Dude - I worked very closely with one of the Vietnam POWs, and was in the company of many of them (at least the USN types) in the late 70s. Those that I knew best stuck tightly together and would never say a bad word about a fellow POW to an ‘outsider’ because, after all was said and done, how could anyone who didn’t have that experience understand what they went through? Yes, many of us went through a classified school which was supposed to introduce us to the ‘POW experience’ but, as my closest POW associate put it, “How can you learn UTTER DESPAIR in a one-week class?”
He has since passed, and our great country is lessened without him. I refuse to convict ANY one of those gentlemen based on anything said by anyone who wasn’t there. I personally saw the aftermath of the injuries inflicted by the torture administered by their North Vietnamese jailers. I broke bread with some of them (POWs) in later, happier times. Some are more broken than others, but they are, to a man, great Americans.
Excellent & very informative post. Thanks.
Yep; I too interacted with many former POWs who served as Resistance Training instructors at the Air Force Survival School. I have interacted and interviewed these great men and I agree, the brotherhood that exists between them is necessarily insular and, to an outsider, impenetrable.
That’s why I regard the words of those who disparage the behavior of those who endured years of torture as mere bunk. If you weren’t there.. you don’t know.