“Getting captured does NOT a hero make”
Finally, someone said it.
Consider I am ONLY speaking for myself, but in the ‘Nam I had never even considered becoming a POW. In my opinion, being captured was not an option, moreso a fight to the death was more of my character.
If there is a “hero title” to be found here, perhaps it belongs to one of her rescuers, had he done something to merit more than what his job as a soldier requires.
Many of us were praised for simply doing our JOB...many a “hero” are dead for doing more than their job.
In Jump School during the Vietnam war we took an oath when our wings were awarded to us and the oath included that “surrender is not in our code” which I understood for Airborne troops, since you enter a battle in the situation that starts out as a surrender situation, (outnumbered, out gunned, behind enemy lines, short on ammo and supplies, cut off from the rest of the army, and so on) but still, I couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t mentioned that before jump school started.
There are units for which surrender are not an option, LRRPs/LSR felt that way during the stand off with the USSR and E. Germany, when confronted with the idea of capture by the GRU and KGB, with them knowing that you had info that needed to be retrieved quickly if it were to be useful, and that you were a type that made lousy, high maintenance prisoners, and plus, you probably had killed a lot of their friends before you were captured.
In most cases though surrender is definitely acceptable, and that maintenance company was in that situation, there was no gain to be made by them simply standing there to be shot down.
I’m glad they are alive and I wish more had survived.
Thank you. Now, seeing as how I’ve met my share of former ‘guests’ of the Hanoi Hilton....I can absolutely say that there HAVE been heroes who were POW’s. I’m glad that we agree that POW status, unto itself, does not automatically bestow “hero” status.