Under the leadership of student Carol Bates, VIVA decided to distribute similar bracelets to the public. They selected a company in Santa Monica for the job, and the firm minted five hundred the first week. In darkened engraved letters, bracelets bore the name, rank, and date of loss for a serviceman known, thought, or hoped to be held captive in Vietnam. Production eventually rose to forty thousand per week as the public rallied to VIVA’s cause and clamored for the bracelets. The company hired more than a hundred college students and veterans who manufactured more than five million bracelets, which VIVA sold at $2.50 apiece for nickel-plated bracelets or $3 for copper. Such unlikely pairs as Richard Nixon and George McGovern wore bracelets, as did John Wayne and Dennis Hopper, Bob Hope and Cher. Shirley Johnson made sure every Dallas Cowboys player had one. The bracelets became uniquely American jewelry, binding citizens of all politics to the servicemen fighting the war, even as more Americans turned against the conflict itself. At least one member of almost every family that knew a POW or MIA serviceman wore a bracelet, hoping to return it to the POW when he returned. Millions of bracelets were worn by people who never knew a single captured or missing serviceman.
VIVA used proceeds from sales to support the National League of Families, help POW/MIA families in need, and produce bumper stickers and a variety of products that called attention to the POW/MIA issue. Many of those products carried the simple black-and-white image that the National League of Families had recently adopted; that image would become the enduring symbol of the POW/MIA movement for years to come.
* * *
In January 1970, when navy Lieutenant Commander Michael Hoff’s A-7 Corsair went down over Laos, his wife, Mary Helen, joined the National League, wondering if she still had a husband. The young national organization lacked a recognizable symbol, and as she became more involved, Mary Helen began developing a vision for a new banner. She approached the country’s oldest flag manufacturer, Annin Flagmakers, with the idea of creating a flag for the National League. The family-owned company, founded in 1847, agreed to help. Mary Helen, who recalled a photograph of POWs wearing black-and-white pajamas, explained to Annin, “I don’t want a lot of colors. We need a stark, black-and-white flag.” The company contacted Newt Heisley, a World War II U.S. Army Air Corps pilot turned graphic designer. When he received the assignment, his son, a veteran, had recently battled hepatitis, which had left him emaciated and weak. His gaunt features reminded his father of what a POW might look like, and he used his son as a model for the silhouette of a prisoner’s bowed head, which he imposed on a large circle of white. He drew a guard tower and barbed wire in the background. Above the white circle were the letters POW and MIA, a white star separating the acronyms. A length of chain fence ran below the flag’s main image. Designing the flag stirred Heisley’s memories of his long wartime flights in C-46 transports. The vast South Pacific had claimed many fellow pilots, and he recollected gazing over the waters, considering the horror of being captured, then forgotten. With those thoughts in mind, he added the words YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN along the bottom of the banner.
In 1971, the National League approved the flag but decided against filing any trademarks; they wanted anyone—everyone, in fact—to use the image. Soon it appeared on banners, bumper stickers, T-shirts, motorcycle jackets, items of every sort. The flag came to remind America of this nascent yet powerful movement and its simple plea, Don’t forget our men.
* * *
The Alcatraz Gang had not laid eyes on Jim Stockdale since he’d been escorted out of their compound in January 1969. Now, nineteen months later, on a July day in 1970, he stood in Stardust Four, terribly frail and wearing baggy pajamas, facing Sam Johnson.
Like long-parted brothers, the two men embraced and held on to each other as they both cried tears of joy and relief. Sam and Jim had not been together since they ran the communication network from their Thunderbird cell three years prior. That had also been the last time Cat allowed Sam a cellmate and the last time Jim embraced another American. Both had spent nearly three years without a friendly human touch. Once the guard left, the men sat down. Sam looked at their band’s battle-scarred leader and saw the toll his resistance had taken. Sam knew that even before arriving at Alcatraz, Jim had likely suffered worse treatment than perhaps any other prisoner who remained alive. Now he learned about Stockdale’s days after his banishment from Alcatraz, his sessions with Rabbit and Pigeye, his stays in Calcutta and the Mint, and his experience of nearly bleeding out his life in Room Eighteen the previous September. Sam marveled at the endurance and will of this battered aviator. As he related his nightmare, Jim spoke hesitantly and often allowed his thoughts to trail off unfinished. His battles with the Camp Authority and the responsibility of leading so many men had aged him far beyond his forty-six years. Sam thought Jim’s eyes looked nearly dead, no longer filled with intensity and authority. When Sam told him Ron Storz had remained behind at Alcatraz, he slumped to the floor and cried.
As Sam sized up Jim Stockdale during their first hours together, he heard taps coming from Jerry Denton in the adjacent cell. “Does Stockdale want to take command?” Jerry asked.
Sam asked Jim, who hung his head and answered quietly, “No, I’m not on my feet yet.”
He replied to Jerry on Jim’s behalf, “Remain in command for a while yet.”
As they spent their days together, Sam felt Jim’s fear and sadness become a physical presence in the small cell; those emotions had somehow replaced the self-assurance Jim had once exuded. Even Jim Stockdale had limits, and with plenty of time, unrestrained power, and no qualms of conscience, Cat and Rabbit had found them. His conversation continued to come with difficulty. After so many years of speaking only to Cat and other North Vietnamese officers—and then only begrudgingly or abrasively—he had trouble finding the words to express himself. Endless torture and solitary confinement had dulled his brilliant mind. His condition terrified Sam. “He’ll get better,” Sam told himself. “All he needs is a little time. I’ll help him understand that the horrors of the old days are behind us. He’ll get over this … Oh, Lord Jesus, please let him get better!”
“Jim,” Sam said gently, “since Hồ Chí Minh’s death, things have changed. You don’t have to worry about torture anymore. The Vietnamese are under new orders now. They can’t pressure you into relenting if you refuse to cooperate with them. We can resist without being punished.”
Jim hesitated to believe Sam—understandable given the trauma he’d experienced and the unchanged physical conditions there in Little Vegas; rats and roaches still ran unchecked through the cellblocks, and filth was as pervasive as ever. Later that same day, Cat presented Sam with an opportunity to show Jim the new regime. Cat called the two former cellmates to a joint quiz. “Ah, Sông, you and Stockdale together again,” he said from behind the table. “But you must be good. You will obey the rules. If you don’t, you will not be allowed visits. If you continue in disobedience, we will punish you.” He slid a script across the tabletop. “If you are truly repentant, you will write this. You will agree to obey all the camp rules.”
“No,” Sam said, clutching Jim’s scarred wrist to reassure him, “we’re not going to write that.” Cat directed a question at Jim. Sam heard him inhale sharply, and sensed the conditioned reflex of fear emanating from the commander. “I’ll speak for Stockdale,” Sam said.
Cat flew into a rage and yelled at the reunited and still-insubordinate duo. He sent them back to Stardust under a deluge of threats. Yet several hours later, when a guard brought them a deck of playing cards, they knew Cat’s threats had been empty. Cat never revisited the incident, and Jim’s fear at long last began to dissipate.
The next time Jim Stockdale saw Cat, the commandant requested that he meet a visiting professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jim envisioned an entire antiwar delegation. “I assure you there will be no propaganda,” Cat almost pleaded. “The old days are gone; no longer do we dictate. All I want you to do is see
him.”
“No,” Jim said. “You know I won’t do that.”
“You and I are the same age,” Cat said, almost as if talking with an old friend who’d disappointed him. “We have some college, and I just hoped you would do this. You know I have obligations to meet, and I have pressures on me, just as any military man does.” Jim thought Cat might actually put his arm around him.
Still Jim refused. Instead of erupting, Cat summoned a guard and walked out of the room alongside his American counterpart. “How long has it been?” he mused.
“It’s been four and a half years,” Jim answered.
Cat thought for a moment, then said, “I am afraid it’s going to be a while longer.”
* * *
Cat was indeed feeling pressure from his own higher-ups. That year, Jerry Denton, who had more interaction with Cat than most, noticed the camp commander’s emotional state had slipped with his apparent position in the military hierarchy. He developed a facial tic; his hands shook; he lost weight. Then, sometime in mid-1970, he disappeared from the camp. Neither Jerry Denton, Jim Stockdale, nor any other POW ever saw him again.
* * *
During Jim Stockdale and Sam Johnson’s first weeks together, Jim would sit idly by as Sam tapped to the other nine Alkies—as some had taken to calling themselves—during the guards’ midday siesta. After several weeks of recuperating in Stardust, surrounded by his gang, however, the old CAG began to reemerge. Sam noticed his shoulders squaring, his still-hobbled gait reclaiming its purposeful stride. His skill with tap code resurfaced, and his knuckles once again rapped the wall like a woodpecker’s beak. He deciphered taps almost as fast as the gifted Bob Shumaker. In their cell, he and Sam engaged in conversations about flying, philosophy, and the vast range of subjects that intrigued his academic mind. It became apparent that the North Vietnamese had never completely extinguished the fire in this warrior. His soul still harbored its embers, and now fellowship with his Alcatraz brethren had rekindled them. By Thanksgiving, Jim Stockdale had relieved Jerry Denton, reclaiming his post as the ranking naval officer in Hanoi and the POWs’ leader. To the Alkies, all seemed right in their world. Stockdale had returned, and they felt unified. They had once again mobilized most of the POWs against the Camp Authority and resolved to go on waging war from their outpost in the enemy’s capital.
* * *
In the fall of 1970, the women of the National League of Families continued mobilizing America, enlisting every conceivable ally in their mission. The American Red Cross and Reader’s Digest escalated letter-writing campaigns they’d begun in late 1969. The organizations had flooded Hanoi and the offices of the North Vietnamese delegates in Paris with mail protesting their country’s violation of the Geneva Convention and pleading for information about missing U.S. servicemen. The Red Cross named the campaign “Write Hanoi.” So many people participated that the two organizations began another coordinated campaign in early 1971 that inundated the Hanoi post office with 679,000 postcards. The Red Cross also distributed 6.5 million brochures in the U.S. entitled “5 Minutes and 25 Cents,” which suggested that five minutes of writing and a postage stamp could save a POW’s life. The brochures appeared on seats at football bowl games, in telephone billing statements, and everywhere volunteers could place them. From a donated trailer in Virginia Beach, Louise Mulligan and other local National League members distributed stickers, sent out Christmas cards, and convinced companies to donate billboard space—anything to remind the public about the POWs.
On December 1, 1970, David Bruce, a former ambassador and a current envoy at the Paris Peace Talks, publically accused North Vietnam of violating specific Geneva Convention articles. At a press conference in Paris, he criticized the North Vietnamese government for parading POWs in the streets, torture, solitary confinement, malnourishment, inadequate medical care, failure to allow religious services, failure to allow POWs to write home as often as required, failure to deliver mail and packages from the United States, failure to release wounded POWs, not issuing a complete list of prisoners held, not informing the United States of prisoner deaths, and not allowing camp inspections by third parties. Several weeks later, President Nixon wrote to the families of America’s POWs and MIAs, reinforcing Bruce’s message with his personal commitment to improve prisoner treatment and bring the men home. The nation and world remained divided about the U.S. role in Vietnam, but they could agree on the importance of the Geneva Convention.
* * *
That last month of 1970, North Vietnam released the names of 368 U.S. prisoners to representatives of Senators William Fulbright and Edward Kennedy, who would carry the names home. Families finally learned the fate of their loved ones, and North Vietnam allowed every prisoner to write home in time for Christmas. The Rutledge and Jenkins families heard from Howie and Harry after five years. Every day during that period, Phyllis Rutledge had walked to her mailbox on Mount la Platta Court, just outside San Diego, hoping for this letter. Every day its absence had whittled away at her hope that Howie remained alive. Then, as another lonely year came to a close, the letter arrived. Howie’s distinctively elegant handwriting spelled out her name and their address. Inside, she found the first words he’d been able to write to her since he flew his last mission in November 1965—half a decade before. “I am living testimony to the power of your prayers, your love, and faith,” he wrote. “I know, in my heart, that you and ours are equally well, and for the same reasons. Keep faith, for we will have our reunion, whether in this world or the next.”
Phyllis turned and ran into the house, screaming to her children, “He’s alive! Your daddy is alive!”
Just days before Christmas, a similar scene took place at the Jenkins household. Marj found the letter in the day’s mail and waited until her three children had returned home from school to open it. Together, they read the first letter from Harry since November 1965. It lifted the cloud of uncertainty that had hung over their household for so long.
Among the names North Vietnam disclosed were twenty U.S. servicemen who, according to the North Vietnamese, had died from wounds sustained at shootdown or from disease. So a member of Senator Kennedy’s staff dialed Sandra Storz with a heavy heart. The list the senator had received from North Vietnam confirmed that her husband, Ron, had died in captivity. The news devastated Sandra and ten-year-old Mark; six-year-old Monica had never really known her father. The photo of Ron they’d received in July of 1967 had given them hope, but after three years without further word, their expectations had begun to wane. Now they bore the heavy, final weight of his death. Ron would not return.
21
O SAY CAN YOU SEE?
At 1:00 A.M. on November 21, 1970, the aircraft carriers Oriskany and Ranger initiated one of the largest nighttime flight operations of the long war. From their positions in the South China Sea, they launched more than fifty aircraft into North Vietnam, all to stage a massive diversion. As North Vietnamese air defenses concentrated on the navy’s incursions, a covert flight of air force helicopters and combat planes raced across Thailand and Laos, then dropped low over the dark countryside of western North Vietnam, beginning Operation Ivory Coast. Roughly 250 men had volunteered to serve under World War II legend Colonel Arthur “Bull” Simons on what he advertised as a “moderately hazardous” mission that had no guarantee of success. The fifty-six Green Berets Simons chose sat inside the helicopters, ready to liberate American servicemen held prisoner in North Vietnam.
The flight roared over the Hanoi suburb of Sơn Tây shortly after 2:00 A.M. and descended on the nearby prison camp, which POWs had nicknamed Hope. Two helicopters landed inside the camp and unloaded their well-practiced Green Berets, who engaged more than a hundred North Vietnamese defenders. Armed with bolt cutters, the special operations force stormed through the prison compound to free the seventy to eighty POWs they expected. When they reached the cellblocks, however, they found the cells empty. Over the bark of Kalashnikovs and shouts in Vietnamese, the team reported “neg
ative items” over the radio. Twenty-seven minutes after the engagement began, helicopters returned to Thailand without any POWs. Although the Sơn Tây raiders did not free any prisoners, the U.S. government had publicly demonstrated to Hanoi and to an increasingly skeptical public that America had not forgotten her captured servicemen.
Ten miles away, fifty-two U.S. POWs formerly held at Hope caught glimpses of artillery flashes in the nighttime sky. They listened to the pulse of helicopters, the noise of supporting attack aircraft, and the boom of artillery. From afar, these captives witnessed the raid meant to rescue them. U.S. intelligence had not learned that in July 1970, the well at Sơn Tây had run dry and the North Vietnamese relocated the prisoners to Camp Faith, a new facility closer to Hanoi. Four days after the November 21 raid, armed North Vietnamese guards moved them again, sweeping into Faith and loading the fifty-two former Sơn Tây prisoners into trucks bound for Hỏa Lò Prison. Once the POWs were inside the Hilton’s thick walls, the guards herded them into the western section of the garrison, which no Americans had previously inhabited.
The Sơn Tây raid had an effect almost as important as any rescue. The North Vietnamese had spent the past five years dispersing their prisoners throughout the region, but the U.S. incursion convinced the Camp Authority to concentrate most of its American prisoners in the heart of Hanoi, where no helicopters could reach them. They began holding them inside large rooms in the western area of Hỏa Lò, which until the late fall of 1970 had held six hundred to eight hundred Vietnamese civilian convicts and POWs from the South Vietnamese army. After the raid by the Green Berets, the Camp Authority had relocated the Vietnamese prisoners to accommodate the American population. Given the number of U.S. captives who began arriving at the Hilton from Camp Faith, the Zoo, and other nearby facilities, the Camp Authority had no choice but to end isolation and begin group detention for most prisoners.
Defiant: The POWs Who Endured Vietnam's Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned Page 36