CHAPTER 11

THE MIDDLE YEARS

1967–1969

MOST POWS CALL THE YEARS of imprisonment stretching from 1967 until the end of 1969 the “middle years.” After a brief reprieve from harsh physical treatment during early spring of 1967, camps witnessed a ramping up of torture and interrogations and a general slide downward of food, medical treatment, and hygiene. Subsistence rested on the barest minimums; the middle years were nothing short of savage.

Military historians Stuart Rochester and Frederick Kiley record a cataclysm of abuses during this time that pushed nearly everyone in North Vietnam prisons to the edge of despair: “Almost all of the captives who were subjected to the crucible of the middle years experienced depression, nightmares, and a crisis of the spirit at some juncture.” Commander James Stockdale termed the period “the melting experience,” saying later that everyone tried to gain control of themselves in some way or another, to conquer one day at a time.

One factor loomed above the others, casting a long shadow of uncertainty over their tormented landscape: the gnawing possibility of growing old in these dungeons, or worse yet, never going home at all. It festered in the back of everyone’s mind, breeding terror. The younger men saw many of their best years slipping away. Those with medical issues weren’t healing. Men who had been there since 1965, as Jerry had been, began to acknowledge this might be a longer experience than they had imagined at first. Many wondered how they could cling to the cliff’s edge indefinitely.

During the middle years, guards moved Jerry multiple times —four relocations in 1967 alone. He began the year at Briarpatch. Then around February, armed guards trucked him and Will, also blindfolded, the thirty or so miles back to downtown Hanoi into a section of the Hanoi Hilton nicknamed “Vegas.”

Jerry’s first stay here was short, and in June 1967, he was blindfolded, loaded into a truck again, and transported to a suburb in northern Hanoi to a place called the “Power Plant,” also nicknamed “Dirty Bird.” Here he stayed through the summer, and then in August he was moved to a nearby cellblock dubbed the “School.” Later in October, guards moved him back to Vegas.

These multiple moves represented attempts to disrupt communication, keep morale low, and sometimes to separate those POWs considered hard-core resisters for additional punishment. Moving kept a prisoner in a constant state of flux. And after a short lull from abuse in early 1967, the beginning of the middle years also saw a return of all the old familiar ways the V administered vicious terror. Everything seemed to be collapsing.

When guards had come into Jerry’s cell at Vegas, they told him to roll up his mat and his eighteen-inch-wide cotton blanket and to pick up the sweater he’d been given and his tin cup. Then, to his surprise, they told Will Forby to do the same thing.

Both prisoners were taken to cells at a place POWs dubbed the Power Plant. It was comprised of makeshift cellblocks within a larger, still-active facility known as the Yen Phu Thermal Power Plant in northern Hanoi, near the government district. The huge plant covered more than five city blocks with various supporting buildings including shops, warehouses, an assembly plant, and other smaller facilities. POWs nicknamed another area of the thermal plant the “School” since they found stacks of what looked like old Chinese textbooks within the cells.

Here Jerry experienced what living was like covered in coal dust. Black particles filled the air. Dingy charcoal-gray was the only color that could be seen, no matter where anyone looked.

The time Jerry spent at the Power Plant yielded good news and bad news. The good news was that during the day, he and Will were allowed outside for a few hours each day in an area near a temporary kitchen that guards used for cooking meals. The outside area was littered with debris and refuse, and large rats and other varmints inhabited these deserted portions of the huge complex.

But prisoners welcomed any reprieve from their makeshift cells because all windows had been bricked up completely. There was no air circulation at all, not even a wisp —each cell was like a tightly closed storage unit that sat in full sun. Summer temperatures rose mercilessly, converting these confinement spaces into suffocating ovens. Even with the added time outside, severe heat rash soon covered Jerry’s entire body.

However, since the POWs were outside within a complex built for purposes other than use as a prison, the guards’ anxiety increased concerning security. To lessen the likelihood of escape attempts, jailers shackled prisoners to one another with ankle manacles.

Here is where the bad news for Jerry unfolded. His ankles were too big for the metal ankle cuffs, so guards fastened one of his wrists to Will Forby’s ankle. For over a month, Jerry and Will spent each day shackled to each other in this manner. Their only option was to sit on the ground for the length of their time outdoors.

Though Jerry could see other rooms being used as cells and estimated there may have been a dozen or so prisoners there, he never saw any of them. He concluded, however, that the prison population must be increasing substantially —which meant more and more US servicemen shot down —for the North Vietnamese to resort to using these makeshift facilities.

Yet there might have been another explanation: because the thermal power plant had been a target area for US bombing raids, Vietnamese authorities may have thought housing POWs there would deter further assaults, especially if US authorities knew about it. Jerry and Will had already seen the roof to their cell actually lift upward, as if in slow motion, from concussions during a bombing raid.

So to make the presence of these prisoners known, the V would press the POWs into service to walk under armed guard to the main thermal plant in open view. Here they retrieved boiled drinking water for the prison cellblock. By this time, Jerry was suffering from severe dehydration, rashes, and blisters due to the extreme heat within his bricked-up cell.

On one of these occasions, Jerry experienced a small pleasure he had missed for a long time. After a guard unlatched his cuffs, he motioned for him and another POW to follow. Together, the two prisoners were given a chogee pole with a bucket swinging from the middle. These were normally carried across the shoulders by a single Vietnamese with a bucket on each end.

Under armed guards, the POWs walked through the streets to the thermal plant a few blocks away. Along the roadside, Vietnamese civilians would stop whatever they were doing to stare at the ragged-looking men. Their reactions represented extremes. Some people smiled broadly and even waved as they walked past; others picked up any rock they could find and threw it at them.

Once they got to the plant, a worker filled their deep bucket with boiled water, an item Jerry was thankful for. At least we aren’t forced to drink water that isn’t potable, he thought. After the worker finished filling the container, he took a pick and chipped away a couple of pieces of ice from a large block sitting beside him on a pushcart. Then he handed a small chunk to the prisoner.

Jerry put the piece of ice in his mouth —a cold, tasty treat that felt so good to his parched lips and throat. Since prisoners were never given ice, it was the only piece he enjoyed for nearly eight years.

That night back in his cell, as he lay prostrate on his thin mat on the concrete floor, he could feel sweat running down his face and sides. Though night had fallen, the air remained suffocating. His heat rash had spread under his arms, across his back and chest, and all over his legs, alternately stinging and itching from perspiration, especially in the folds and crevices of his body.

He had spent the afternoon making coal balls. These were formed from a mixture of coal dust and a little water and dirt and rolled into a sphere about the size of a baseball. Guards burned them to cook the prison meals, so Jerry never minded the task since it directly contributed to POW welfare. Once finished, he would stack them like cannonballs.

But the chore always left his hands filthy with no way to wash. He tried to keep from scratching heat rash blisters, afraid of infection.

As he sweat in the darkness, suddenly he thought he heard music. He strained to hear. What on earth? No, he wasn’t mistaken —it was Louis Armstrong playing his trumpet and singing. Then he heard two guards walking and talking on their patrol outside his cell.

They must have a transistor radio with them, thought Jerry. The music stopped and he heard one of the guards say, “Satch-Mooo!” Jerry cackled. Now that’s funny —they certainly know good music, he thought.

He was still smiling when he began talking to God about his day and the chore of fetching water to bring back for the POWs.

I never thought I could be so delighted over a chip of ice.

As he mused about the incident, he sensed God nudging him to examine past events in prison for any unusual moment for which he could be thankful. The middle years were especially tough, but even now, Jerry found several things to be thankful for.

Jerry thought about his goofy-looking sandals cut out of rubber tires, the tread still showing clearly. They had been thrown into his cell one day at the Zoo. He smiled to himself in the darkness.

They are about three sizes too small, Lord, but they do keep my feet —at least the front part of my feet —off the cold, cement floor. He had to walk like a toddler when he had them on, up on his toes. But I thank you for these rubber shoes.

He still had them —they were sitting beside his mat even now.

Not long after guards had given him his sandals, he received another item he had come to treasure —a thin, blue cotton sweater. It was coarsely woven of dark blue cotton threads, similar to a mock turtleneck. Though the sweater was not quite as good as a jacket, it represented more defense from shivering than he’d had since he was captured. In summer, the sweater could be rolled up at night to form a small pillow, something he sorely missed in captivity.

So between the thin additional layer of clothing in winter and the makeshift pillow in summer, he called the sweater “my best buddy.” He had expressed sincere appreciation to the Lord for his new article of clothing the night he received it and thanked God again on this night. It was rolled beneath his head as he prayed.

Just then he heard Will cough in the blackness on the other side of the cell.

And, Lord, thank you again for this cellmate. Thank you for all the things, even here in prison, you have given me to be thankful for.

Jerry began to understand that thankfulness, at times, must be intentional, especially in seasons of darkness. It comes from purposefully searching for the treasures of life: sometimes they may be the simplest things, like a piece of ice or a thin sweater, but God had placed them there for him to discover, to acknowledge, to find pleasure in, and to derive hope from —even in the midst of despondency. The intentional act of staying thankful, no matter the circumstances, anchors the soul while opening a door for blessings.

Jerry suddenly remembered a verse he had memorized in Sunday school as a youth, 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Here in prison, God was showing Jerry how to live this verse, even while facing grueling circumstances. He was rescuing the rescue helicopter pilot with gratitude.