a questionable life

by Luke Lively

  “So how did he help you?” I asked.

  “We learned to understand each other and had a deep respect for each other. We understood each other’s roles. We also realized that we were similar in more ways than we were different. Saying we were friends wouldn’t be correct—we respected each other’s differences.”

  “But how did that help you survive?”

  “It helped to remove the hate. Other than fear, hatred toward the North Vietnamese was slowly killing me. The hate made me irrational and took away my ability to discipline my thoughts. They tortured me. I saw them torture and kill other prisoners like me. Hate was easy. I couldn’t change what they did while I was in a cage. But respecting my jailer’s perspective took away some of the hate.”

  “I doubt if I could ever feel that way toward someone who was holding me captive. I could never stop hating someone who was my jailer.”

  “It wasn’t his fault that I was a POW. He had a job to do. He was harsh in his treatment—but after some time, he changed his view of prisoners. Then, he changed his practices.”

  “You learned so much in some of the worst conditions a human could be subjected to,” I said. “I’m sure those were things you could never forget.”

  “But I did forget,” he said.

  Benny paused, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “I learned so many lessons there. You would think that an experience like that would always remain with you, but somehow I forgot what I learned. Once I returned home and the years wore down my memory, it seemed like a dream. It took the loss of my son to rediscover those truths. Ben’s death reawakened me from my sleepwalking.”

  “I’ve learned a lot in the past couple of days about myself. I hope I won’t forget.”

  “We lose what we fail to use,” he said. “We’re going to have to start back up the mountain to stay on our schedule. Are you ready?”

  “Sure, I’m ready. The break was good. I just might make it to the top.”

  “Before we go, do you want to see the gorge from the edge?” he asked. “The view is really something you should see.”

  “I’ll pass right now—maybe some other day. But I’ll watch for snakes,” I said, smiling as I slid off my rock seat. We walked past the fork in the path where we had detoured to visit the rock ledge. The climb became much steeper. I was out of breath, but had more questions about his time in Vietnam. “You said they kept you as a prisoner to use you for propaganda. How did they use you?” I asked when I had enough breath available.

  “After I was shot down, I was in bad shape. I had broken my leg when I ejected from the plane and parachuted into the jungle. In the camp, they spent some time and effort keeping me alive. The treatment wasn’t humanitarian. There was a reason. They wanted to use POWs in video tapes to talk about the war. It was their way of trying to turn the American public against the war effort. The North Vietnamese were well schooled in propaganda. All they had to do was break us down to the point where we would read their scripts and talk on camera. Having an officer in captivity also gave them a bargaining chip in negotiations. They viewed me as having some relative value in this context. So they kept me alive.”

  Benny paused and took a sip of water, seeing my struggle to keep up with his pace. I had noticed he had a slight limp. The injuries from Vietnam had never left him, I thought.

  “After giving me enough medical care to ensure I would live, the guards kept me in solitary confinement for over two months, almost totally in the dark,” Benny continued. “They pulled me out one day, and I thought they were going to kill me. That was my low point as a POW. Looking back, it was part of their tactics to wear a person down.”

  “After taking me out of the pen—as we called solitary—they changed their ploy. One guard spoke very good English. He told us to call him Tom. They were playing good cop, bad cop. He was the good cop. Having us call him Tom was a ploy to Americanize him. He had lived in the U.S. for several years. He had spent time in American schools. He knew what was going on in the States. He would tell us his interpretation of bits of news that gave the impression of an America in disarray. Every now and then, he would show us newspaper clippings to try to validate his point. ‘They don’t support you at home,’ he would say. He would also remind us of the good life we were missing. Of course, the main objective was to make us feel that we were forgotten. You could tell he enjoyed telling us, ‘No one cares about you—you’re on your own.’

  “Tom was very war hardened. He lived for revenge. He had evidently lost his family in a bombing raid early in the war. Even though he knew more about Americans than any of the other jailers he hated us. The dehumanizing process he led continued for months. Several of my comrades in the camp broke down and gave the North Vietnamese a tape. They would get much more favorable treatment—for a time. Then, suddenly they would disappear. Tom would tell us they were transferred to a better camp, with running water and the freedom to walk in a park. This miracle camp was waiting for us if we complied. He kept reminding us, ‘All we had to do was talk.’”

  As Benny spoke I pictured myself in the same conditions. I would have been one of the first to break. “Who could blame a solider for breaking?” I asked.

  “That’s true. How could you blame a solider that was alone and under this type of pressure for breaking? You can’t. What we were being subjected to was mind games of the most extreme order. However, for me, I decided not to break. I was not going to surrender the only things I had left that kept me alive and gave me hope—my mind and my actions.”

  You could hear a resolve I hadn’t heard in his voice. It was not pride. Benny stated it as a fact; it was something indisputable to him. I listened closely.

  “We had little contact with other POWs. They kept us separated as much as possible. In one brief interchange with one of my fellow prisoners, I was told there was no magical prison camp. He told me once the North Vietnamese got what they wanted the POW was executed.”

  The tone of his voice was hardening, just as he had been hardened by his experience years ago.

  “I knew it was true. It made more sense to me than the story Tom was telling. I had already seen what they did in villages to people who they thought opposed them. If they killed their own people so thoughtlessly, why should an American POW expect to be treated any better? This was the beginning of my time there, when I spent much time thinking about being awake. I was determined to be free, to live on my terms.”

  When I heard him say the word “free,” I thought I knew what happened. Benny found a way to escape. The jailer probably helped him. “So you were planning an escape?” I asked.

  “Getting out of the camp alive didn’t look possible,” he said. “That was the reality of the situation. I accepted the fact I was probably going to die in the camp for refusing to give them what they wanted. I accepted that they were in control of me physically—but I wasn’t going to let them govern my mind. That was mine. If I was going to die there, it would be on my terms, not theirs.”

  Hearing him say that he accepted his own death was chilling. I thought about how I had been afraid to simply look over a ledge a few minutes earlier. Falling wasn’t likely, yet I had been so afraid I missed out on seeing what I knew was something special. Here was a man who had summoned the courage to face his own death. I was embarrassed.

  As we resumed walking after scaling a near-vertical slope, he stopped to give me a chance to catch my breath. As he spoke, I envied his bravery.

  “The first thing I did was look at the conditions I was living under. Almost all POWs in the camp were counting the number of days till a holiday or a birthday. It was a way of coping, but I could see what it was doing to them. They would place their hopes and dreams on being freed by that date, visualizing reuniting with family and friends. Almost every brief conversation I had with any of my fellow POWs had a date in it. ‘We’ll be out of here by Christmas in sixty-six days,’ they would say. Tom made it more difficult, reminding everyone of what was happening in the
States on holidays, bringing press clippings to us showing couples enjoying the Fourth of July or a family gathered around a Christmas tree. He told us that our wives or girlfriends had likely moved on and had new lovers. He would ask, ‘Do you think they remember you?’ The date a person chose to believe was the date they would be freed would come and go. Nothing changed.”

  “A calendar as part of a psychological ploy . . . ” I said.

  “I realized projecting hopes on a calendar was what killed most of my comrades. Every time one of the dates passed, you could see their heart break. To me it was a test of how long I could last—testing the strength of my will. Every moment I was alive was a victory. My purpose was to survive and live another second, not just another day. I silently celebrated the passing of time.”

  We resumed walking up another severe grade. Of all the pain a POW endured, I never thought about the agony of a broken heart. But something was very different, or indifferent, about Benny’s approach. It sounded as though he had hardened himself so his heart would not break. It was a tactic I had used for years, so I understood it. The path widened enough so I could walk beside him. I asked, “Did you try to get rid of your emotions—so your heart couldn’t be broken?”

  “My heart was very much alive. It was part of me. But I wasn’t going to tell myself that happiness was just around the corner. I found ways to be happy. I would make sure I smiled, especially in front of Tom.”

  “Smiling?”

  “Chi Mai, on one of his brief visits, said to me, ‘Smile.’ I asked him how? He said, ‘Be you.’ I thought about it. The only people who ever smiled were the more hostile jailers who enjoyed seeing us tortured. It was difficult at first. But then I remembered that if I was awake and free, I should be able to show it outwardly. Smiling was a choice—my choice. It wasn’t controlled by the conditions I faced on the outside, but what I felt inside. I practiced finding something to smile about, as often as possible. I would see a flower blooming or the sun rising and setting and remind myself beauty still surrounded me, even in a cage. It cost me dearly—I was tortured for smiling. But it was worth it.”

  “You were tortured for smiling.”

  “Yeah, hard to imagine, but it drove my captors crazy. I’m sure they thought I was crazy, but smiling was something I chose to do. My heart, just like my mind, was mine. They weren’t going to take it from me. As they carried me back into the cage after they tortured me I would smile the biggest smile I could. That is when I connected with the jailer. He knew I wasn’t going to break. I had a purpose, just like him.”

  The rigidity and coldness in Benny’s tone was a sharp contrast to our talk on the lake. “How could you maintain that level of concentration?”

  “I had my moments. But I knew one thing was a certainty. The POWs who failed to survive died of a broken heart and spirit. They allowed fear to rule them and misguided hope to betray them. Doubt smothered them. Unrealistic expectations can kill. I saw it happen—every day.”

  “But I thought you said hope kept you alive?”

  “I did, but it was a realistic hope. To survive, I pictured the worst. I visualized my own death. I came to terms with dying. I decided what I would be thinking when I died. How I would shut my eyes and exhale my last breath with a smile on my face. By practicing how to die, I found I was able to live in the moment. Once I stopped fearing death, I was able to live.”

  This was so different from the Benny I thought I knew. He sounded cold and calculating.

  “You had lost all hope of living?” I asked.

  “No! That’s not what I said,” Benny spoke quickly and loudly, “I never gave up hope. I was living moment by moment to keep hope alive. Coming to terms with the reality of the situation meant having a living hope, a hope that wasn’t unrealistic, and a hope that wouldn’t break my heart. I asked myself, Who am I? I was alive and changing. Then, Where am I? I was in a place I couldn’t control or change. I then asked myself, Where was I going? Nowhere at that moment, but I didn’t need to leave to be alive. As long as I could choose my thoughts, I was still in charge of my life. That gave me hope.”

  In that moment I saw something move on the path ahead of us—it was a snake. Without saying a word, Benny held out his right hand to stop. He stepped forward holding his stick in his right hand, keeping a distance from the reptile. Without touching the snake, he made several brief raps on the ground with the stick. The snake moved quickly, slithering through the dirt in an S pattern off of the path. Looking back at me he said, “Okay, the snake is gone” and stepped forward past the place the snake had been. I was still frozen. “It’s okay, Jack. It’s more afraid of us than we are of it.”

  “I doubt that,” I said, moving cautiously on the far side of the path from where the snake had disappeared.

  After trudging up the hill for what seemed like an eternity, Benny asked if I wanted to take a break. “Sure,” I said, “if you need one.”

  Benny laughed at my out-of-breath humor and said, “There’s a level patch not too far ahead.”

  The path, or what you could call a path, was rutted from runoff pouring down the slope. We are climbing more than walking, I thought, making my way upward to what I hoped would be the last break before we reached the peak.

  I was simply trying to keep up with Benny and take part in the intermittent conversation we were having as we hiked the mountain. But now, I was intently focused on looking for a snake. I was exhausted mentally and physically. “We’ll stop up here,” he said. A slight opening in the foliage allowed some light in. The level area Benny had referred to was barely more than ten feet square. A rock jutted out directly above us.

  “How close are we to the top?” I asked, after finding enough breath to speak.

  “Not too far,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to keep from panting.

  “That’s good,” he said. “What do you think of the hike so far?”

  “I’ve enjoyed it,” I said, looking toward the winding path we had just navigated. “This hike has definitely inspired me to get back in the gym.” After another pause to get enough wind, I said, “There’s nothing like this in Philly—for sure.” Turning around as I spoke, I saw something on the edge of the rock directly behind us. Trying not to show how scared I was, I asked in a near-whisper, “Is that what I think it is?” Almost directly at my eye level, a snake was hanging over the edge of the rock overhang. It was only a couple of feet away from Benny.

  “I see what you’re talking about,” Benny said in a soft, calm tone. His height allowed him to get a much better view but also put him in a stare down with the creature. “Don’t worry,” he said, turning to look back at me.

  “What do you mean, don’t worry?” I asked, puzzled that he wasn’t moving away.

  Smiling, he said, “It isn’t what you think it is, Jack.”

  You let go when you quit being afraid of losing what you don’t really have.

  —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PRICE

  33. What Is It?

  “WHAT IS IT?” I asked, still in a state of panic. I could see a snake within striking distance of Benny’s head.

  “It’s a piece of rope,” he said, smiling from ear to ear.

  “A piece of rope?” I asked, stepping carefully toward the object. “How stupid am I?”

  “It’s probably something another hiker dropped,” he said, reaching over and picking up the cord.

  “I thought it was a snake,” I said.

  “Our minds will do that,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. Seeing the snake down the trail scared me more than I thought it did.

  “It takes some getting used to—being here in the woods is a lot different than Philadelphia,” he said.

  “That it is,” I said.

  “You did say something that fits in with what we’ve been talking about, Jack. You asked me, ‘What is it?’ That’s one of the most important questions you can ask.”

  “I thought it was a snake,” I said,
still trying to cover my embarrassment.

  “You were looking for a snake, and your mind told you, ‘I see a snake.’ When you question your thoughts and ask, ‘What is it?’ you begin a process of searching for the truth—for reality. It’s part of living a life of questions.”

  As he was speaking, my mind was busily searching for the last time I had asked the question “What is it?” I couldn’t remember.

  We continued to trek what Benny said was the last portion of our climb to the peak. I was irritated. I was tired of hearing everything that was wrong with me. As we walked the now winding but much-less-strenuous passage, I asked about something that disturbed me the most—the idea that everything changes. I wanted to prove him wrong.

  “What about time and space?” I asked. “How do they change?”

  “That’s a great question,” Benny said, slowing his pace to allow me to walk closer. “Time and space change because of what fills them. I’m not a scientist by any means, but from what I understand even the space between us has a presence. It’s like radio waves beamed around us—because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. And they change, just like us!”

  “Change is what makes living so difficult,” I said. I was feeling sensitive because Benny knew I had trouble with impermanence.

  “What makes life difficult is avoiding change. But it’s unavoidable. If we don’t accept change, we’re not acknowledging reality. I know the dilemma, Jack. We want things to stay the same. We want to hold on to what we have. We seek happiness in having more—more money, more power, more status. We reduce life to a competition and spend our time building sand castles, thinking they are made of stone. We’re killing time—the time of our lives. Go back to the question ‘What’s your intention?’ What are you working for? If it’s having more than you could possibly need, then you’ll never be happy. You’ll always want more.”