EPILOGUE

TEN YEARS LATER

THOMAS “JERRY” CURTIS HAD BEEN at Academy High School in Little River-Academy, Texas, for several years, but he didn’t require his students to address him by his retirement rank of colonel. He instructed his students to use “señor,” since as head of the language department, he taught mainly Spanish. They all knew he had learned to speak it while in prison in North Vietnam.

When he had applied for the teaching position, the superintendent couldn’t believe how Jerry had learned foreign languages. Jerry had explained that POWs wrote Spanish and French words on bits and pieces of toilet paper and then hid them in their toilet buckets so guards couldn’t discover them. During the latter years of his captivity, he had been instructed by several men who were fluent in both.

“Tell you what,” the superintendent had said, “how about starting a foreign language department here at Academy High? We don’t have one —we need that —and until you get enough classes in foreign languages going, you can fill in with world geography.” And thus began an incredibly rewarding second career for the retired wartime hero.

Over the years, Jerry had discovered he loved to teach and relished interaction with the students. Above all else, his primary goal was motivating them to learn.

On this day, with the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner, several stayed after class to ask him about his wartime experiences. So he sat down with them and began to tell his story.

“I was shot down trying to rescue a fighter pilot whose F-105 had taken a hit. Later, he and I became cellmates. Now he is in education too —principal of a Christian school,” said Jerry.

His students listened intently. They asked for more stories about his years in prison in North Vietnam and seemed interested mostly in three things: what he ate, did he ever kill anybody, and had he been tortured. Jerry answered all their questions.

And he used his experience to teach them about their own opportunities. “I didn’t choose to be captured or to be a prisoner for nearly eight years. But never think you cannot do something. You can accomplish more than you think you can. Throughout life, you are going to have setbacks.” The students hadn’t moved a muscle, so Jerry went on.

“If you have a dream, it’s never too late to pursue it. Look at me —I had always wanted to finish college and teach, and now I’m doing that. And for me, faith and family have always been the most important things. I’ve had a relationship with God since I was twelve years old. Granted, my faith has grown since then —in fact, it grew a lot while I was in prison, as you can imagine. Actually, it grew for most of the men there. Two of my friends in prison even composed a verse to a song we sing in church sometimes. Do you know the hymn ‘How Great Thou Art’?”

Several nodded yes.

“Well, listen to a verse they made up. We sang it together while we were in Hanoi:

In foreign lands, you’re even there to guide me,

Your Holy Spirit in my heart yet dwells;

When nights are cold, I feel your light inside me,

Imparting warmth to these cold hostile cells.

“God was with me every day, during the worst times —maybe especially through the worst times. And he is with me now. He will not always do things the way you want him to, but he will be with you wherever you allow him to be,” Jerry said.

The teacher stood up, and the students thanked him for staying and talking with them. On this particular fall day at Academy High School, just before Thanksgiving, they left his classroom and planned how to spend the vacation days stretching ahead of them.

Jerry picked up the exam papers, placing them into his briefcase, a weekend’s worth of work ahead, but not for Thanksgiving Day. That day would be spent feasting on the huge dinner Terry was planning for all of them —for Jerry and Terry, for Tom and his family, and for Lori and hers.

As Jerry walked down the deserted corridors of the high school, he passed door after door, classrooms shut and locked for the holidays. The janitors were already sweeping and cleaning the floors.

When he reached the exit leading to the teachers’ parking lot, he stopped and looked down at the door’s metal push bar. One of his POW buddies had recently sent out a letter to the POW community, something most of them did frequently to keep in touch with one another. A sentiment from that message suddenly came to Jerry’s mind.

“My former cellmate is right,” he chuckled to himself. “No matter what else might be happening, any day is a good day so long as there’s a handle on your side of the door.” He pushed it open and stepped out into the warm sunshine of a Texas fall afternoon.