Gaylee and Dawn were driven in a staff car to the tarmac a few minutes before my C-141 landed. As we came to a stop, looking out the window I could see two beautiful women near the end of the red carpet. One I recognized immediately. How could I forget that face I had thought about every day for six years? The other, at a distance of 150 yards, I did not recognize. “Could that be Dawn?” I asked myself. “It has to be.” Would it be right to hug this beautiful young woman?
Gaylee was first to reach me. Then Dawn. As they held me, I felt at last that my life, which had gone to sleep, was awake again.
Doctors told me that three surgeries would be required to rebuild my knees and repair my back, but that they would allow me to live mostly pain free and to walk normally. Each day I spent a few hours with our Air Force debriefers. It was long and detailed. Mostly they were looking to find out how we did as POWs. Had we resisted to the best of our ability? They were also looking for any information we had that would prove certain American aviators had gotten out of their aircraft alive, but never showed up in the North Vietnamese prison system.
I had come home into time warp. In an effort to “catch up” with the world, I lay in my hospital bed reading the World Book Encyclopedia year books. I started with the most recent year, 1972, and read backwards. Usually my wife or daughter was with me to answer lots of questions about events in the books. This helped me fill in some of my blanks.
Gaylee’s family had worked shoulder to shoulder with her writing letters, putting up billboards, and rallying support to pressure the North Vietnamese to stop torturing us. Gaylee’s sisters and their husbands—Lylah and Stan Swanson, Vange and Bob Renshaw—and her mom, Ida, were the POWs’ best friends. It was a thrill to see them and to be able to thank them personally just days after my release from Hanoi.
My sister, Donna, brother, John, and mother arrived at Scott two days after Gaylee and Dawn. I had a lot of catching up to do. John was married to Marky, and they had five children. When I left for combat, he was running a garage in Storden, Minnesota. He had decided to be a minister and finished four years of college and Lutheran seminary while I was in prison. As soon as he got to Scott hospital, I asked if he would give me communion. As I took the wafer into my mouth, I thanked God once again for having brought me home to this country, these people, and this life.
INDEX
23rd Psalm (“The Lord is My Shepherd”)
355 Tactical Fighter Wing
A-1E Skyraider
Abbott, Bob
Armstrong, Neil
Atterberry, Ed
B-52 Stratofortress
B-66 Destroyer
“Ballad of East and West, The” (Kipling)
Ballard, Ted
Bell, Jim
Ben Casey (television show)
Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal (1967)
Bettinger, Jim
Bgo Thi Nga
Black, Neil
Bolstad, Dick
Bomar, Jack
Borling, John
Bridger, Barry
Broughton, Jack
Burchett, Wilfred
Camp Punishment, See Hanoi Hilton
Cherry, Fred
Christian, Mike
Christmas Bombings (1972)
Clark Air Base
Clark Kent (Superman)
Clements, Jim
Corbeil, Earl
Cormier, Art
“Cremation of Sam Magee, The” (Service)
Day, Bud
Dellinger, David
Denton, Jeremiah
Depression (1930s)
Doumer Bridge
Dr. Zhivago (movie)
Dramesi, John
F-105 Thunderchief
F-4 Phantom
Fonda, Jane
Forester, C.S.
Gia Lam airport
Goodfellow Air Force Base
Great Gatsby, The (movie)
“Gunga Din” (Kipling)
Hanoi Hilton Heartbreak Hotel Cuban torturers Zoo Plantation Skid Row (Camp Punishment) guards food camp radio medicine exercise time as enemy work details church services letters and packages from home
Heartbreak Hotel, See Hanoi Hilton
Hickam Air Force Base
“High Flight” (Magee)
Hiteshaw, Jim
Ho Chi Minh
Hoblit, Jerry
Horatio Hornblower novels
“If ” (Kipling)
“In Flanders Fields” (McCrae)
Johnson, Harry
Johnson, Lyndon
Johnson, Samuel
Kennedy, John F.
Kipling, Rudyard
Kissinger, Henry
Korean War
Lackland Air Force Base
Laos
Larson, Swede
Le Duc Tho
Letterman, David
Lilly, Bob
Madison, Tom
Magee, John Gillespie
McCain, John
McCrae, John
McGovern, George
Medal of Honor
Metzger, Bill
MiG fighter
Moore, Clement Clarke
National League of POW/MIA Families
Nellis Air Force Base
Nixon, Richard
O’Dell, Don “Digger”
Oglesby, Carl
Plantation, See Hanoi Hilton
Pyle, Darrel
Reader’s Digest (magazine)
Renshaw, Vange & Bob
Rice, Chuck
Robinson, Bill
Russell, Bertrand
SAM (surface-to-air missile)
Sand Pebbles (movie)
Sandy, See A-1E Skyraider
Sartre, Jean-Paul
Schultz, Bud
Scott Air Force Base
Seahorn, Jim
Service, Robert
Shelton, Charles
Shively, Jim
Shuman, Ned
Sijan, Lance
Skid Row, See Hanoi Hilton
Son Tay Raiders
Southwick, Ev
Spangdahlem Air Base
Sparks, Bill
Stavast, John
Sterling, Tom
Stockdale, Jim
Stockdale, Sybil
Swanson, Lylah & Stan
Takhli airbase
Tanner, Nels
Tap code
Terry, Ross
Thailand
Thorsness, Dawn (daughter)
Thorsness, Donna (sister)
Thorsness, Gaylee (wife)
Thorsness, John (brother)
Thorsness, Leo: Medal of Honor mission feelings of a failure injuries capturethoughts about religion upbringing in Minnesota and father builds memory room education meets future wife enlistment learns to fly interrogation and torture suffers hallucinationsbreaks under torture learns tap code fights for wedding ring suffers boils dental problems makes measuring tape tries to “walk” home learns about being awarded Medal of Honor moved to Camp Punishment fights boredom ponders life after prison memorizes poetry makes peephole in cell moved to larger cell plays cards by tap code steals peppers work details celebrates Easter calculating weight loss moved to mass cell in 1970 POW classes learns about man on the moon receives family photographs; relationship with Gaylee after return home encourages POW arguments speaks before Washington state senate celebrates Christmas learns of the end of the war; leaves Vietnam layover in Philippines first conversations with Gaylee delays in Hawaii sees main-land United States again reunited with family
Thud, See F-105
Toastmasters
Torture of POWs “suitcase trick,” Cuban torturers breaking under torture prisoners describe their experiences
Troutman, Konnie
“’Twas the Night Before Christmas”
Tyler, Chuck
Udorn Air Base
Van Loan, Jack
Vohden, Roy
Warner, Jim
Wild Weasel, See F-105
Wilso
n, Tom
World War II
Xuan Mai barracks
Young, Jim
Zoo, See Hanoi Hilton
Zuhowski, Chuck
Copyright © 2008 by Leo Thorsness
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Thorsness, Leo (Leo K.), 1932-
Includes index.
eISBN : 978-1-594-03362-9
Leo (Leo K.), 1932–2. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Prisoners and prisons, North Vietnamese. 3. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Personal narratives, American. 4. Prisoners of war—United States—Biography. 5. Prisoners of war—Vietnam—Biography. 6. Fighter pilots—United States—Biography. I. Title.
DS559.4.T49 2008
959.704’37—dc22
[B]
2008002997
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