You've probably seen the bumper sticker somewhere along the road. It depicts an
American Flag, accompanied by the words "These colors don't run". I'm always
glad to see this, because it reminds me of an incident from my confinement in
North Vietnam at the Hao Lo POW Camp, or the "Hanoi Hilton," as it became known.
Then a Major in the U.S. Air Force, I had been captured and imprisoned from
1967-1973. Our treatment had been frequently brutal. After three years, however,
the beatings and torture became less frequent.
During the last year, we were allowed outside most days for a couple of minutes
to bathe. We showered by drawing water from a concrete tank with a homemade
bucket. One day as we all stood by the tank, stripped of our clothes, a young
Naval pilot named Mike Christian found the remnants of a handkerchief in a
gutter that ran under the prison wall. Mike managed to sneak the grimy rag into
our cell and began fashioning it into a flag.
Over time we all loaned him a little soap, and he spent days cleaning the
material. We helped by scrounging and stealing bits and pieces of anything he
could use.
At night, under his mosquito net, Mike worked on the flag. He made red and blue
from ground-up roof tiles and tiny amounts of ink and painted the colors onto
the cloth with watery rice glue. Using thread from his own blanket and a
homemade bamboo needle, he sewed on stars. Early in the morning a few days
later, when the guards were not alert, he whispered loudly from the back of our
cell, "Hey gang, look here". He proudly held up this tattered piece of cloth,
waving it as if in a breeze.
If you used your imagination, you could tell it was supposed to be an American
flag. When he raised that smudgy fabric, we automatically stood straight and
saluted, our chests puffing out, and more than a few eyes had tears.
About once a week the guards would strip us, run us outside and go through our
clothing. During one of those shakedowns, they found Mike's flag. We all knew
what would happen.
That night they came for him. Night interrogations were always the worst. They
opened the cell door and pulled Mike out. We could hear the beginning of the
torture before they even had him in the torture cell. They beat him most of the
night. About daylight they pushed what was left of him back through the cell
door. He was badly broken; even his voice was gone.
Within two weeks, despite the danger, Mike scrounged another piece of cloth and
began another flag. The Stars and Stripes, our national symbol, was worth the
sacrifice to him. Now whenever I see the flag, I think of Mike and the morning
he first waved that tattered emblem of a nation.
It was then, thousands of miles from home in a lonely prison cell, that he
showed us what it is to be truly free.
Condensed from a speech by Leo K. Thorsness, recipient of The Congressional
Medal of Honor.
Thanks to WITandWISDOM(tm) - July 2, 1999
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