On May 13, 1972, a convoy of sixteen canvas trucks pulled out of Hoa Lo and headed north. They carried 210 POWs in handcuffs, including Halyburton, jammed together "like college kids in a phone booth," as well as supplies and equipment to set up a new camp. The Americans had no idea where they were going as they traveled all day and night. Halyburton had a concealed kit with personal items, which included a razor blade, and he sliced the canvas, poked his fingers through, and saw the rice paddies, trees, and huts as the fresh air provided some relief from the heat. The trip lasted two and a half days and they made only two stops; the food—salty fish—intensified their thirst. Halyburton rode beside several fifty-five-gallon drums of gas, the fumes hanging in the air while fuel sloshed out when the truck made a hairpin turn on a bumpy road. Guards smoked in the back of the truck, and Halyburton thought it would be a hell of a way to end it all—a cigarette butt in the gas fumes, blowing them all to pieces.
The trip ended near Cao Bang, a mountainous region only 9 miles from China's border, 105 miles northeast of Hanoi. The prisoners moved into stone and concrete maximum security buildings, surrounded by a brick wall, a karst ridge, and barbed wire. Without electricity, the rooms were cold and damp, and with the sun setting behind the mountains early, it was dark for fourteen hours a day. Light was supplied by kerosene lanterns. One inmate compared the space to an aboveground dungeon. When meat was served, it was impossible to tell what it was unless attached to, say, a chicken leg. The bread was old; the beans, rotten.
It was eerie. Sometimes a piercing sound filled the air, and guards wheeled around and searched the trees, filled with squealing, poisonous lizards. The guards also wore knee-high "snake boots" and carried sticks to beat the creatures away. This alarmed the Americans, who discovered a drainage hole under one of the beds and realized it was big enough for a snake; they stuffed it with socks. When Halyburton was bitten by a foot-long centipede, he smashed it with a sandal—and six or seven pieces crawled off in different directions.
Like all the prisons, it was given an appropriate name: the Dogpatch.
The Vietnamese never said why the POWs were moved there, but in time a sound guess was made. In April, U.S. forces had resumed bombing near Hanoi and Haiphong, and then, on May 8, the air raids intensified and Haiphong Harbor was mined. The Vietnamese probably feared that a rescue attempt or even a misguided bomb could eliminate their most important bargaining chip—the prisoners. So they took about half the captives to the Dogpatch.
In the northern locale, it got colder sooner. Other prisoners had received long underwear and other garments in packages from home, but Halyburton had no winter clothes. The guards gave all the POWs a third blanket, which helped, but Halyburton was still cold. Then one day a guard walked into his cell, yelled "Hat" (his Vietnamese nickname, a derivation), and threw a green sweater his way. He knew it had been knitted by Marty: it had no label and had a V neck, which he preferred; he remembered that Marty had been knitting him a sweater when he was on the Independence.
Releasing the garment and distributing the third blanket were signs that peace negotiations were progressing; the Vietnamese did not want to return emaciated or sickly Americans. But in October, after another impasse, Halyburton was taken in for interrogation and handed a copy of the proposed peace agreement.
"Why won't your government sign this?" the interrogator asked him.
"I have no idea," Halyburton said.
After seven years of interrogations and indoctrination and abuse, he was convinced of one thing: a peace treaty would never be signed unless the bombing intensified. He had felt that way for years, and he prayed that Nixon would not ease up now.
On a hazy December evening, Cherry was idling in Building 3 of Camp Unity when the air sirens began to wail and the antiaircraft guns sent flaming missiles across the sky. Jet engines roared above while falling bombs rocked the earth and plaster fell from the ceiling. "May bay My! May bay My!" came over the loudspeakers, which meant "American aircraft! American aircraft!" Cherry, standing on his bunk and looking up at the sky, thought North Vietnam had been hit by a nuclear bomb.
The POWs were jumping and slapping one another on the back. "They finally did it," someone yelled. "They nuked 'em!"
Actually, America was dropping mammoth bombs from its B-52s in what would be the war's most devastating display of air power. Bridges were destroyed, arsenals blown up, fires ignited. The "Christmas bombing" was launched on December 18 and lasted eleven days. Nixon wanted to end the negotiating stalemate by creating "the most massive shock effect in a psychological context," and the barrage was undeniably spectacular. When a missile struck a B-52 at 30,000 feet, an orange-blue flash stretched across the sky, the large burning pieces falling to the ground, in the words of one prisoner, "like fire being poured out of a pitcher."
Some of the POWs were afraid, knowing that one errant bomb could kill them all. But most of them celebrated during each attack, yelling "Thank you!" and "God bless America!" Their confidence was bolstered by the panic of the guards, who scurried for shelter or blindly fired their rifles into the air. The morning after the first attack, Hanoi was silent, the usual wakeup music, horns, and traffic all missing. The interrogators and guards asked the prisoners what they needed and delivered morning coffee. Fred Cherry knew he was going home.
In the end, the B-52s dropped 15,000 tons of bombs, though Hoa Lo itself received little damage. Fifteen planes were shot down and thirty-four crew members captured. Thirty-two died. The POWs believed the attack compelled the Vietnamese, fearing further raids, to release them. One crew member recalled that, for years afterward, "if there were ever POWs around, we never had to buy a drink." The Vietnamese had a different view of the attack. They celebrated it as the "Dien Bien Phu of the skies," a victory that led the United States to withdraw its troops, which paved the way for the Communist triumph in 1975.
The Paris peace talks resumed on January 8, 1973; the governments of North and South Vietnam and the United States, weary of the stalemate and mounting casualties, began to resolve the remaining points. On January 18, the Dogpatch was shut down and the prisoners were returned to Camp Unity. When Halyburton entered his cell, a message was written on the door: "We'll be free in '73." In the waning days of the war, the Americans played volleyball, read magazines, socialized, and ate. The turnkeys and guards were still "arrogant," Halyburton wrote in his diary, "which was good. I wanted to leave NVN with the same taste in my mouth that I had for all these years."
On January 29 the prisoners, called to the courtyard, walked out in formation. Film crews and cameramen stood by. The camp commander, a professional bureaucrat nicknamed Dog, read the peace accord first in Vietnamese, then in English. He said a truce had been reached, the war had ended, and they'd be going home in two weeks. The Americans stood in silence. No cheers, no handshakes, not even a thumbs-up. Their silence was one more act of defiance. They would not allow their elation to be captured on film and turned into propaganda. For Halyburton, caution was also a factor. After so many years and so many false hopes, he would not allow his emotions to soar, only to be disappointed again.
Before Dog dismissed them, he told the prisoners to "show good attitudes" until their release. Robinson Risner, standing in front, did an aboutface and yelled, "Fourth Allied POW Wing, atten-hut!" Almost four hundred men snapped to attention, their rubber tire sandals coming together. The "squadron commanders," returning Risner's salute, barked, "Squadron, dismissed!" The men fell out and returned to their cells, then broke out in laughter and tears.
In the days that followed, the war's end could be seen and felt. With no fear of air raids, the lights on the weather and communication towers burned at night, and fireworks streaked the sky with ersatz bombs instead of real ones. The Vietnamese hoisted their flag at Hoa Lo to signify victory—except the flag was raised upside down and had to be fixed. Inside the prison, musical performers staged a farewell show, though most of the Americans refused to attend. The inmates received haircuts, new clothes, and a bag for a towel, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, two packs of Dien Bien cigarettes, and matches. The Americans were also fitted for shoes—their first since they were captured—by standing on pieces of toilet paper and allowing a Vietnamese to pencil lines around their feet. Some men hadn't seen zippers, buttons, or shoelaces for years and now played with their wardrobe "like a bunch of little kids in a toy store." For their final dinner, wine was served.
The prisoners from the North and the South were to be released over a six-week period, the order determined by date of shoot-down and medical needs. (The Vietnamese moved up to the first flight two POWs who had willingly denounced America and cooperated with the enemy.) On February 12—which was, as the prisoners later noted, Lincoln's birthday—both Halyburton and Cherry filed out of Unity and into the courtyard, where the POWs, wearing dark trousers and gray zippered jackets, lined up two abreast in platoons of twenty. Some came on crutches; three arrived on stretchers.
As the day had approached, many of the Americans discussed what they would do when released. A popular line was, "A cold beer, a hot piece of ass, and a two-hour hop in a single-seat fighter, in that order." Several men described how they would exact revenge in ways that would repeat the brutality of their own experience. Halyburton realized that hatred had taken over their lives, and their freedom, so filled with bloodlust, would be spoiled.
Halyburton wanted to shed his own "armor of hatred" so that the Vietnamese would never impair him again. As he was led out through the gates of the Hanoi Hilton, he turned for one last look and said silently, "I forgive you." It was not, he later said, a Christian act but his final act as a prisoner to ensure his survival as a free man. He was overwhelmed with relief.
In the morning fog, two buses marked with camouflage pulled out of Hoa Lo and puttered through the downtown traffic. There were no journalists or cameramen to record the moment, and few bystanders took notice. One American said he felt as if he was sightseeing on a tour bus while another remembered "being subdued in the solemnity of our thoughts, almost hypnotized."
The buses crossed a pontoon bridge and stopped at an administration building on the outskirts of Gia Lam airport. A Red Cross tent was pitched nearby. The building was like an old bus terminal, with everyone sitting on benches, and the Vietnamese passed out tea and pig fat sandwiches. The food disappointed Halyburton—"Couldn't they do better than that?" he later asked—but, famished, he ate a sandwich anyway. Beer was then served, offering some consolation.
Shortly before noon, the men returned to the buses and watched a U.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifter descend from the clouds and land on the runway. It was an "electrifying" moment, confirming their imminent freedom, and the juxtaposition of the great white and gray transport aircraft, with its high tail and swept wings, and the two small shuttles spoke volumes about the two countries. One of the C-141 pilots said the tinny buses "looked almost like toys."
A grassy enclosure surrounded by a wrought-iron fence served as the reception area, and officials from the United States and North Vietnam waited for the prisoners at a small table. Also milling about were representatives from South Vietnam, the Viet Cong, and an international advisory commission. As the POWs stepped off the buses, many saw a familiar face—Rabbit. Air Force Captain Charles Boyd recalled, "He was holding a muster sheet and was calling off the names of the men he had tortured for years. He did not look up." One by one, the men walked past the table and saluted a U.S. Air Force colonel, signifying repatriation, and a U.S. serviceman escorted each one seventy-five yards to a plane. One pulled from his jacket a white canvas with a message in blue letters: "God bless America & Nixon." Everett Alvarez, in captivity for almost nine years, stepped onto the plane and walked past a blond flight attendant, who took his arm. "I felt like I might oxidize into thin air," he later wrote.
Cherry, on the first flight, was welcomed onboard, checked for any immediate medical problems, and seated. The plane raised its ramp, taxied down the runway, and lifted into the sky. Like all the POWs, he restrained his emotions until the plane was airborne and the pilot announced "Feet wet," meaning "over water." Then the men hugged, screamed, laughed, and cried, toasting their survival with juice and coffee. When a "liaison officer" mentioned that the Miami Dolphins had won Super Bowl VII, someone asked, "What's the Super Bowl?"
They were headed to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, a three-hour flight; to ensure that no Americans were left behind, the officers began asking for the names of all known POWs. Navy Commander James Mulligan recited the name, rank, and date of shoot-down for 450 men. The officers also briefed them on the elaborate welcome that awaited them. Originally called "Egress Recap," it was now heralded as "Operation Homecoming."
For Cherry, the jubilation masked underlying worries. He was now forty-four years old, and he had been in prison for so long; decisions on such matters as sleeping, eating, and smoking had been made by others, and he wasn't sure how he would adjust to freedom. It seemed that he hadn't made an important decision on his own, beyond resisting the enemy, in ages. At the same time, the years of indoctrination and propaganda had shaken his confidence in America. He had heard so much about its troubles—the race riots, the assassinations, the antiwar demonstrations—he didn't know what kind of country he was returning to or whether he, a conservative career military man, would fit in. Meanwhile, he had no idea if his wife was dead or alive or what had become of his family. He felt as though he was experiencing his own High Noon, a moment of reckoning that would change the course of his life.
Halyburton was on the second flight, and when he boarded, he hugged and kissed an Air Force nurse—and noticed that she was wearing Marty's perfume. He also had mixed feelings, his joy muted by the ambiguous outcome of the war. He knew that the United States hadn't won and doubted that the government of South Vietnam would hold once American troops were withdrawn. If the Communists prevailed in Vietnam, what was the purpose of the POWs' sacrifice? He certainly did not consider himself or any other prisoner a hero. After all, they had been captured, they had been pawns for the enemy, and they had failed in their mission. He puffed a Marlboro, jotted notes in his diary, and began writing a poem about freedom.
In the days leading up to her husband's release, Marty received so many telephone calls from Navy officials, friends, and family that she was forced to hire someone just to answer the phone. She finally had to install a second line. She didn't know what time Porter's plane would land at Clark Air Base, nor did she know which network would broadcast it, but she was prepared. An Atlanta station had given her two televisions, which she stacked on top of her own so she could watch all three networks at once.
On the release date, a dozen people crowded into Marty's small den and waited with her. Each network, it turned out, would broadcast the return live, as the event riveted much of the nation. But the vigil dragged late into the night, the festive atmosphere giving way to exhaustion, anticipation surrendering to impatience. It was one more painful wait for Marty. Porter's letters had been reassuring, but they had also been censored; and she wasn't sure what injuries he had suffered or whether he'd show any effects of his imprisonment.
When his plane landed around four-thirty A.M. EST, Marty recognized Porter immediately. He stepped off the plane confidently. He walked well. He looked healthy. He shook a hand firmly. Marty screamed and cried and hugged her friends. Porter was free. He was on the screen for only about ten or fifteen seconds, but it was enough to reassure her. The only mystery was his sideburns. They weren't fashionable in 1965, but the new shootdowns had probably told him they were now in style.
The phone soon rang—a local station. The producer knew Marty from her television appearances and asked if she wanted him to replay Porter's few seconds of fame right then, so she was able to watch her husband a second time that night. In the coming days, she went to the station, sat in a room, and watched Porter's tape over and over again. She still needed to convince herself that he was free, and she never tired of looking at the step-down, the walk, and the handshake.
The following morning Marty told Dabney, by then in second grade, that Daddy would be calling soon.
"You don't have to go to school today if you don't want to," she said.
Dabney went to the refrigerator, where the lunch menu was posted. "No," she said. "I think I'll go to school. They're having hot dogs for lunch."
Cynthia Cherry was sitting in her seventh-grade class when a friend, carrying a newspaper, looked at her.
"Your dad is in the newspaper," she said.
"What do you mean?" Cynthia asked.
"He's on the list of POWs and he's coming home."
"My dad is dead."
"No he's not. He's in the paper."
"No he's not. He's dead."
The two girls argued until Cynthia looked for herself: "Fred V. Cherry." His name was in the newspaper, and she was giddy. She took the bus home, ran into the house, and told her mother the great news. "Guess what, Mom. Daddy's coming home!" She danced around, but her mother didn't say anything.
"She already knew," Cynthia later said. "Her expression was severe."
"The world she had built," Fred Jr. said, "was coming apart."
When the C-141 landed at Clark, Fred Cherry hoped to see an American flag. Stepping off the plane, he saw hundreds; the Americans were met by a cheering crowd of two thousand people. The men walked off the plane in the order in which they had been shot down. They waved and saluted as the well-wishers screamed, "Welcome home! We love you!" The senior ranking officer, Jeremiah Denton, stepped to a microphone and made a brief statement: "We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our commander in chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America."
On the first day of Operation Homecoming, 116 prisoners were released. By April 1, 591 were returned. In all, with more than a hundred military and civilian personnel classified as having died in captivity and with nearly a hundred who returned previously by escape or early release, almost eight hundred Americans spent time as prisoners during the Vietnam War.
Clean sheets. Fresh soap. Hot water. Good food. The base hospital was nirvana indeed.
The men ate prodigiously; three-fourths of the returnees were able to eat a regular diet. Steak and ice cream were the most popular items, while green salads, rarely seen in captivity, were piled on. Banana splits were in such demand that the kitchen ran out of bananas. Also served in large quantities were eggs, sausage, chili, pizza, chitterlings, collard greens, strawberries, and peaches. One serviceman ate an entire loaf of bread, one slice at a time, two pats of butter on each slice.
Halyburton's favorite meal was breakfast, so he ate eggs, toast, and sausage, regardless of the time of day.
Cherry's first meal was also breakfast. He told the dietitian, "One platter of scrambled eggs. One platter of sausage patties. Laid out on two plates."
"But, sir," she said, "it's five o'clock in the afternoon."
"I don't care," he said.
She brought the plates.
In addition to food and reading material, many of the former prisoners requested vitamin E, which was supposed to improve sexual potency. (The men were advised that there was little scientific evidence to support that belief.)
Though slightly underweight, ashen, or pale, most of the men returned in generally good health, a reflection of their improved treatment in their later years of captivity. But the physical toll was still evident. About one-third of the men had suffered fractures, including many of the vertebrae broken during ejection. Others were infested with various intestinal parasites, such as hookworm. The dim cells had strained the vision of many men, necessitating eyeglasses. Chipped teeth were a common byproduct of the beatings, while the rope treatment left almost ten percent of the returnees with "peripheral neuropathy," nerve damage.
Also noteworthy was the absence of amputees, leading some to believe that the Vietnamese simply shot those POWs who were badly injured.
Less easy to document were the emotional scars, but the damage for some was clear immediately. Two former POWs committed suicide in their first four months of freedom, and mental health experts at the time predicted that every prisoner who had had a long period of captivity would suffer psychologically. "It is not possible for a man exposed to a severe degree of abuse, isolation, and deprivation not to develop depression born out of extreme rage repressed over a long period of time," said John E. Nardini, an Air Force psychiatrist who was himself a POW during World War II. "It is simply a question of when and how the depressive reaction will surface and manifest itself."
Halyburton, now thirty-one, emerged remarkably fit for his seven and a half years in prison, checking in with a few chipped teeth, some parasites, and a sore back. He weighed 159 pounds, 21 less than when he was captured, but he had gained about 20 pounds from his low point. At five-eleven, he was an inch shorter, apparently the result of vertebra damage from the ejection. He was also lucky. When he was on the Independence and a wisdom tooth had begun to hurt, a medic said he would be okay for a few months but would then need to have it removed. The tooth, however, never bothered him in prison—a blessing, given that the Vietnamese used pliers in dentistry. Halyburton had his tooth removed on his return to the States.
When he initially arrived at Clark, he saw the other prisoners calling their families, but he was told he had to speak to the chaplain first. He assumed that his grandparents, both of whom would be in their late nineties, had died, and he feared his mother may have passed away as well, for Marty had rarely mentioned her in her letters. But the chaplain was slow to arrive, and when he did appear, he was uncomfortable telling him the news. Instead of talking directly, he spoke elliptically, and he irritated Halyburton to the point where Porter almost felt sorry for him. When the chaplain finally said it—your mother and grandparents are deceased—Halyburton was determined not to display any emotion, as if to deny the chaplain any chance to comfort him. He just wanted to be alone. When he returned to his room, the news sunk in—the people who had raised him and loved him had died; his entire immediate family, except for Marty and Dabney, was gone. He'd never had a chance to say good-bye, and he didn't know if they had passed away believing he was dead or alive. In his room, he allowed himself to cry.
He finally called Marty.
"I love you and I miss you and I'm okay," he told her.
She responded in kind. He said he had just been told about his mother and grandparents.
"Yes, they didn't want me to tell you about that," she said. She soon asked her first question: "Are you going to fly again?"
Halyburton didn't want to continue as a navigation officer, forever in the back seat, but he didn't want to retrain as a pilot. In truth, he wasn't sure what he would do next, but he knew what to tell his wife.
"No," he said. "I've had enough of that."
As Marty later said, "He hadn't been away from being a husband so long that he didn't know what the right answer was."
Fred Cherry's return had already sent alarms through the Pentagon, which had a thick file about his family: the death of his mother, Shirley's living with another man and having a baby, the depletion of his savings account, the legal troubles of his oldest son. Air Force Colonel Clark Price, an old friend of Cherry's, took these problems to Air Force Major General Daniel "Chappie" James, a highly respected black officer who had developed close ties with POW families.
"We have a brother who's going to face some strong music when he gets back, and he doesn't know what's going on," Price said.
"Is Cherry violent?" James asked.
"Not when I knew him," Price said.
James dispatched Price to the Philippines on a special escort mission.
When Cherry arrived at the hospital, he weighed 132 pounds, which was close to his weight when he was shot down, but he had gained about 20 pounds in the last couple of months and about 50 pounds from his low point. He had had open sores or infections for six years, but they had all healed, as had his broken wrist. He hoped the surgeons would be able to restore mobility to his left arm; he could move it only about thirty-five degrees in front and seventy degrees in back. But the bones in his shoulder, now tightly fused, had previously been infected, and the surgeons concluded that opening up the shoulder would be risky. So Cherry learned how to use one hand for such tasks as buttoning a shirt and changing a light bulb. He also returned with blind spots in his left eye and hearing loss in his right ear, the result of exposure to jet engines and slaps across the head.
When Price visited him in a private room, he brought a folder with the litany of woes, and he started with the easiest.
"Your mother died on May 28, 1970," he said.
"I already knew that," Cherry said. He had spoken to Beulah, who had told him only about their mother.
Then Price described the betrayal of his wife, the problems of his children, and the raiding of his finances: during his years of imprisonment, he had earned $147,184 in pay and allowances, but he now had $4,720.98 to his name. He absorbed each piece of news as he had the threats and taunts from the Vietnamese, without emotion or anger. He just made the same comment.
"I can handle that."
"I can handle that."
Clark also told him that his sons were in the Army, not in college as he had hoped, but he wasn't upset. He was just glad they were not in jail.
Some returning POWs were devastated by the breakup of their marriages, but Cherry believed that, given what he had endured as a prisoner, he could survive any personal setbacks. He never said an unkind word about Shirley; fearing the worst about her health, he was just relieved that she was alive.
For that matter, Cherry refused to criticize the Vietnamese, even those who tortured him. He said they were "just doing their job." His friends concluded that he was incapable of hatred.
"I was frustrated by his lack of bitterness," Price said, "but I've never heard him say a bad thing about anyone." As if to humanize the enemy, Cherry gave Price some cigarettes from Vietnam.
"They taste just like Camels," Cherry said.
He did receive one piece of good news in the hospital. Two months earlier he had been promoted to colonel. That meant more prestige, control, and money, but they did not compensate for his biggest loss: his piloting days were over.
When Halyburton went to the PX to buy clothes, he got a sense of how much America had changed. Escorted by a young ensign, he saw a bizarre array of bellbottoms, floral shirts, shoes with brass buckles, white belts, orange hot pants, and miniskirts. He later called Marty and told her he had gone shopping. That evening on the national news, she watched a story about an unnamed former prisoner shopping at the PX and wearing a garish outfit. As the camera zoomed in, she felt faint. "Oh my God, it's Porter." He was wearing plaid bellbottoms with a red shirt—for the last time.
***
One night in the hospital, the emergency bell rang, and someone yelled, "Fred Cherry's dead! Oh my God, he's dead!"
The nurses sprinted down the hall, opened the door, and saw Cherry lying on his bed, motionless, his hands folded over his chest. They tried to revive him as other servicemen watched in apparent disbelief. Doctors hustled into the room while orderlies rolled in special equipment. No one seemed to notice that his bed was surrounded by four burning candles and vases stuffed with flowers. Everyone was thinking, how would it look if a legendary survivor of the Vietnam POW camps died in an American military hospital?
Cherry wasn't dead but he was out cold, the victim of a drunken stupor and a practical joke. Some other former prisoners smuggled Scotch into their rooms—drinking was forbidden—and they had a party. His body long denied alcohol, Cherry promptly passed out, so his friends used the flowers and candles to turn his room into a funeral parlor and then alerted the nurses to his demise. Cherry soon woke up, dazed, but able to confirm he was not dead. The hospital personnel were not amused, but Cherry found the prank quite funny and consistent with the raucous subculture he had long inhabited: they were fighter pilots being fighter pilots.
The halls were covered with Valentine's Day cards, and Halyburton read one that touched him deeply. "Dear Sir," it began, "I sure am glad you're all done. I said a prayer every night, and it finally came true. Welcome home sir. I would have gave my life to get you guys out of there. But I don't think my parents would like it. I think you'll like being home with your family. I'm a six grader. Gary."
One card of thousands, it was later immortalized in a book of letters about Vietnam.
***
Halyburton and Cherry had not spoken to each other since their last night together more than six years earlier. They had kept abreast of each other's well-being from other prisoners, but both had worried about how the other had endured the torture immediately after their separation.
When they saw each other at the hospital, they embraced, bringing tears to Cherry's eyes. He was amazed at how good Halyburton looked; physically, he appeared to have been unaffected by all his time in prison. Halyburton, on the other hand, was startled when Cherry lifted his shirt and revealed the new scars he had accumulated. He reminded Cherry how he used to count his old abrasions to pass the time, but now Cherry had several more, including one large one.
"What the hell was that from, Fred?"
Cherry told him about the lung operation to remove the bone fragment. Halyburton lifted his hand and ran it over the scars, the old ones and new, and was once again amazed by his friend's durability. He expressed regret that Fred had had to suffer so much. Cherry explained that the surgeon had left a stitch in him that he coughed out a year later, but he didn't complain about the mistreatment. Now he could laugh.
On his return, each former POW was admitted to a hospital for additional tests, and Cherry hoped to settle at Norfolk Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia, close to home. Given his family problems, however, he was sent to Andrews Air Force Base, outside Washington. "I guess many people were afraid I might have been crazy enough to do something violent," he later said.
His plane, which included a group of former POWs, landed at Andrews on the night of February 17, and the men were met by a crowd. As the senior officer in the group, Cherry was asked to give a statement. He had written down some remarks on the plane, but when he stepped up to the microphone, he saw his sons standing in their Army uniforms, as well as nieces, nephews, and Beulah. He was silent for almost a minute, and his lip trembled as he struggled to control his emotions. Finally he spoke: "We have been away for a long time ... We accept this break in life as a necessity ... We accept this break because we had a job to do ... And we did that job to the best of our ability ... We have come back to you with our honor, our dignity, and our pride ... We were able to do that because we kept our faith in our God, our president, and our country."
Beulah, crying, hugged him. "Thank the Lord you're home. Thank the Lord you're home."
He saw that Fred Jr. looked just like him, and he was proud to see his sons in uniform: if he couldn't defend his country anymore, he was glad they could. He was disappointed they were in the Army instead of the Air Force, but he believed they would carry on the family name. As they were walking, he said, "I'm an officer. You privates walk on my left."
Cynthia had last seen her father when she was five years old, and in her mind he was "tall, dark, and handsome." Now she went to see him with her mother and sister, and when she walked into his hospital room, she was stunned by his size.
"What happened? Did he shrink in Vietnam?"
"No, that's his height," Shirley said.
"No, he shrunk!"
Fred was wearing a robe. At first he was smiling, but then he cried as Cynthia ran up to him and threw her arms around him.
There would be no reconciliation with Shirley. According to Fred, she did not want a divorce (which would end her financial support from the military), but the marriage was clearly over. The family's house was in his name, but when he visited it for the first time, most everything was unfamiliar. His own stereo, golf clubs, and silver coin collection, as well as most of the furnishings from their house in Japan, were all gone and never reclaimed. When he saw Shirley's boyfriend's bowling trophy on a shelf, he flung it against the wall, putting a hole in it. It was the first time his children had seen him lose his temper. "I thought, 'He's got a little spunk in him,'" Cynthia said.
The breakup of his marriage also divided the children; Fred Jr. and Cynthia embraced their father while Donald and Debbie were closer to their mother and adopted her hostility toward him. Not long after Fred's return, Debbie said to him, "I wish you had never come back. You ruined everything."
Fred suffered his pain silently.
The breach has never been repaired. While the war itself did not destroy the marriage, Cherry's absence did contribute to the family's dissolution. As Fred Jr. said, "We were all POWs."
On the Independence, Porter told Marty that he did not want family and friends at the dock when he returned because their reunion should be their special time together. Now, as he prepared to fly to the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida, he said the same thing: he wanted to meet her in the privacy of his hospital room. He had seen other returnees get mobbed at the airport, on national television, and he did not want to share such a precious moment.
Marty waited for Porter's plane in the control tower, where she saw the airport fill up with banners, a band, and crowds. The plane landed and a handful of returnees, including Porter, walked off. As the senior officer addressed the crowd, Marty ran down the tower's stairs, got into a car, and was driven to the base hospital. She reached Porter's room moments after President Nixon had called to congratulate her, a gesture he made, no doubt, to many of the wives who had supported him. A furniture store had equipped the returnees' rooms with television sets, living room furniture, a bed, and other appointments, while Marty had added flowers, telegrams, and photographs of Dabney.
Porter arrived. They were together again.
His health was so good that he did not have to sleep at the hospital. He and Marty were allowed to stay at an apartment on the base, and, using a donated car, she could drive him around town, his license having long expired. He gave her a diamond and sapphire ring that he had purchased at the PX in the Philippines. Dabney had come to Jacksonville as well, but she stayed with a Navy officer's family so her parents could have some time alone.
After a day, Porter wanted to see his daughter, so they drove to the house where she was staying. She was playing with other children outside, and Porter recognized her from her pictures. She had short blond hair and wore a blue dress with short sleeves, white socks, and black party shoes. "I thought she was the most beautiful child I had ever seen," Porter recalled. He hugged her, told her how much he loved her, and gave her a portable radio.
The family loaded the car and prepared to drive to a friend's beach house. Maybe it was because Marty had talked so much about Porter or maybe some children are just unfazed by such events, but the first encounter unfolded as if the family had never been apart. Once in the car, Dabney turned to Porter and asked, "Daddy, can I sit on your lap?"
Not everyone cheered the returnees; the most strident opponents of the war still found reason to fault them. The Reverend Philip Berrigan called the former prisoners "war criminals," while Jane Fonda, disbelieving claims of torture, said they were "hypocrites and liars." But such attacks carried little weight amid the testimonials of strength, stamina, and patriotism. For a war that had torn the country apart, had helped drive a president from office, and had ended without the conquering of territory or the removal of a government, the safe return of the POWs represented a scrim of redemption. They appeared on television and radio shows and were honored by the president in what was described as "the most spectacular White House gala in history." Major League Baseball gave each man a lifetime pass to any game. Mayors gave them keys to their cities. Car dealerships gave them their latest models. Airlines gave them free passage. As a veteran journalist who had covered the Korean conflict said, "That war had heroes and a somewhat sympathetic press. The Vietnam War had neither until now." Or, as the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote: "The nation begins again to feel itself whole."
Davidson celebrated Halyburton's homecoming on March 17, a windy St. Patrick's Day that saw Porter's old street blocked off. Picnic tables were set up, banners hung, and flags distributed. A keg of beer was rolled out, and the front porch of the house that Porter grew up in was turned into a speaker's platform. Porter, Marty, and Dabney arrived in a new Ford LTD. Hundreds of people started gathering at 11:30 A.M.—Governor James Holshouser arrived in a black limousine—and amid a band's patriotic tunes, the Halyburtons appeared on the street. Porter wore a red turtleneck and was, according to the Charlotte Observer, "in danger of being hugged to death by an army of smiling women." Marty, her blond hair tousled by the wind, smiled as she moved through the crowd, never more than an arm's length from her husband. Dabney was at her elbow, carrying a teddy bear.
Will Terry, who had delivered the "meditation" at Porter's memorial service, spoke first. He said he was the only person he knew of "who preached at a person's funeral and then welcomed him back." He presented a gift to Dabney and then said to Marty, "I'm sorry we don't have anything for you but Porter."
Mayor Tom Sadler proclaimed it "Davidson's finest day," while Governor Holshouser, an alumnus of Davidson, said, "If you think things have changed in the political world, wait until you see some of the coeds."
Charles Lloyd had been one of Porter's favorite professors, a colorful scholar who knew every line of English literature, had a bushy mustache that covered his mouth, and had a pup named Martin Luther.
"Porter," he said, "I never knew how much I loved you until I thought you were dead. You would have enjoyed your funeral, Porter. Thank God you missed it." He then led a chorus of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and three "hip hip, hoorays!"
Porter, overwhelmed, spoke briefly. "I don't think I can tell you exactly how I feel right now," he said. "I feel like I've come home."
He visited the burial sites of his mother and grandparents and was told about his own burial marker. After his true status was known, the owner of the funeral home had dug it up, kept it in the garage, and waited for his return.
"What should I do with it?" the owner asked.
"I haven't thought about it very much," Porter said. "I'll let you know."
A month later, on April 14, Suffolk, Virginia, had its homecoming for Fred Cherry. Early in the morning, crowds lined up four deep on the downtown sidewalks, with an estimated seven thousand people gathered for a parade and ceremony. The event had the usual trappings of a hero's welcome—the speeches from dignitaries, the bands, the banners—but the racially mixed crowd was unusual. As one newspaper noted, the area was "the home of conservative Governor Mills E. Godwin, Jr., whose known anti-black attitude ... is an extension of the feelings held by most whites in this South Side Virginia city." But during the parade Cherry sat in the back seat of a white Cadillac convertible, his dress blue uniform decorated with ribbons, and whites as well as blacks threw confetti on him, lunged to touch his hand, and blew kisses. The car was mobbed at one point by fans who wanted autographs and handshakes. According to one account, as his car passed the Saratoga Street intersection, "five white women from a nearby beauty salon stepped out in front of the crowd, raised their hands and clapped with total enthusiasm."
Beulah rode in the next car, wearing a mink stole and smiling proudly.
At Peanut Park, Cherry continued to shake every hand and kiss every cheek. The Reverend C. J. Word, from the East End Baptist Church, compared him to the prophet Daniel, delivered from the lion's den through the Lord's intervention. The mayor of Suffolk gave him a framed key to the city while schoolchildren presented him with posters they had drawn.
As Cherry had done his entire life, he unified the people around him. That night, at a dinner for him at the National Guard Armory, the Suffolk Community Male Choir sang "Born Free" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and the state's attorney general, Andrew Miller, said, "If Colonel Cherry's ordeal is over, then so is our own."
Attending was Bill Robinson, an Air Force sergeant who spent more than seven years as a POW in North Vietnam. Robinson was one of the few enlisted men in captivity, and Cherry helped train him in the camp to be an officer. After their release, Robinson was commissioned as an Air Force officer, with Cherry handing him his bars.
That night Robinson returned the favor, presenting Cherry with his own portrait, to be hung in the armory, the first ever of an African American. Robinson, who is white, later said: "He spoke like me. He bled like me. He hurt like me. His attitude was not—'I'm black, give me ten points.' If he had any approach, it was, 'I'm black, take ten points away so I won't pass you so fast.'"
At the dinner, Cherry looked trim and fit, his crippled shoulder hidden beneath his uniform. Before five hundred people, he spoke in a low, modulated voice, taut with emotion. He did not need notes.
"I am an American fighting man," he said, "and I wear this uniform to protect you and your way of life. I would have given my life if necessary, proudly and honorably. I was tortured severely. I was severely ill, but they never broke me. They didn't because I had faith in God, in my country—and in you. If necessary, I will do the same thing again because I want America to be what you want it to be. I will not stand by and see any country trample over the United States without offering my body."
He paused and took a deep breath. "I want to thank you for the most memorable day of my life, and I love you."