American Patriot

by Robert Coram

  For those of you who do not understand how being on your knees can be considered torture, you can try a simple experiment. Get to your knees, preferably on a concrete floor, and reach high overhead. Set yourself a goal, say twenty minutes. Very quickly, a sharp lancing pain begins to radiate from the knees. Do not stand when the pain becomes great. Imagine that a guard is nearby and that if you move, you will be jabbed with his bayonet. And know that your knees will not become numb: your pain will only increase over the hours.

  Day was on his knees for several hours. While the Bug shouted questions, two guards kicked him in the back and the leg. One vicious kick to his right leg again broke open the infected shrapnel wound and sent blood and pus oozing down his body. The guards slapped open hands over his ears and slammed him with heavy blows to the back of his head. The Bug was particularly incensed about Day’s earlier escape. Every question about the escape brought particularly vicious kicks and slaps.

  Several hours later one of the Bug’s assistants jerked Day upright, twisted his right wrist in the cast, and pushed hard on his right shoulder to force the cast up high enough that his wrist could be pulled behind his back. They trussed his arms tightly behind him.

  Bud Day was going in the ropes.

  There were many forms of torture at Hoa Lo, but the most feared, the most painful, the most productive, and the one that left truly permanent side effects was going in the ropes. Unlike other new arrivals, Day had experienced the ropes and was fearful of revisiting that particular corner of hell. Already both arms were devoid of feeling and his hands were clenched and useless. He could not eat, drink, go to the bathroom, tie the string on his pajama pants, take the lid off a water pot, or unfold his blankets without help from a guard. He was so weak from hunger that he could barely stand. He had lost about fifty pounds. His injuries were severe. At a deep primal level he realized he might not come out of this alive.

  The two guards forced Day’s arms behind his back and turned them until the backs of his hands were together. They tied the limbs tightly and then began pushing his bound hands over the top of his head.

  “What is your military unit?” the Bug screamed.

  “I was injured when I ejected from my aircraft,” Day said. “I don’t remember.”

  “Give me the names of your fellow pilots!” the Bug shouted. “What is the next target in Hanoi that you were to bomb?”

  The Bug smiled and nodded as his two assistants used all their strength to force Day’s arms up over his head. Still the American would not answer.

  Years later, Day recalled that he “began to pray for strength. It was clear it would be useless to pray for mercy.”

  Several hours later Day was a piss-covered, shit-streaked, vomit- and sweat-sodden wreck. The air was filled with the odor of the discharge from his infected leg. The Bug asked Day, “How do you think of your treatment by the Vietnamese people?”

  “I think my treatment is savage and barbaric.”

  He was thrown into solitary — “solo,” the POWs called it. The room was dark and dank and dirty. The window and a ventilation hole were covered with a bamboo mat. Day’s narrow cell contained two concrete beds, each equipped with rusty iron stocks that could be operated from outside the room. Big rats ran freely through the cell. Day was placed in the stocks and handcuffs.

  The stocks used in Hoa Lo, like the handcuffs — screw-down “hell cuffs” — were made by the French for small-boned Vietnamese prisoners and were not big enough for Americans. Sometimes it took two guards, using all their strength, to force the hell cuffs and stocks shut over the wrists or ankles of POWs. Swelling and discoloration of the flesh began within minutes. Often the swelling was so severe it bulged out to cover the handcuffs or the stocks. The agony was indescribable.

  During that long lonely first night in Hoa Lo, Day realized he was being singled out and that harsh times were ahead. But there were things the North Vietnamese must never discover. First, they must never know anything about the Mistys. To disclose the mission or tactics of the Mistys would mean that some of his young pilots would die. Second, the North Vietnamese must never know that he was a lawyer and had written a master’s thesis on the legality of the U-2 flight. The Vietnamese must never know that he was qualified to deliver nuclear weapons, that he had been a college instructor and an instructor pilot, that he was squadron commander of a top secret squadron, that he knew about electronic surveillance in Europe, or that he was an expert on Communism. If the guards discovered any of this, he would be considered a propaganda prize of the first magnitude. He — probably more than any other POW — simply could not allow himself to be opened up.

  The next morning Day was hauled back to the knobby room and ordered to bow and kneel with his left hand in the air. This was known as “holding up the ceiling.”

  A half hour later the Bug leaned down and shouted, “Tell me the names of pilots you flew with!”

  “I can’t remember.”

  The Bug nodded and his two assistants moved in. Day was put in the ropes.

  And when he reached the limit of his endurance, when the pain became more than he could bear, Day gave in. He knew they would want more than he had given during the torture session at Vinh. When he was asked for the names of his squadron mates, he offered Charles Lindbergh and Wiley Post. When the Bug wanted more, he added Billy Mitchell and Will Rogers.

  The Bug was pleased. The blackest of the criminals, the Yankee air pirate, had surrendered. He had shown a good attitude.

  Day was despondent. He wondered if he would make it, if he would ever see Doris and the children again. He resolved that he would think of them only at night when he said his prayers, that his days would be devoted to staying alive.

  He quickly learned the prison routine. A prisoner had to stand up and bow when a guard entered the room. Never mind that many of the guards were illiterate teenagers and that the POWs were officers. A fighter pilot thinks of himself as superior to all beings, especially to those unfortunate souls who are not pilots. To bow to a peasant boy was humiliating.

  The POWs were also told that they should never speak unless spoken to. They especially must not communicate with their fellow criminals. If a POW was caught communicating, he was immediately tortured. Nevertheless, the POWs talked through the walls and under the doors and signaled through open windows. Communicating, perhaps more than anything else, sustained the Americans. Talking to their brothers was their life’s blood.

  Through whispered conversations under the doors, Day was briefed on the tap code used by prisoners. To understand the tap code, you must imagine a grid, five spaces across and five spaces down. The alphabet — minus the letter K (for which C is substituted) — is superimposed over the grid. The top line is the letters A through E, the second is F through J, etc. To communicate, a prisoner first tapped to indicate what row he was on and then again to indicate the letter. Almost everything was reduced to shorthand. The common sign-off was “God bless you,” which was reduced to “GBU.” POWs became so facile at the tap code that they could converse at the pace of normal conversations. The knuckles of good communicators were heavily calloused.

  Prisoners were fed twice daily — around 10:30 a.m. and again around 4 p.m. — usually a watery cabbage soup. Often the soup contained rocks, glass, animal hair, dog skulls, and even fecal matter. Not surprisingly, Day found that the prison diet did little to help him regain weight. Cells were occupied by snakes, enormous spiders, scorpions, and most of all rats — big rats. Rats owned the night and scampered across sleeping POWs, scrounging for scraps of food. With summer would come hordes of voracious mosquitoes.

  POWs relieved themselves in a bucket called a “bo,” which they were allowed to empty every day or so into a trench that ran through the prison. The trench often became blocked, and POWs used a bamboo “shit stick” to push fecal matter on down the way. To Bud Day, the trench smelled almost as bad as the stockyards back in Sioux City. Most POWs had dysentery, which, combined with a paucity o
f toilet paper, made them stinking wretches. Cold-water baths were allowed maybe once a week.

  After about ten days, the guards replaced the cast on Day’s right arm. When he saw his arm, he winced. His bicep was no bigger than his wrist.

  The guards, tired of taking care of Day, moved Overly into the cell. Overly shaved off Day’s three-month beard, fed him, washed him, tended to his wounds as best he could, and ministered to him as would a nurse. “He was very kind to me,” Day said. Indeed, he saved Day’s life. And for that Bud would always be grateful.

  Day learned that Overly was a B-57 pilot. When Day asked Overly what information the guards sought from him, Overly said, “They wanted to know about the airplane. I told them everything they wanted to know. It’s an old airplane and I am not going to get tortured over an obsolete airplane.”

  When Overly began asking questions, Day pleaded fatigue. He was caught in a terrible quandary. He decided to reveal nothing of himself to his fellow American. He did not even tell Overly what aircraft he flew. The man had answered every question from his captors. He had not been tortured. Overly had been slammed around a few times by the guards, but he was not beaten and kicked; he did not go to his knees and hold up the ceiling and he did not go in the ropes. He had not been in shackles or hell cuffs. He had been allowed to bathe and to receive medical attention for the hematoma.

  Day and Overly promised each other that the first one out would visit the other’s wife and children. Day knew that Doris was fine, that she could take care of the kids, and that with their Air Force friends and the proximity of Luke AFB, The Viking would be okay. He tried not to worry about her. She had her job and he had his. One day they would be reunited.

  Overly was obsessed with getting out of jail and going home.

  By now a cold, damp winter had descended upon Hanoi. Day and Overly slept on concrete beds covered with thin straw pads. A single cotton blanket gave little warmth. The POWs wore cotton pajamas and were always cold.

  Decades later, Overly was asked if he was tortured. “There are many forms of torture,” he replied.

  True enough. But while Overly had spoken and justified doing so, Day would not even confirm to a jailer that the sun rose in the east. He was utterly contemptuous of his captors and had a visceral loathing of Communism. He would give his captors nothing until he was near the point of permanent disfigurement or death. And then he would lie and mislead.

  Thus, a wall came down between Day and the man who had saved his life. Day talked about growing up in Sioux City, about Doris and the children, but shrugged off all but the most innocuous questions about his military career. He never mentioned the Mistys. He did not even tell Overly that he flew an F-100.

  Day learned that Robbie Risner, whose face had recently been on the cover of Time magazine, was also a prisoner at Hoa Lo. So was James Stockdale, the cerebral and charismatic Navy pilot. Both of these men were senior to Day and were respected leaders. But to the guards, Day’s escape made him the most notorious and unrepentant of all the men at Hoa Lo. Rank did not matter; face did. As a result, Day went to torture sessions almost daily. At each session he spent several hours holding up the ceiling, or was beaten and kicked, or was put in the ropes. And through it all, he did not surrender.

  One day Overly returned from an interrogation session — POWs called them a “quiz” — and said, “We’re about to get a roommate.”

  A few hours later the Bug made it official. He swaggered up to Day and said, “Now you are nothing. We have the crown prince.”

  Day was relieved to be nothing. He wondered who the new guy was and why he was being placed in the cell with him and Overly.

  The next morning the cell door opened, and a wreck of a man was carried inside on a stretcher and dumped onto the floor. He was in worse shape than Day. Both arms were broken. His leg was broken. A shoulder had been smashed by a rifle butt. He had been stabbed with a bayonet. He was the most severely injured of all the American POWs to enter Hoa Lo. He was near death.

  Trying to cheer this shell of a man, Day smiled. “I’m Bud Day.” He pointed. “This is Norris Overly.” He paused. “Welcome to the Hilton.”

  With eyes burning bright with fever, the thin, white-haired young pilot looked up from his stretcher and told his fellow prisoners his rank and name. The rank was lieutenant commander, U.S. Navy. The name was John McCain.

  MCCAIN had been shot down in late October. Because he would answer no questions, the North Vietnamese initially refused him medical attention. He was about to die when the guards saw a newspaper story that said the son of Admiral John McCain had been shot down. Admiral McCain was about to become the senior military officer in the Pacific Theater, commander of all American forces fighting in Vietnam. Once North Vietnamese officials realized their prisoner was a celebrity, they hospitalized him, performed surgery, and gave him medications. A constant stream of high-ranking North Vietnamese officers visited him in the hospital. Even Vo Nguyen Giap, the most fabled of all North Vietnamese military men and a close friend of Ho Chi Minh, dropped in to take a look.

  Despite all this, Day thought McCain was dying. He figured the North Vietnamese had dumped the admiral’s son in the cell so they could deny culpability, possibly hoping the death could be blamed on the two Americans now staring down at him.

  McCain was overwhelmed to be in the company of brother pilots, and, Day recalled, McCain talked constantly all that day and far into the night.

  McCain’s later memoir would corroborate what various POWs said about him. He wanted desperately to emerge from the shadow of his father and grandfather, both admirals. But he had graduated near the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, and his career lacked distinction. He was a typical fighter jock: loud, profane, heavy drinking, and womanizing. No matter what he did, he always played to the bleachers.

  Despite all this, and despite their eleven-year age difference, Day and McCain became close friends. Both had serious injuries and both believed they would die in prison. Both were fighter pilots who, before they were shot down, had bailed out of jet aircraft. Both were political junkies who talked endless hours about presidential politics.

  Day and McCain could not have been more different from their cell mate. Overly was a SAC pilot, a guy who flew multi-engine bombers. The professional and cultural difference between fighter pilots and SAC pilots is vast, like that between a truck driver and a Formula 1 racer. Overly was muted and had little interest in telling flying stories or even talking politics. And he was offended at how McCain spoke endlessly of the women he had bedded, of how he flew Navy jets to South America to visit a girlfriend, and of the girlfriends he had all over the world. Pussy, pussy, pussy — to Overly, that was all McCain talked about. You would think he had scattered his seed like a berserk parakeet. And he was married!

  And yet, all three were brothers, and on a fundamental level, the differences did not matter. Overly nursed both men. Because McCain’s injuries were so severe, he required special attention. Overly fed McCain, washed him, gave him water, helped him to the bo, and held McCain’s penis while he urinated and then shook it for him. McCain had severe diarrhea. Overly wiped McCain’s ass and cleansed fecal matter from his legs. McCain would have died without Overly’s compassionate and solicitous care.

  This is important for many reasons, some of which would not be revealed for several years, some not for decades. But the immediate irony is obvious: the two men who would come to be known by fellow POWs as “tough resisters” — the greatest compliment one POW can give to another — owed their lives to a man who told the guards whatever they wanted to know.

  DAY, Overly, and McCain spent their first Christmas in jail together. It was absolutely miserable. Over the camp public-address system they heard POWs singing Christmas carols. The three men could not hold back their tears.

  The New Year came without celebration, and the next holiday on the calendar was Tet.

  During the thousand years or so of Chinese domination, Tet �
� the Chinese lunar New Year — had become a national holiday in Vietnam. In 1968, Tet began on January 31. American and Communist forces had earlier agreed to a truce over the holidays, but Communist forces broke the agreement and launched massive attacks throughout South Vietnam. The attacks were poorly planned and badly executed and, with the exception of prolonged fighting in the old city of Hue, were repulsed in a few days. The Tet Offensive was a bitter and costly defeat for the North. Nevertheless, the media — because they knew little of tactics, strategy, or the operational arts, and because many were antiwar — concluded that the North Vietnamese had won a great victory.

  The North Vietnamese knew differently; they had been virtually destroyed as a fighting force. After Tet, the North Vietnamese realized, as one of them later said, that the war would not be won on the battlefield but on the streets of American cities. Baby boomers, the most antiauthoritarian generation of Americans ever produced, were coming of age. Five thousand women had gone to Washington a week before to sing war-protest songs as the U.S. Congress opened. Young Americans wrapped themselves in the cloak of self-righteousness and indulged in their favorite pastime of avoiding the draft and protesting the war. At Harvard, Alan Dershowitz was teaching a course on how to legally avoid military service. Musical groups such as Peter, Paul, and Mary were making their reputations singing about the evils of the war. On March 31, President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek reelection. He had so mishandled the prosecution of the Vietnam War that he knew he could not be reelected. Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and Hubert Humphrey were running against Richard Nixon, and the war was really the only campaign issue. The North Vietnamese realized that all this social unrest, combined with the upcoming presidential election, could be of immense value to their cause. They also realized that, even though the American media were generally ignoring the plight of the POWs, these men had immense propaganda value. Releasing McCain would be a great coup, showing the world that the North Vietnamese were fair and generous.