One day as I stood filling the pail, I noticed a rusty nail about four feet away just off the slab. I casually moved to that side of the slab as I splashed the water over my naked body. Intentionally I slipped a bit and while kneeling down got the nail in my hand and then in my shorts as I put them back on. Now I had a tool!
There were once windows in the solitary cells of Skid Row, but they had been bricked up. North Vietnam being a communist country, however, the mortar between the bricks was of poor quality. With my rusty nail and a lot of time, I slowly drilled a tiny peephole in the mortar. With my eye directly next to the hole, I could see a one-to-two-degree slice of the prison yard. When not peeking out, I plugged a bit of dirt in the hole so that the guard in charge of the cell could not tell that I could see outside.
I spent hours at that peephole. Now and then a POW walked by. The tap code allowed us to know and memorize the names of all POWs known to be alive in the system and to communicate with some of them. Very few, however, did we know by sight. Now, when a POW walked by my peephole on his way to interrogation, I would immediately start tapping to find out who he was. I could put a face together with a name.
One day a chicken hen with a flock of chicks walked past my peephole. For someone who had grown up on a farm, that was exciting. It brought a bit of normalcy to a sad place. It was big news to tap out the word that we had a hen and baby chicks in the camp.
A few days after the joy of seeing baby chicks, a guard walked through my view and an unexpected string of thoughts flashed through my mind. I imagined myself flipping a coin; reaching out, catching it, and slapping it on my hand. Heads it was! That meant the guard got tails. I won; he lost. The stakes of winning the imaginary coin flip were profound. My thought was this: Neither of us had any control over who our parents were. Had I gotten tails, my parents would have been North Vietnamese and his would have been American.
I kept watching out the peephole at this guard who had unfortunately lost the coin toss and spent hours comparing his life to mine. He was stuck living under a controlled system governed by brutality, not consent. He had very little chance to move up or even sideways in life, his freedoms were minimal and always conditional, and instead of having the right to open inquiry he was spoon fed only the information his government wanted him to know. He had nothing exciting or adventurous to look forward to; likely he would never visit another country or get a choice of whom to vote for. The more I thought about him and his life, the sorrier I felt for him.
By a figurative flip of a coin, I had been born a free American and he had been born a captive communist. Here I was, locked in a grimy, tiny five-by-six-foot cell, and he was walking around unrestrained outside. But I knew that I was the lucky one. In my 35 years of freedom, I had had a better, fuller life and had done and seen more than he ever would. A thought stuck in my mind that never left me in the years I was a prisoner: If I die now, I am way ahead of the game.
CHAPTER 13
BOREDOM
After a year or so in solitary I was moved into a small cell with Jack Bomar. We hit it off and faced together the POW’s greatest enemy: boredom. We spent our days in a trance of memory and sometimes pain, waiting for something to awaken our attention.
To our utter amazement, and without the “camp radio” explaining why, the guard opened the flipper door one day and gave us a deck of playing cards. We were ecstatic if a bit suspicious. What was going on? Was this a trick of some kind?
The cards were Chinese-made, and thicker and less pliable than standard U.S. playing cards. We soon learned not to hold them long or firmly when it was hot because they absorbed sweat and became floppy. We played rummy and cribbage. The man in the cell on our left was in solitary. He told us by tap code that he too had cards and played solitaire every day. Soon he began tapping to us that he was winning about half the games he played. On the spur of the moment, I tapped, “Jim, are you cheating?” There was a long pause, then he tapped back, “Well, a little, it’s more fun to win.” Jack and I laughed and laughed. We gave Jim a very hard time with the tap code. But he kept cheating.
There were two POWs in the cell on our left. Both happened to be good bridge players. A few days after the cards were handed out, they tapped to us: “Jack and you know how to play bridge?” Jack was good, and I could play. “Yes, we know how to play bridge—too bad we can’t get together a foursome.”
The next day, they tapped to us, “We figured a way to play bridge with two of us in each cell using the tap code.” It seemed a bit far-fetched but we tapped back, “Let us know how.”
The first problem to solve was how to randomly deal two decks of cards and have the same deals come out. Jim Bell, one of the POWs next door, developed the system. Set up the decks as they were when new: ace through king in each suit. Put the spades on the bottom, hearts next, then diamonds, and clubs. From the top, deal seven cards down in a row—left to right. Start over and put a second card on top of each of the first seven cards. Continue dealing and you will end up with three stacks of eight cards and four stacks of seven. On the cell wall, tap the stack number you want on the bottom—three taps for, say, number three stack. Next tap seven, then two—whatever sequence you want. Just put each stack on top of the last until all seven stacks are back into a whole deck. You now have two identical randomly arranged decks that can be dealt out.
Say that players North and South are in cell number one and that East and West are in cell number two. Let’s say North starts the bidding at One Heart. The POW closest to the wall in cell one taps an H: two taps, pause, three taps (** ***). East, in cell two, passes: tap P (*** *****). South, in cell one, bids Two Hearts. Two taps (**), longer pause, then the H: (** ***). West, in cell two, bids Two Spades: two taps (**), longer pause, then S (**** ***). North bids Two No Trump: two taps (**), pause, then NT (*** *** **** ****). East passes: P (*** *****). South bids Three NT: (***) (*** *** **** ****). West Doubles: D (* ****). North, East, and South pass. P (*** *****). And so on.
It took perhaps ten times longer to play a hand than in normal bridge. But, what else did we have to do?
After about four months of bridge fever, they took the cards back with no more explanation than when they had given them. We looked for other obsessions.
Back when I was living with Chuck Tyler and Digger O’Dell, between our cell door and the bath area—some 50 feet away—were a few hot pepper plants. As we were escorted to the area, we noted that the plants had fruited and very slowly started growing peppers. We frequently talked about how those peppers, when they got bigger, would add flavor to our green weed soup. We worked endlessly on plans to steal them without being caught by the guards. And we had endless conversation about the peppers themselves. Were they hotter when small or when large and ripe? How much did they grow each week? How much would one pepper, if cut into thirds, affect the taste of the soup? The pepper caper taking shape in our minds passed a lot of time.
One day after the trip to and from the baths, Chuck declared, “They are big enough.” Nodding, Digger added, “Yep, the next bath trip they are going down.” I agreed, throwing in my two cents, “It’s now or never. If we don’t get ’em soon, the Vietnamese will.”
The guard always followed the same routine: Unlock and open the cell door, line us up and make us bow, point to the bath area and fall in behind the three of us as we marched single file along the little path. Some bath days we were allowed to rinse out the pajamas we had worn for a week or more and then change into the clean set we carried to the bath. Our plan was that I would go first and have my clean pajamas in hand along with my towel. Chuck would follow me and Digger would be last in line. I would walk briskly and be next to the pepper plant, just 15 feet up the path, by the time Digger walked out the door. Just as Digger got out the door he would say, “Boa coa, towel.” (Boa coa was the phrase we were supposed to use if we needed the attention of a guard.) Then, as he went back in the cell for his towel without waiting for permission, I would “accidentally” drop
my pajamas, partly covering the pepper plant. As expected the guard stepped just inside the cell to see what Digger was doing, saying, “You stop—go bath!” Chuck stopped just behind me, blocking the guard’s view of me, and I nabbed the peppers.
The pepper-napping worked perfectly! I had two good-sized peppers covered by my pajamas. The guard cussed out Digger but nothing more. We all ended up in the bath area behind the wall for a few minutes. Chuck and I rinsed our pajamas and hung them on the wall. As we walked back into the cell, Chuck and I each had a pepper cinched in our waistbands hidden by our pajama tops.
The second and last meal of the day arrived as usual at 4:30 that day. Making sure the guard was gone, we got our peppers from the hiding place. Using a spoon I cut both peppers into thirds. We each squished them and dropped our two pieces in the green weed soup. With the first spoonful we all nodded yes, we could taste the difference. There really was a slight “hot” spicy tinge, but the best part of the caper was that it had kept boredom at bay for nearly two weeks.
At about this time, the Vietnamese began to vary our diet. Occasionally, instead of green weed soup and rice they changed it to green weed soup and bread. The bread was French-loaf shaped, seven or eight inches long and two inches in diameter. It was a welcome change, and I’ve already described the effect it had on our dental woes.
I remembered my mother’s flour bin. Like all farm wives in the 1930s and 1940s, she had baked our bread. I also remembered that sometimes weevils would invade Mom’s flour. It would, of course, be thrown out. But the Vietnamese did not throw out weevil-infested flour. They baked the bread just the same.
As POWs we received no dairy products or meat. We were cadaverous and malnourished. There was no protein in green weed soup or rice. Some POWs spent a long time picking the weevils out one at a time while trying not to waste any bread. Some just ate them for nourishment. Weevils provided entertainment as well as protein. We came up with the idea of having a weevil contest. The next time we got bread, whoever had the most weevils won. A week later the bread came with the afternoon meal. We all took the contest seriously. The bread this time was very weevilly. Each of us wanted to win the contest, of course, and meticulously tore our loaf into very tiny pieces to make sure we found every weevil. After all results were in, the range was from 52 to 271. Turns out that I was again average: 121 weevils.
Chuck kept us entertained with one-liners. He generally started with the phrase “Just as my grandpa used to say ...” Digger and I would look at each other knowing full well we would question whether the saying really fit the situation and if his “grandpa” really said it. Sometimes we doubted that Chuck actually had a grandpa, or at least one that would say such odd things. We had a lot of discussion about Chuck’s grandpa. Chuck always defended his grandpa as real and said someday we would meet him.
About once each six months, the POWs from one cell were taken out for a “work detail.” It was great to be outside for a couple of hours. In my two years at the Zoo, I was on three work details, one of them while living with Chuck and Digger. A guard, one who spoke more English than most, unlocked the cell door in March 1968 and told us, “You work—you make plants grow.”
Each POW had two pairs of pajamas, one t-shirt and one pair of shorts. The guard said, “Short,” and we put on shorts and t-shirts. Outside the cell door were two empty pails just like our toilet pail in the cell. He motioned for us to follow him off the path into a small area, about 10 by 20 feet. The dirt had been turned and broken up. It had half-grown plants: pepper plants like the one we’d recently robbed and something that looked a bit like spinach. The guard then pointed to Digger: “You go bath get pail water—bring here.” Digger went to the bath area, 40 feet away, dropped a bucket with the rope attached down the well about 15 feet, and drew up the water. When Digger brought the pail of water, the guard looked at me and pointed to the same open sewer where we poured our feces and urine each morning. With his best English, he said, “Go to sewer, bring half pail.” All three of us being sharp Air Force majors, the picture came into focus: We were going to fertilize the plants with human waste.
The opening to the sewer line was about two and a half feet across. The level of sewage was two feet below ground level. I got down on both knees by the sewer edge, and put one hand on the ledge about a third of the way around the circle opening. I held the dirty rusty pail in my left hand, reached down, pushed some turds aside with the bottom of the pail, tilted it, and let it fill about half. Dripping scummy stuff from the side and bottom, I carried it back to where Chuck, Digger, and the guard waited and watched. I set the pail on the ground next to the full pail of water. The guard, seeming satisfied that we were performing satisfactorily, looked at Digger and said, “Pour half water in shit pail.”
After this was done, it was time for the high tech to kick in. The guard walked to the edge of the garden and picked up a sturdy stick about 18 inches long. He came back, handed it to Chuck and said: “You mix.” Chuck took the stick, held it as close to the top as possible and gingerly stirred. It wasn’t a good mix. The guard, unhappy, sternly told Chuck, “Mix hard.” Chuck stirred a bit faster. More perturbed, the guard said, “Mix hard to bottom.” There was about three inches of clearance between the top of the turds and Chuck’s hand. Eventually the guard felt the turds were broken up enough and said, “Stop.”
The guard nodded to me, the sewage carrier, and said, “Put by plants.” I knew the odds were that I would not do it the “Vietnamese way.” And I was right—I did it wrong. I didn’t pour the right amount of turds and sewage by each plant, and I poured too close to the stem. By now, Chuck, Digger, and I were totally into it. Without saying anything, but with frequent eye contact, all three of us were finding this entire operation nearly unbelievable, a macabre combination of the humorous and the disgusting.
The process went on another hour. Eventually we met North Vietnamese standards, breaking up the turds into the proper size and putting the right number of pieces the right distance from each plant. I only let the pail slip once. I caught it as it was slipping below the sewer surface—getting only one small turd between my hand and the edge of the pail. No matter how carefully I poured, some splashed on my feet, and Chuck’s “stir hard to bottom” caused sewage to splash nearly to his elbow. Digger, the clean water carrier, escaped the slop. He was quite pleased with himself and later on enjoyed pointing this out to Chuck and me.
There was no question in our minds that when we finished our “shitty” job, we would get to clean up in the bath area. Digger got one last pail of water and poured half of it into my last half-full pail. As we finished the last plant, the guard looked at his wrist-watch and said, “Finish. Go in. Go in.” Chuck said, “We’ve got shit all over us, we must bathe.” “No time,” the guard replied. He looked at Digger’s pail, half full, and said, “Use that water and go in—now!” Two other guards happened by from around the corner. We washed our hands the best we could, and quickly they locked us in.
We sat on our bed slabs and went back over the past couple of hours. Each of us, at least once said, “Can you believe what we just did?” Not surprisingly, Chuck had a saying to fit the occasion. He started, “You know, I just remembered something my grandpa always said.” Digger glanced at me and said, “Get ready, Leo, here comes another one.” Chuck said, “No this one is real—and it fits. My grandpa always said that ‘If you stir shit long enough, you’ll get some on you.’ ”
CHAPTER 14
PRISON SCIENCE
For the first three years, the prison officials did nothing special for holidays. The next couple of years they gave us an extra portion of food on Christmas. And the very last Christmas we were captives—Christmas, 1972—they gave us two whole cooked ducks, intestines and all. We ate around the innards. There were 28 POWs in the cell. Two scrawny ducks was not a lot—but it was a lot more than ever before. They were fattening us up.
In solitary, there was no real way to celebrate holidays except through mem
ory. I recalled my good memories of each holiday as they came and went: Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, birthdays, our anniversary. When I lived with other POWs, we each recalled and told of good times (never of bad times) and compared how our families celebrated holidays. On these special days you missed your family more than ever.
I arrived in Hanoi on May 1, 1967. My first holiday, July 4th, was a bad day: on my knees for being caught communicating. Thanksgiving came: green weed soup and rice. Christmas came: green weed soup and rice. A few months later, in the spring of 1968, Easter approached but we weren’t sure of the date. Ev, Jim, and I all knew that Easter was related to the equinox and the moon, but we didn’t know how. We remembered it generally fell in March or April.
With the tap code, we asked if anyone in our cellblock knew how to compute the Easter date. Sure enough, Jim Shively, on the far corner of the backside, said he had the formula. He claimed it was complex and did not offer to share it. He mentioned it would be difficult to specify the date because our windows were bricked up, and he could not see the moon. Jim was confident, however, that his “Easter computation” was better than anyone else’s in the cellblock. He convinced us.
“Jim, when is Easter?” we continued to tap him. It was getting well into March, and he was still replying, “I’m working on it, don’t worry.” As best I remember, it was mid-April 1968 when Jim finally had the Easter date computed. With full confidence, he tapped, “Easter 1968 will fall on Sunday, May 12.” There was a tap code uproar. None of us could remember Easter ever falling in May. But Jim tapped with self-assurance: “Yes, it is late this year, but that happens once in a great while.”
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