McCain was a name many people knew already, mostly because his father was the admiral in command of all U.S. forces in the Pacific at the time. But McCain had also been an instructor at Knutson’s aviator training center.
Twice during the two men’s five years’ imprisonment together, they occupied adjacent cells.
At one point, Knutson fell extremely ill. His weight dropped to 85 pounds; no one knew what was wrong with him.
McCain would communicate with Knutson by tapping on the adjoining wall, sending him messages of moral encouragement and “shooting the breeze.”
POWs developed two codes in prison to communicate: the Tap Code and a version of sign language.
“Oh, when the guys get together and they’re all tapping it,” interjected Knutson’s wife, Shelle, as her husband demonstrated the Tap Code on their dining room table.
Knutson never knew whether McCain was trying to keep his spirits high or checking to see if he was still alive, or both.
“It was very touching and compassionate,” Knutson said. “He was just another guy looking after me as another POW to make sure I was OK.”
The two men later met again under more relaxed circumstances.
Knutson worked in the Pentagon as deputy director for all U.S. naval air stations and aircraft carriers. Often he would brief members of the U.S. Senate, and as the senator from Arizona, McCain would always wave him into his office for a quick chat and catch-up session.
To some extent, the POWs knew about the Vietnam War protests back home. The North Vietnamese relayed only defeatist news from the United States, and were sure to exaggerate. The prisoners assumed 300,000 protesters were actually 30 people. So the prisoners’ first several days back in the United States came as a shock.
“There were more protests and movement in that direction than I had allowed myself to believe,” he said.
After having lived in a jail cell for 2,673 days, Knutson returned to a totally different world.
Instead of flattop haircuts and skin sides, men had long hair. No longer did men wear suits to church and while riding on airplanes. Everything was casual, Knutson said. Music was “noise” and bell bottoms were fashionable.
He had never seen a miniskirt before.
“I tripped over every curb in San Francisco because of what I was looking at,” he said.
Most doctors suspected these men would need three to six months to re-acclimate. Knutson said most took less than 90 minutes. For years, these men had been dreaming of steaks and hamburgers. “We ate like normal people — starved normal people,” he said.
The first five years that Knutson was held captive, his folks didn’t know whether he was dead or alive.
Today, the plain-spoken man with the firm handshake can talk about the torture, malnutrition, lack of light and the gritty, filthy conditions he endured for almost a decade without flinching. But when it comes to his mother who until her recent death sent him a dozen roses every Feb. 12 with no card attached as her way of saying, “I’m happy you’re alive” he can’t do it without his eyes welling up with tears.
Every home Knutson has lived in since his release overcompensates for the lack of two very precious things in prison — windows and a beautiful view.
Mostly, though, what Knutson brought back was a sense of pride in and love for his country.
This patriot doesn’t fly an American flag outside his home, but he doesn’t need to. He stands by his government and its leadership, even during the Vietnam War. It’s when politicians try to do the military’s job that things go wrong, he said, a problem that persists today.
Knutson is not afraid to spotlight false patriotism, such as some of the emotion displayed after the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
“There were little flags flying from every car. There was a decal on every window. There was a ’God Bless America’ sticker all over everything. That struck me very negatively,” he said. “These people were patriots of the moment.”
Though he seldom speaks of it, the only reason Knutson retells the horrific tale of his time in North Vietnam is to help people, especially children, realize the sacrifices others have made for their freedom. It’s a sacrifice he’s made, and it’s one McCain has made.
And that in itself tells Knutson what kind of president John McCain would be.
Kudos to reporter Chelsi Moy for telling the story of Rod Knutson.
I find myself wondering if Knutson joined the Senate of the United States and used that office to trash verteran groups and the families of MIAs who objected to normalized relations with Vietnam. Did he fight tooth and nail to prevent a dump of the records of all MIA individuals? Did he go hug the Vietnam guard who was known to have abused our troops without mercy?
Yep, well there is a big question mark hanging over John’s head for me.
bump
Excellent piece by Moy, thanks for posting.
I don’t know about your accusations, but I am certain of what a Obama presidency would do to this country. Therefore, I will fight it. McCain wasn’t my first or second choice, but I will back him for the sake of our future.
Thanks for your comments. I encourage folks to do what they think is best. Wish I could agree with you.
I agree and will do the same. Unfortunately there are a number of FRs still on here who will NOT vote for McCain under any circumstances, but stand there and say that they will do everything they can to unseat Obama’s campaign.
I say, “vote for McCain.” He’s not the perfect candidate for us, but he deserves our vote.
I was in school while he was languishing as POW. He devoted his life to this country. A few differences on some issus is not enough to turn my back on him.
I’m asking my fellow FRs here to do the same.
nikos1121
Those that are stubbornly clinging to their position of not voting for McCain under any circumstance, don’t realize the damage they are doing to our beloved country. What do they think they will do to unseat Obama? The biggest thing is to vote McCain.
Keep trying to get it through to people, Nikos. That is all we can do.
thanks to both of you for your optimistic, team spirit attitudes.
I’m stepping up to bat, too, and voting McCain. I’m participating, like it or not.
*How can you say John Sidney McCain has devoted his life to this country when *
How can Third Party candidates be anti war, blow off the threat of IslamOfascists, for legalizing drugs.....
The issues are more complex right now. We have millions of mult-ehtnic groups in this country. The push is for us to lose our identity, and for America to be part of the global community.
McCain is an American first. I have no doubt about that. I can’t say that about his opponent...
Yep, well there is a big question mark hanging over John’s head for me.
No there isn't. You hate him. You took the time to dump on the memory of a brave young warrior who went through hell.
The fact that you still cannot add his POW years to your tagline reveals your blind hate.
Speaking of question marks, do you have any at all for Obama, or is it your life's quest to destroy LCDR John McCain?
If you are conservative, why do you spend your day working for the election of BO?
There is only one way to kill obama's campaign and that is to vote for McCain. I do not like him, I wish we had anyone but him to vote for. Now when I say that(someone else to vote for), I mean anyone that enough people voting for them would elect them. We do not have that.
So many republicans are going to vote for McCain that if many of us vote for thrird party it will ensure an Obama victory, just as it did for Clinton when he only received 43 percent of the vote on his first term and not much more than that his second term.
Since I saw what the Perot crap did for us I will vote for McCain and then vote for conservatives for senate and the house, not republicans but conservatives. That is where we will win back the country. Out the Rinos and Dem communist because many Rinos are communist also.
Hey Jacquerie. Good to see you out this fine afternoon.
Here’s a good thread to start reading if you’re going to raise the same questions here.
Ta ta...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2041517/posts?page=156#156
Why do you work to elect Obama?
Ciao’
Well Jacquerie, I realize you’re two sheets to the wind on this process, but you can read what I said when you made the same comments on that other thread. Can’t you?
And here I provided a link for you. I am so sorry about your case.
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