Today I had the privilege of listening to Dr Stuart Rochester and Dr Frederick Kiley discuss their book Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973. Dr Kiley recounted examples of duty and endurance under the harshest conditions. He described the brutality of the North Vietnamese torture and how American POWs found ingenious ways to communicate and support one another.
We were graced by the presence of five Vietnam POWs, three USAF, two USN who amplified several of Dr Kiley’s points and took questions from the audience. When asked whether they harbor any hatred towards their captors, their message was “No. Hatred harms the hater much more than the hated.” I had to agree, when I went back to war over Iraq after having been a POW in Baghdad there was (surprisingly) no emotional content behind the combat missions I flew in Southern Watch, or behind the missiles I fired. Emotion clouds clear thinking. Their modesty and humanity were evident throughout.
Listening to the Vietnam POWs stories made a connection in me that I hadn’t been aware was there before: when I was a cadet at the USAF Academy from 1976-1980, there were several POWs on the faculty: Col Bud Breckner, Maj John Fur, Lt Col Jon Reynolds. My classmates and I listened to their stories on the edges of our seats, and retold them again and again in our dormitories. When we went through resistance training (SERE–survival resistance evasion and escape), we wondered if we could ever measure up, and thought maybe we should shoot it out after a bailout (like Frank Luke), saving the last bullet for ourselves.
When I was captured by the Republican Guards in 1991, I didn’t shoot it out to the end. I knew what the standard would be from the stories that I was raised on at the Academy. I knew my honor would be on the line, and I knew how those who had gone before performed under the most challenging circumstances, so I resisted to the utmost of my ability. My desire to resist had its foundation in the stories from the previous generation, and was educated through SERE training learned in Jack’s Valley in my sophomore summer in 1977. The connection from one generation of warriors to the next was deep down, I just hadn’t realized it until now. The warrior ethos is there, and it is reinforced by role models from one generation to the next. So the long blue line continues.
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1 Skid // Dec 2, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Seems Hasbro wants to “honor” the sacrifice made by our brave men and women and will be re-issuing GI Joe - but with a twist:
Global Joe
Looking for another toy-based project to build on the success of last year’s Transformers movie, Paramount Pictures has tapped G.I. Joe. Sort of. | Janie B. Cheaney
The long, illustrious, and slightly confusing history of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe began in 1964, after the toy company decided to cash in on the phenomenal success of Barbie by creating a doll for boys. “Rocky” (the Marine), “Skip” (the sailor) and “Ace” (the pilot) could have squired Barbie to the prom, because at 12″ tall each would have been a manlier escort than Ken the clotheshorse. The timing could have been better, though: The first incarnation of “Joe” started strong but was no match for the anti-war and anti-warrior sentiment of the late ’60s.
In its next decade, Joe became an “adventure team” dedicated to rescue missions and fighting evil in the form of a terrorist organization called COBRA. Other changes and manifestations followed, but through size reductions and personnel additions, kung-fu grips and cutting-edge weapons, comic books and animated TV series—G.I. Joe maintained the identity of “Real American Hero.”
Until now. Looking for another toy-based project to build on the success of last year’s Transformers movie, Paramount Pictures has tapped Joe. Sort of. Sensing that the international market for a “real American hero” isn’t too hot right now, Paramount announced that the title character of the proposed film will be something called Global-Integrated Joint Operating Entity. Besides an awkward acronym, the personal appeal of an “entity” seems minimal, no matter how special the effects. To add insult to injury, the proposed team may be based in Brussels, that bloated, blathering capital of another entity called the European Union.
The movie is still in the planning stages, with countless “concept” adjustments ahead. But young boys looking for action figures would do better to read up on some real American heroes.
There are plenty to choose from, such as Army Sergeant Alvin York, who single-handedly captured an entire German battalion in the Argonne Forest. Or Mitchell Paige, the last Marine standing on a hill on Guadalcanal, who held off two regiments of Japanese infantry (and whose face, incidentally, was the model for the first G.I. Joe Marine doll). Or Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, recent Medal of Honor recipient, who walked into Taliban fire to find a cell-phone signal so he could call for help for his team.
Countless other examples prove what every military commander knows: Men will sacrifice themselves for their own, not for the globe. Heroism, like politics, is local.
Copyright © 2007 WORLD Magazine
November 24, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 43
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