Historical Highlight for June 4, 2023
Historical Highlight for June 4, 2023 ��� Throughout the new book ���Captured by Love���, we share short facts from the history of the Vietnam war and the POW experience. In each of these nuggets of history are personal and professional lessons that can be applied today:
Torture���In Their Own Words
���Starting in the fall of 1965, all hell broke loose. For the next four years, men were consistently being tortured or severely punished in every camp. In one particularly painful torture, they tied you up like a pretzel. With your hands behind your back, they ratcheted your elbows together until they touched���then tied them tightly. This cut off your circulation. Then one torturer pushed your arms up and the other shoved your head down toward the floor with his foot. (The drawing shown above is one of many that I sketched shortly after our release and included in my book.)
���Sometimes these sadistic torturers would tie your hands behind your back and then loop another rope through your arms and hang you mid-air from a beam.��� ���Prisoner of War: Six Years in Hanoi, Mike McGrath, pg. 79.
���The torturer���seized the end of the strap binding his arms and heaved upward. His whole upper body exploded and his eyes flooded. The pain increased. Indescribable. Pectoral muscles tore against their anchor points and his sternum pushed outward as rib ends tried to pull away from it.���His muscles were being torn apart, slowly, jerking, slowly, jerking. He screamed and screamed.��� ���Prisoner at War: The Survival of Commander Richard A. Stratton, Scott Blakey, pgs. 91-92.
���We were made to lie on our stomachs on the floor, no shirt, pants down to our ankles, and were beaten with a fan belt. The guard stood back and took several steps toward me, whipping the fan belt from behind his back in an arc, bringing it down across my back, flaying the skin off and turning the back of my body into hamburger. The impact was so hard that my body bounced off the floor and quivered with pain.��� ���The Ways We Choose, Dave Carey, pg. 54.
���I had no socks and my feet swelled up and felt as if pins were stuck into the soles and toes…The more I dozed off, the more regularly the guards came in to bat me around, slapping and kicking at random. Forbidden to get up and use even the primitive toilet facilities, I managed to contain my bowel movements for some days, but I could not hold in my urine. The damp and soiled clothing added to my discomfort, particularly in the cold night hours. After four days of nothing but stolen catnaps, I was almost immune to their physical and verbal abuse.��� ���Chained Eagle, Everett Alvarez, pg. 169.
���Interrogations were often conducted while a POW was on his knees. After several hours, his knees became flattened, red and swollen. If quicker results were desired, a small rock would be placed under each knee. I once spent 30 hours over two days on my knees as punishment because a guard had caught me peeking out of my room through a floor-level vent.��� ���Prisoner of War: Six years in Hanoi, Mike McGrath, pgs. 44-45.
Purchase your copy of Captured by Love. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.
The post Historical Highlight for June 4, 2023 appeared first on Leading With Honor��.
