Captured

by Alvin Townley

  Jim Stockdale assumed the worst; he believed the guards had beaten an ill prisoner. He declared a two-day hunger strike as retaliation. On January 24, Jerry and every other POW refused to eat. The next morning, Stockdale simply vanished. Nobody saw him leave and nobody knew his fate. Speculation abounded. Jerry suspected the North Vietnamese blamed Stockdale for the Alcatraz Gang’s protest on behalf of Harry Jenkins, but all Jerry knew for sure was that full command now fell to him. He shouldered responsibility for the lives of the remaining nine men, ten including himself. It became his job to lead them home safely. With so little control over circumstances, he felt like history’s weakest leader.

  Shortly after the POWs realized the Camp Authority had removed Stockdale, a guard opened Jerry’s cell door. Jerry’s eyes adjusted to the light outside, and he saw that two civilians accompanied the guard. Obviously concerned about the hunger strike, the guard asked about the POWs’ refusal to eat. Jerry immediately complained that guards had beaten an ill Harry Jenkins and the POWs were protesting. “There has been a misunderstanding,” the guard said. “We will prove to you that you will get humane treatment when you are sick.”

  The guard introduced one of the civilians as a physician. The man entered Jerry’s cell and conducted a physical. Jerry was surprised by its thoroughness and the doctor’s kindness. When he left, he gave Jerry medicine to heal several cuts, rid him of intestinal worms, and clear up a bad rash he’d developed. According to the cellblock walls, the doctor treated every man in Alcatraz.

  “They gave up,” someone tapped out. “We won.”

  “Let’s eat,” tapped another. The men were ready to end Stockdale’s hunger strike.

  In cell 10, Jerry Denton had other plans. Stockdale had ordered a forty-eight-hour strike; just over twenty-four had passed. When Jerry scrubbed down the latrine area, he broadcast, “My order is steady as she goes.” He heard immediate responses: groans and shouts. On the wall, POWs tapped out the case for lifting the hunger strike. Jerry needed to respect Stockdale’s initial order; he also knew the men needed food badly. Realistically, he also faced a unified and boisterous opposition. Sometimes, he decided, leadership means compromise. When afternoon mealtime came, Jerry tapped out, “Eat.”

  Once Stockdale left, the Camp Authority again launched a campaign to squeeze letters of apology out of the POWs. Every man in Alcatraz felt the burn of ropes and the pain of various forms of duress. Some remained on their knees on hard concrete. Others were beaten with fan belts or worked over with ropes. While recovering from his own bout with ropes and fists, Jerry Denton heard a group of female soldiers viciously assail Sam Johnson in a neighboring quiz room. They literally beat him into submission.

  Mickey Mouse made him sign a letter of apology, and Sam cried on the floor after the Mouse left. “What have I done,” he wondered aloud. “I gave in too easily. I should have held out longer …”

  Jerry heard him and called out, “Sam, it’s okay buddy.”

  “I made them write it, Jerry,” Sam whispered back. “But I had to sign it.”

  “It’s okay, Sam,” Jerry reassured him. “You’re okay. Hang on. You did good.”

  The men did their best during that brutal period, but they all lost. They all signed the apologies, the confessions. They all sought forgiveness from one another and always received it. “GBU” was never tapped out with more understanding or sincerity than during the winter and spring of 1969 in Alcatraz.

  Thankful they all had lived to see Easter, Jerry composed another poem for the 1969 holiday. He entitled it “La Pieta,” after Michelangelo’s 1499 sculpture of Mary holding a crucified Jesus.

  La Pieta

  The soldiers stare, then drift away,

  Young John finds nothing he can say,

  The veil is rent; the deed is done;

  And Mary holds her only son.

  His limbs grow stiff, the night grows cold,

  But naught can loose that mother’s hold,

  Her gentle, anguished eyes seem blind,

  Who knows what thoughts run through her mind?

  Perhaps she thinks of last week’s palms,

  With cheering thousands off’ring alms

  Or dreams of canaan on the day

  She nagged him till she got her way.

  Her face shows grief but not despair,

  Her head though bowed has faith to spare,

  For even now she could suppose

  His thorns might somehow yield a rose.

  Her life with him was full of signs

  That god writes straight with crooked lines.

  Dark clouds can hide the rising sun,

  And all seem lost, when all be won!

  Jerry laboriously tapped out the poem on the wall, sending its earnest words to fellow POWs. Words of thanks returned. Reading between his lines, someone named him the president of the Optimist Club. At heart, the Alcatraz Gang fervently hoped their own crooked lines were part of God’s mysterious plan.

  Late one night in May 1969, Jerry stirred. Someone was grabbing him, rocking him awake. Jerry opened his eyes and saw Mickey Mouse in the dim light. Jerry looked around dazedly and guessed the hour had passed 2:00 a.m. What on earth did Mickey Mouse want?

  “Denton,” Mickey Mouse said urgently, “I have something to tell you. I know you usually don’t believe me, but time will prove I am telling the truth. I have just come from a meeting at headquarters. I have received information to make provisions for two more years.”

  Jerry struggled to digest the commandant’s news.

  “I must provide for two more Christmases,” Mickey Mouse reiterated, holding up two fingers. Jerry was dumbfounded. He’d sensed they were nearing the end of this nightmare. Now, it would continue through Christmas 1970 at least. That would be at least five and a half years of his life devoured by Hanoi. At a minimum, two more years would pass before he saw his family. How could this be God’s plan? Mickey Mouse might as well have awakened him with a baseball bat.

  Dejected, Jerry spent the night dwelling on his darkening prospects. He gave himself a one-in-four chance of going home alive. He gave himself a one-in-fifty chance of emerging with his sanity. Perhaps, Jerry mused, the extended sentence might lead the Camp Authority to ease off the torture regime. It didn’t.

  From across the courtyard, Jim Mulligan began to pass Jerry worrisome news about Ron Storz, perhaps the most fanatical resister among the POWs. Unlike Mulligan, Jerry, and others, Storz had difficulty boxing away home. He dwelled on his wife and two young children throughout the day. He could not put those memories aside and focus on the present. Depression settled heavily on Ron Storz and cell 5. He stopped eating. In late May, Jerry learned that Storz had passed out in his cell and guards had removed him from Alcatraz. Rumors spread that Ron had hurt himself. Soon, Mulligan flashed that Mickey Mouse was keeping Storz just across an alleyway from camp and providing care. Mulligan had seen Storz briefly and Ron had whispered, “There’s no way the war’s going to end soon. We’ll be here forever.” Mulligan observed Storz’s withered frame and ordered him to eat.

  As summer 1969 wore on, Ron Storz recovered enough to walk into the courtyard and empty his own latrine bucket. Jerry inhabited the closest cell to the latrine, so he did his best to communicate. He found Ron’s mental state declining; he often appeared irrational. Jerry communicated to Ron that he could accept early release if he felt his life was in danger. Jerry sensed this might well be the case. He hoped Ron could save himself from his mental decline. Jerry saw that solitary confinement at Alcatraz was making his friend lose his mind. But Ron didn’t accept any offers to leave early.

  Jerry eventually learned Slick had returned and replaced the more ruthless Mickey Mouse as commandant at Alcatraz. He had given Ron playing cards and was teaching him to play bridge. Jerry hoped Slick’s bridge lessons might improve Ron’s state of mind. To encourage him, Jerry wrote a three-page note about rules and bidding. He left it hidden at the latrine. On Ron’s every visit, he’d scrape
or whisper questions about the game and Jerry would respond. One day, Jerry didn’t answer quickly enough and Storz blurted, “Well, I know who my real friends are!” Jerry spent hours worrying about this weakening member of their band and how he could get him home.

  Time in solitary took its toll on all the POWs in Alcatraz. Fraying nerves and desperation led some toward depression and others toward irrationality. Jerry observed it via taps through the wall, but he didn’t always see it in himself. One warm summer evening, a guard stopped outside Jerry’s door and stated the POWs needed to prepare for a move. Jerry demanded to see the officer in charge. Slick came to the courtyard and explained the Red River might flood. The Camp Authority wanted to ensure the safety of the POWs and move them. Jerry didn’t believe him. “We’re going home and they won’t tell us the truth,” Jerry tapped excitedly after Slick left. McKnight passed his message along the chain. A response from Bob Shumaker came back: “You’re optimistic enough to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  He was, he knew it, and by God, he’d be vindicated! Too excited to tap softly, Jerry began pounding out naval orders for getting a ship under way. He finished with “Anchors aweigh!” His figurative vessel didn’t move. Jerry sat on his bedroll for hours. After midnight, Slick returned and announced there would be no move. POWs should sleep. Jerry sent a self-effacing message to Shumaker: “My anchor got fouled in the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  In September 1969, Hanoi Hannah announced that H Ch Minh was ill. “The very best medical care is being given to our beloved leader,” her voice told the POWs in Alcatraz. “All Vietnam’s medical expertise is available to him. We are confident of his recovery.”

  “Yeah right,” Sam Johnson tapped. “We know what North Vietnam’s best medical care is all about.”

  “He’s a dead man,” panned Shumaker.

  On September 2, Vietnam’s Independence Day, Hanoi Hannah confirmed North Vietnam’s leader had died at age seventy-nine. For a time, the POWs seemed forgotten as the Camp Authority mourned H Ch Minh, the man who had freed them from French colonialism, and would, as they often told the POWs, expel the Americans and reunify Vietnam.

  Unbeknownst to Jerry and the other POWs, North Vietnam’s new leader, Lê Dun, soon issued an important directive that likely saved many long-suffering Americans. The new policy stated, “Although we do not consider the enemy pilots to be prisoners of war, bound by the 1949 Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs, we still apply the principles of this convention in our humanitarian policy.” The resolution provided for prisoners’ health, living conditions, and right to worship. It allowed POWs to send one postcard home each month; they could receive one package every two months. It also stated, “From now until 1970, [we will] gradually allow the American enemy pilots that we are holding in secret to contact their families via postcards.”

  Also unbeknownst to Jerry was that his wife, Jane, and hundreds of other wives and family members of men declared prisoners of war or missing in action had become the imprisoned Americans’ greatest advocates. These women had unified a polarized America and rallied it around one common cry: Don’t forget the POWs. The National League of POW-MIA Families had lobbied so hard and loudly that they effectively changed United States policy on POWs in North Vietnam. Under Lyndon Johnson, the government declined to criticize Hanoi for its refusal to honor the Geneva Convention, including its refusal to release the names of captured POWs, refusal to allow inspections of POW camps, and its illegal and inhumane treatment of American POWs. The Johnson administration feared that publicly disclosing such behavior would jeopardize peace negotiations. The increasingly vocal wives and their League drove the Nixon administration to change course. On the day of Nixon’s inauguration, the new president received more than two thousand telegrams about the POW-MIA issue. Not coincidentally, in May 1969, new secretary of defense Melvin Laird publicly condemned North Vietnam’s treatment of prisoners. The resulting negative publicity and international pressure drove Hanoi to change its policy in camps across North Vietnam, including Alcatraz. The change came just in time for many POWs who were barely surviving.

  Jerry and his compatriots didn’t know about these underlying forces or new policies per se, but they soon reaped the benefits. That fall, a guard caught Jerry communicating, and Slick called him to quiz. “Denton, you have been caught communicating,” he said. “You know what has happened before.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jerry answered. Did Slick have more punishment in store? Another confession or plea for amnesty?

  “I am going to surprise,” Slick replied giddily. “This time you will not be punish. We still have regulation and you have broken it, and I will criticize you for it. But as long as I am in authority, there will be no more punishment for communicating.”

  Jerry barely stopped himself from crying in front of Slick. He couldn’t help but feel grateful to his adversary. For the first time in many months, he felt hopeful. Maybe he’d survived the worst. Perhaps it would finally get better. He knew many POWs could not persevere much longer under such harsh conditions.

  The same guard caught Jerry communicating the next day. Slick called him to quiz. “Ah, Denton, you did it again,” the commandant said. “The guard is doing his duty, but you will not be punished.” Jerry let himself believe change—albeit small change—had come.

  Bananas and vitamins soon appeared with breakfast, along with sugar and bread. Guards allowed POWs more time outside; they could walk freely about the Alcatraz courtyard for fifteen or thirty minutes at a time. They sometimes allowed Jerry to leave his door open. On one October day, Jim Mulligan appeared. “Hi, Jerry,” he said.

  Jerry replied, “Hi, Jim.” They hadn’t seen each other face-to-face since the summer of 1967. A guard gently ushered Mulligan back to his cell. Yes, change had come. Perhaps the Camp Authority planned to return the POWs to America soon.

  The new understanding warmed the relationship between commanding officers—Slick and Jerry. They staged ideological discussions with each other during which Slick recounted the history of North Vietnam. He pointed out that by siding with French colonialism, Western nations had pushed H Ch Minh toward Communist neighbors, China and the Soviet Union. Vietnam was not beholden to China or the Soviet Union; those alliances were of convenience or necessity. H Ch Minh had been a nationalist foremost. Jerry understood.

  “He went to Russia for help when he believed no one else would help him to obtain freedom for his country,” Jerry conceded. Then Jerry explained how America had needed France’s support to contain the Soviet Union in Europe after World War II and had thus supported France’s reassertion of control over Vietnam. Slick felt America never comprehended the historical complexities and modern realities of Vietnam. Siding with an unpopular and undemocratic monarch in South Vietnam proved that.

  Jerry wasn’t prepared to defend or fully explain the long string of decisions by Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon that had led to the present situation. He shifted back to the philosophical, where he perceived he had the advantage. He said, “What I can’t understand is the Communist suppression of political, religious, and press freedoms.”

  “Denton, you have seen more and read more, and you know more than I do,” Slick responded. “You can make argument that I cannot answer. But you must understand we never have security. We always fight. We have no unity. Under French there was no security, no law for Vietnamese. If Vietnamese woman raped, or peasant murdered by French, there would be nothing that could happen to those that did it. We had nothing but corruption. Now for the first time we have security. We do not have other things, but for the first time we have precious security.” Jerry saw tears in Slick’s eyes. He gripped Jerry’s forearm and asked, “Do you understand that?”

  Slick’s statement reminded Jerry that every side has a story. But since the Camp Authority still confined Jerry and his men to claustrophobic four-by-ten-foot cells, his sympathy extended only so far.

  Even with the improved treatment, Ron St
orz’s decline continued. Jerry assessed his condition each day, peering from beneath his door as Storz visited the latrine. Jerry constantly ordered him to eat. Storz claimed he’d resumed eating, but Jim Mulligan reported differently. Mulligan flashed that he’d gone to empty Storz’s bucket and found the previous day’s rations undisturbed. The POWs did not know how to help their friend.

  One early December day, Jerry watched Ron Storz walk to the latrine. “You’re all moving out of here,” Storz said loudly. “The guards told me they are sending you out. But I’m not going.”

  Damned if Jerry would leave without one of his men. “Of course you’re coming with us,” Jerry retorted. “We’re not letting you stay here by yourself.”

  “It will only be worse if I leave,” Storz replied. “Besides, it’s all a bluff. It’s a trick to try and get me to eat, but I’m on to them. If they do move us, they will never let me be with you. They’ll separate us.”

  “That won’t happen, Ron,” Sam Johnson said through his transom. “Things have changed some. Can’t you feel that it’s different now? We’ll all be together.”

  At his next quiz with Slick, Jerry demanded, “If we are going to move, you must make Storz go with us.”

  “You are not going to move,” Slick answered. “No need to worry about it.”

  Jerry didn’t let the subject go. He revisited the subject just days later and got a different response. “You may move,” Slick said. “It is not certain. But your Storz may do as he likes.”

  On December 9, 1969, a guard opened Jerry’s cell door. He ordered Jerry to collect his belongings, and for what Jerry hoped would be the last time, he stepped out of his cell at Alcatraz. Hopes of homecoming rose in Jerry yet again. Could this be the end? Yes, Jerry decided as he walked toward the courtyard’s exit, we aren’t just leaving Alcatraz, we are finally going home! As the guard led him out of the courtyard and toward a waiting truck, he saw Slick approaching. “Ah, Denton,” he said, “this time you will not ride in handcuffs. We will blindfold, but you will not be uncomfortable.”