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Photos from the Hanoi Hilton
Paul Bedard over at U.S. News & World Report’s Washington Whispers has posted some never-before-seen photos of John McCain’s Hoa Lo prison cell. The photos were taken from a video shot by Debra Watkins just before the prison was torn down in 1993 and 1994. Bedard writes that these photos are “images that prove that even after being cleaned up for an American historical filmmaker, the terror of the Hanoi Hilton is real.” Watkins says she has made the photos from a documentary she never released available because of some recent questioning of McCain’s POW experience.
There’s also a link to McCain’s first-person account of his time as a POW he wrote for U.S. News in 1973.
HT: Matt Lewis at Townhall.com
Topic: Campaign 2008, WorldMagBlog
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back to top13 Comments to “Photos from the Hanoi Hilton”
I have a little book published by the Naval Institute Press called “Prisoner of War, Six Years in Hanoi” by John J. McGrath, Lt. Comm., US Navy. He drew pencil drawings of the tortures and explained what happened. Here are some quotes:
“Some men lived in irons for months at a time.”
After begging the VC to relocate his shoulder or let another American do it, McGrath was told “You have bad attitude. You are black criminal and you deserve to suffer.” He wrote: “I thought the pain would drive me insane.” He (and everyone else) was constantly kicked for not bowing deep enough. “After two months [in solitary confinement], I was strong enough to lift my slop bucket and limp to the toilet dump area.” “One man very nearly died when he received 100 strokes a day for 9 days.” The caption for one picture states: “An interrogation. The guard is forcing an iron bar into the prisoner’s mouth to quiet his screams.” I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how the prisoner is trussed up. “To prevent the screams … guards would stuff dirty rags into your mouth with a rusty iron bar that would chip the teeth and tear the skin off the roof of your mouth.” “In some cases when a man’s ankles were too swollen to fit into the stocks, the guard would stand on the top bar to force it shut.”
I cannot tell you the feeling I get reading this slender volume with its stark drawings, but I can tell you who I’m voting for. McCain has continued to serve his country for decades. He has every reason to be proud of his record, and we would be well-served to have such a man be our president, whether we agree with him 100% or not.
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I was an officer in the Air Force, and we supposedly received “training” on how to deal with conditions in enemy prisons, but I always had deep doubts about my ability to remain faithful to my country under conditions such as these. It’s one of the reasons I got out of the service. I have nothing but the deepest respect for people like McCain and his comrades who managed to return with honor. The “McSame” bleaters only need look at his stance on waterboarding to see his bona fides. This is where true character comes from.
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Everyone interested in the experience should read In Love and War by James and Sybl Stockdale. It is his account of the imprisonment and his wife’s crusade to improve conditions and facilitate release of the captives. Stockdale was Perot’s running mate. He received a Medal of Honor for his resistance to the captors.
He was a vice admiral and president of the Naval War college while I was there and a professor in a class. It’s well worth reading. Women will like it too. “Enjoy” is not an appropriate word.
She also explains how she managed with a husband who was a captive for years, and with whom she had limited contact.
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I have that book, too, Chas. You are so right. Young marrieds don’t know how rough it can be.
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I read McCain’s account for the first time today. It was sobering. I would have broken long before he did. I have nothing but respect for his service to our country.
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The website azcentraldotcom has a profile on McCain from 2007. After I read it was when I first decided that I could and will, vote for McCain. I’ve linked below to Chapter 3, Prisoner of war. I would recommend it folks. It’s sobering and inspiring.
http://tinyurl.com/5vztan
From the link;
Dan Nowicki, Bill Muller
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 1, 2007 10:32 AM
CHAPTER III: PRISONER OF WAR
John McCain sat on a stool in Hanoi, his teeth broken, his body battered from a savage beating, his arms tied behind him in torture ropes.
A guard entered the room. “Are you ready to confess your crimes?” he asked.
“No,” McCain replied.
Every two hours, one guard would hold McCain while two others beat him. They kept it up for four days.
Finally, McCain lay on the floor at “The Plantation,” a bloody mess, unable to move. His right leg, injured when he was shot down, was horribly swollen. A guard yanked him to his feet and threw him down. His left arm smashed against a bucket and broke again.
“I reached the lowest point of my 5½ years in North Vietnam,” McCain would write later. “I was at the point of suicide.”
What happened next, in that August of 1968, nearly a year after he was captured, is chronicled in The Nightingale’s Song by Robert Timberg:
“(McCain) looked at the louvered cell window high above his head, then at the small stool in the room. He took off his dark blue prison shirt, rolled it like a rope, draped one end over his shoulder near his neck, began feeding the other end through the louvers.”
A guard burst into the cell and pulled McCain away from the window. For the next few days, he was on suicide watch.
McCain’s will had finally wilted under the beatings. Unable to endure any more, he agreed to sign a confession.
McCain slowly wrote, “I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors.”
He would never forgive himself.
“I had learned what we all learned over there,” he would write later. “Every man has a breaking point. I had reached mine.”
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And for those of you who read the link, be sure to read it all. It’s not that long. The part that talks about him refusing earlier release, insisting that those captured before him go first, is a strong testimony to his character. When it really mattered, he put others ahead of his own well being.
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Thanks for sharing, AJ. McCain will make a great president during a time of war.
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Where are World’s resident liberals? Do they have no comments? I for one would certainly like to hear their opinion on this.
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An interesting account AJ, I just got around to reading it. Stockdale mentioned some of the N. Viets. in the story. I looked for my copy of his book, but couldn’t find it. I believe Stockdale was in Hanoi Hilton.
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Chas,
McCain mentions Stockdale in his account linked to above.
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MIM, I didn’t see Stockdale in the link AJ has.
They talked about the code. Stockdale explained it to us, and how they learned it. The Viets tried to break into their conversations, but never mastered the correct rythm of “shave and a haircut” (just as my wife thinks a click and another click is a doubleclick) and were immediately identified. I got the impression that they never broke the code.
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The real Aj – 9
They cannot look upon a REAL hero, it depresses their senses.
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