FEBRUARY 12, 1973 CLARK AIR FORCE BASE, THE PHILIPPINES
After we made our way through the cheering crowds, we were taken directly to the base hospital, where we went through several days of intensive medical care. They took each of us to a hospital room shared by one or two other POWs. When I walked into my assigned room, I didn’t recognize the POWs who were already in the room. Obviously, they had not been in the same cells I had been in, even in Camp Unity, where we were all allowed time together and were housed in cells with fifty or more prisoners each.
Then it occurred to me who they were—the turncoats. The two men who had cooperated with Jane Fonda and the North Vietnamese—the same two who got preferential treatment from the enemy and whose cooperation made living conditions much worse for those of us who resisted being used for propaganda. I had never seen them, but I had heard their voices many times as they recorded their propaganda messages that were played over the PA system in the camps.
Just as the realization of who they were hit me—just as my blood began to boil—and before I had a chance to say or do anything, two nurses quickly came in and took the two turncoats to another room away from all the other POWs. The look on their faces told me they understood the situation. I was glad to see them go.
Another face entered my hospital room that I was both surprised and excited to see. It was Rudy D’Urbano, an old friend and fellow pilot who had volunteered to be my escort home. Each of us was assigned an escort officer who would help us navigate these uncharted waters—bridging the gap between our former life of trauma and our future reunion with family and life in the United States.
Much had happened in the past eight years, I quickly surmised, as we heard bits of information such as the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the surprising moral changes introduced in the 1967 “Summer of Love,” and the mind-boggling “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” historic walk on the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Rudy also came to assist me in my greatest step of repatriation—contacting my family, who were now anxiously awaiting a phone call. When it was my time to call, I felt only a slight hesitation. I had not talked to Louise in almost eight years—2,871 days to be exact. And in all of those years, I had received only twelve letters and two packages from her, though I was confident she had sent many more.
I was alone with Rudy in a small conference room, and a beige rotary phone sat on the table between us.
“Are you ready, Smitty?” he asked carefully.
I gave him a nervous smile and replied with as much confidence as I could muster, “I’m ready.”
He dialed the number—first the country code, then the area code, then the local number. With each number the round dial spun back into position, the sound echoing in the small room. Then from across the table I heard ringing—the tinkling of connection that had long been forbidden.
A female voice promptly answered. “Hello?” Louise. I would never forget that voice.
“Louise, this is Rudy D’Urbano,” he began.
My heart pounded in my chest. Our test of “for better, for worse” was about to be revealed.