Jocko Podcast - 76: Knowing Darkness, 6 Years a POW at The Hanoi Hilton, to See The Light and Good in Life. With Capt. Charlie Plumb

Episode Date: May 24, 2017

0:00:00 - Opening. 0:03:59 - Intro to Capt. Charlie Plumb. "I'm No Hero" (book) 0:16:43 - Vietnam War and Flight Training. 0:29:15 - Deployment to Vietnam. 0:44:14 - Shot Down. 0:59:07 - The Hanoi Hilton. 2:26:35 - Release from The Hanoi Hilton. 2:30:44 - Life after Imprisonment. 2:38:40 - Reflections and Lessons Learned. 3:01:06 - Support, Cool Onnit, Amazon, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid, and The Muster 003.  3:12:25 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 76 with Echo Charles and me Jock Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Freedom. That's something that you hear me talk about all the time. And I say little things like don't take it for granted. And I say be thankful for your freedom. And I even say things like you don't appreciate your free.

until it's gone statements you hear from people but how many of us actually had our freedom taken away and not metaphorically speaking and not some self-imposed and thereby self-controlled way and not in some way trapped by a situation in our life that we don't have the courage to get out of but I am talking about an actual loss of freedom caged controlled tortured how long can you take that for an hour a month what about a year for six years do you survive how do you get up every day and face the awful reality Oppression and how do you take that darkness and that fear and that oppression and turn it into something good? It is my honor today To have with us a man that can answer those questions Retired Navy captain Charles Charlie Plum Naval Academy graduate F4 Phantom fighter pilot and prisoner of war

in North Vietnam six years six sir it is an absolute honor to have you on and thank you so much for being here thank you Jock oh it's a pleasure to be with you and let's just start from the beginning of Captain Charlie Plob you were you I know you're born wearing it's actually born in Gary Indiana during World War II my first father was about to be inducted and so he moved us to a little tiny town in Kansas where he thought my mother and I and my big sister could live there while he went off to war. Well as it turned out he couldn't pass a physical so he didn't go to war but that's where I grew up in a tiny town in the middle of Kansas and I know you uh you did you went to work pretty at a pretty early age

throwing papers. Oh yes and you referred to that in the book and I just that's just in the It's a nostalgic thing, isn't it throwing, no one throws papers anymore. It doesn't happen. There's no kids with paper roots anymore. I guess that's true. I read a statistic one time of all the of all the successful people in the world most of them were paper boys when they were kids, but not anymore. You're right. You don't see that. Yeah, now they're throwing up Twitter posts. Yeah, that's it. No, I threw the Topeka Daily Capital in this little town of 300 people and I had about 55 customers. The route was five miles long. And on a cold February morning in Kansas, that was a long way. I finally convinced my father that I could buy a motor scooter with all of my earnings. And so we went across the river where there was no bank in town. I went across the river to Perry, Kansas, and borrowed enough money to buy a Cushman motor scooter. And I was only 14 when that happened. Yeah, so I got arrested one night. Up to no good.

What were you doing that? You got arrested on the motor scooter. Well, I was trying to go to the county fair. Because can you even speed on a motor scooter? Is that possible? No, no, no. I couldn't. But I was small from my age, so at 14, I know I wasn't five feet.

And I had my buddy on the back, and he was even smaller than I. And I think that the cops just saw these two little kids on a motor scooter in the middle of the night. And we were arrested. And at some point, I think it was you had a basketball coach, there were a coach at your school that was a pilot in World War II. He was actually, he was a vet, but not a pilot. He was a doughboy in World War I. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And he had shrapnel and his leg from his war, and he walked with a limp. And he was quite a disciplinarian. And he tried to make that little basketball team work, But we were just really not very talented. What is it about, I don't know, when I was a kid and I would see, you know, a Vietnam vet for me, that's primarily what I would see is old Vietnam vets. And I'd say, hey, that guy's got shrapnel on his leg and walks with a limp. When I grow up, I want shrapnel in my leg and I want to walk with a limp.

That's my goal. Is that just part of male, you know, boy nature? It may very well be. Yeah. So what did he tell you about pilots? Did he explain that to you? Or how did you get the idea from being a doughboy to being a pilot? Well, quite a long transition.

See, this was early on in my career. Now, I had a coach later in high school that had been a pilot in World War II. Okay. So Bill Johnson had been a pilot. In fact, he flew F8s off aircraft carriers. And I was fascinated by that whole idea. But I will tell you that being a hayseed from Kansas, I never even dreamed of flying an airplane. I'd never been in one.

I'd seen them fly over, but the whole idea of ever even riding in an airplane, let alone piloting one, was beyond my grasp. It really was. So how did you end up then transitioning from high school and you end up going to the Naval Academy? Well, that was kind of by accident, too. I needed an education. My parents were too poor at send me to college. I started looking for scholarships. And my older sister was dating a guy who was an NROTC student at University of Kansas. And he gave me a book that says, here's how you apply for the NROTC and Kansas. Well, the back page of the book in fairly small letters said, Oh, by the way, it's the same qualifications to go to the Naval Academy.

Well, what the heck? Did you even know what the Naval Academy was or did you figured out right then? I did not know. I really had no idea. I didn't know about the Army-Navy game. I didn't know anything. Now, my closest relative in the military was a cousin in the Coast Guard. And so I was just ignorant about the military in total.

So, you know, I'd like to sit here, Jocko, and tell you that it always was. these great dreams, you know, of being a fighter pilot and an admiral and commanding ships and squadrons and all. But no, it was all by accident. In fact, when I applied, you know, you get appointments from congressmen. The congressman of my district in Kansas did it by a competitive method and everybody who was interested took a government test, you know, for a G rating. a government service rating, a GS test. And there were about 35 guys that took the test. And so he nominated five of us who got better scores on the test than the rest.

And then he appointed one guy to the Naval Academy and an alternate. And I was the second alternate. Okay. Well, the first guy also had an appointment to the Air Force Academy. So he took that. The second guy discovered girls. Oh, that'll throw you off track, right, right, right, right, right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I was actually the second alternate to go to, and so I got on that Greyhound bus in Kansas City, Kansas, and two days later, it took me two days to get to Washington, D.C. And, of course, I was seeing country I'd never seen before. And that's when I raised my hand, as you did, and pledged to defend the Constitution of United States against all. enemies foreign and domestic and then at some point at the at the did you did you know about naval aviation I guess you did from from Bob Johnson yeah he told you about naval aviation did you have that thought in your mind of naval aviation at that point not really I still I still kind of assumed that I could never qualify to do that

you know and and in thinking back at it you know I think well where were my dreams but kids that grow up in little towns don't usually have big dreams we don't know how to do that and my parents my father had completed the eighth grade that was his education my mother had in fact completed high school but i was one of the first in the family to ever go to college and so um you know it was it wasn't even it wasn't even a thought part of the thought process so uh once i once i got to the Naval Academy and, you know, I thought back to Bob Johnson and that kind of experience and saw that there was a possibility of doing this, then my energies and efforts turned towards naval aviation.

And it must have been, I mean, that's always been ultra competitive at the Academy. And I know we had another pilot on Dave Burke, and he was talking about how each step of the way he kind of looked around and said, I think I can actually do this. You know, it's kind of the same thing. You look around and say, I think I can get the best grades. I think I can get in this position. At some point, you must have said, I think I can do this. There was, as a matter of fact, and there's a great revelation.

You know, when you finally talk to yourself into accepting the fact that you do have the talent to do this. And until that point, you don't really try as hard, I guess. And while you're at the academy also, is this when you got involved with Ann for the first time? at the Naval Academy? Anne was my high school sweetheart. Oh, okay. Yeah, we played the French horn in the band together. Those girls with the French horn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. She was, she is a beauty and was a beauty, and she showed up at our school, but was, she came, she came into our little town in Kansas from Indiana, and she had a boyfriend in Indiana. She wasn't telling me about, you know, for the first several. Charlie don't care about that boyfriend. No, and his name was Bart. And they called him Black Bart. So, so Bart was, and she wouldn't kiss me, you know. I mean, we dated for months and the girl

wouldn't kiss me. Yeah, dang. Yeah, I mean, it's tough. I mean, I mean. It's the most reaction I've ever seen out of Echo, by the way, on the podcast. I think he's been there. You just heard him. He had some bad memories on that one. Finally were getting to an echo flashbacks. That's hard, Bill. It's hard.

Maybe we should talk about your story. Oh, man. It's some other time. All kinds of kissing denials going on over there with Echo Charlie. So, finally, I think it was Thanksgiving. Yeah, yeah. It was right at Thanksgiving. And I intercepted a letter that she had gotten from Bart.

Wait a second. How do you intercept a letter? Well, I can't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was all above board.

But so. We'll leave it at that, I guess. I just were going to leave that one where it is. I confronted her, you know, with this guy Bart. Oh, no. She said, no, we're serious and we're going to get married someday. In fact, he's coming to Kansas for Christmas. I said, I'll make a deal with you.

I said, I don't think he's coming for Christmas. And so if he comes, I'll back off and you don't have to worry about me trying to kiss you anymore. But if he doesn't come, then you and I go steady. Huh? Legit. Well, he didn't come. And so that started a wonderful relationship. We then went steady in high school.

Of course, then I go off to the Naval Academy, fur peace from Kansas. and she went to University, Kansas, for her first year there. But we continued to communicate, and I saw her at Christmas time when I came home. And then she decided to move to Washington, D.C., to work for a senator out there. And so she spent the next three years, the last three years, Naval Academy, they're close enough so that we could continue to see each other. So it was one of those, you know, one and a number. only kind of a thing because I didn't really date a whole lot in the high school and she was it for sure

so then you guys got married did you wait until you graduated from the naval academy yes yeah you know you can't you can't get married while you're at the naval academy at least you're not supposed to a couple guys did but uh I didn't and so the day after I graduated from the naval academy we were we were married and my six buddies held up their swords well one was a marine and so he held up his saber as We came down from the chapel through the arch of swords. And it was a beautiful day and a beautiful wedding. And from there, we went immediately to flight training. Did you – so when did you find out you were getting picked up for flight trainer?

Our senior – yeah, the last part of our senior year, you could apply. And then you go through all of the hoops that you go through to try to qualify for naval aviation. So I found out probably a month or six weeks. Before I graduated that that was going to be my my tour do you graduate in 64 yes So when you graduated did you guys were you guys thinking Vietnam already? No was it just too early and it was limited operation So it wasn't really something that you guys were thinking about front of mind I don't remember ever hearing the word Vietnam While I was this Naval Academy Wow. Yeah, so you rolled to flight school Just thinking hey we're gonna fly around we're gonna go do

regular deployments which you'd heard about, but you weren't thinking about Vietnam. Yep. So at what point, was that in flight school when you first started thinking of yourself? Yes. Hey, we got guys over here dropping bombs. Yeah, well, Ev Alvarez was shot down, the first PAAW to be shot down in August, 1964. Okay, so it became a reality that while I was in flight training, another naval aviator was in prison in Vietnam.

Now, I didn't, you know, I didn't understand the politics. I didn't question the politics of it at all. I just did the best I could in flight training and enjoyed it. You know, I mean, it's a kick. Did you guys, did your attitudes shift at all? So for my generation, when all of a sudden September 11th happened, it was like a paradigm shift in everyone's mentality. That day, it was such a clear, clear demonstration. And we all knew that we were going to war.

and that was an immediate attitude shift. Did you guys start to have a shift in attitude? Or was it so, because the way Vietnam escalated more slowly, was it more of a slow escalation in your minds as well? No, it was very slow. You know, the old story of the frog in the pot of boiling water, you know, he jumps out in a hurry.

But no, it was, it just warmed up very slowly for us. And I didn't even, as I went through flight training, you know, I mean, I learned to drop. and shoot guns and all that stuff. And it was challenging and it was exciting. But I didn't see the reality of it. I didn't really picture myself as being in combat. And so, of course, when I got my wings and then was assigned the F4 Phantom,

which at the time was the hottest airplane in the world. I mean, we had the time to climb records and the speed records. And it's a twice a speed of sound airplane. And it felt very fortunate to have. have been assigned that airplane. And so I came out here to San Diego to fly. And you were talking about in your book, you've done a midshipman tour where a phantom went down.

Both pilots killed. And then you got to sign the phantom. Did that give you any reservations at all? I don't remember being afraid of the airplane, but I certainly gave it a lot of respect, and especially around the ship. Because that's, you know, I saw this thing go down.

At the Naval Academy in the summertime, you get exposed to the possible billets that you might have in the future. So we go play a marine for a while, and we go to submarines for a while, and we go aboard ships to be line officers for a while, and we go to Pensacola. And so I got a little touch of it there of actually being in airplanes. And then my senior, my senior cruise, between my junior and senior year, I went aboard the constellation, the aircraft carrier constellation. And we were out of Sassabobo, Japan. And I'm watching flight ops from the bridge. And, you know, I'm looking down at the airplanes launching and recovering on this aircraft carrier.

And a phantom came in and actually broke the wire. The pilot did okay. But he broke, he picked up the wire and the wire snapped. This cable that traps an airplane is two and a half inches in diameter. It's a very thick steel wire round cable. I mean, it's really, really strong because it has to stop this 35,000 pound airplane going down to shoot at 170 miles an hour. So, but for whatever reason, the cable broke. Okay, the cable snapped around and it cut off the legs of three.

three different guys who were on the deck. Okay. And it was so fast that I couldn't even see it. My eyes couldn't even follow this cable because there was just, I mean, there's so much pressure, so much energy involved. And then the airplane, the F4, was slowed down to the point where the guy couldn't get it back in the air. And so it just dribbled off the bow of the aircraft carrier and into the water. Well, of course, then I turned my mind.

view to the stern of the ship to see if I could see what had happened. Well, the few seconds that it took from when it settled in the water until I could see out the back of the ship, it was gone. There was no debris. There was no oil. There was nothing in the water behind this ship after this airplane had gone down. So it was a shock to me, of course. But, you know, I think I started out with this. mentality that it's always going to happen to somebody else, you know, never me. And that I'm, you know, whatever happened, I'm going to do it better. And I think that's, well, you know this better than I. You have to kind of have that mentality in combat. You can't go in thinking you're going to get killed. And so I wasn't reluctant to fly the F4, but I gave it, I think, respect. So you get that and you come out, your station in San Diego,

or is that, was that San Diego, right, for when you deployed for the first time? Miramar Naval Air Station. Yeah. And that's where I helped start Top Gun. That was kind of an interesting experience as well. There was a pool of students to fly the F4 Phantom. And I showed up here when they had about a six-month waiting list for me to fly this airplane.

Well, six-month was a long time, you know, for a 23-year-old. kid. And I wanted to get in the air. So a buddy of mine, Paul Kruke and I had gotten our wings at the same time and been assigned the F4 Phantom. And we came out here and so we were both going to have to have to wait for six months to fly this airplane. So we wandered down the flight line at Miramar and found the instrument training squadron was flying the same airplanes that we had flown in flight train of the old F9 Cougar, a bent wing airplane. It's so. it's a jet, but it's light and slow and kind of stodgy. It's a Korean Warp.

And they were using it in flight training to teach instruments. And the way they did this, the instructor would sit in the front seat and the students sit in the back seat and they had a bag that covered all the windows, covered you up. All you could see was the instrument panel. You're under this bag. And so we signed on to fly this airplane for test hops and check rides and this kind of stuff just to fly, just stay in the air because we were already qualified the airplane. Well, Krookie and I would save a little bit of gas, okay, each time we'd fly these students around. At the end of the hop, we would lurk off the coast of San Diego and wait for the phantoms to come out. And so we, you know, these guys would come off the runway at Miramar, and they were heavy, you know, and they were stodgy, and they were slow as they came off.

And they'd get about four or five miles out in the Pacific, and we would pounce on these guys. And it was all kinds of fun because we were lighter and could turn quicker than the phantoms. And we were a smaller, we had a better wing load than they did, and so we could turn inside these guys. Of course, they were much, much faster. We were not supersonic, and they were. So they could get away from us in a heartbeat if they wanted to. But we started this air combat maneuvering with these guys. Well, that went on for, I don't know, a couple of months.

Until one day, Krookie and I, I mean, we played the role. We had white scarves, you know, and Snoopy goggles and the whole works. And one day we came back and to the Instrument Squadron and checked in our airplanes back in. And it was a sign on the bullet board. Plum, crooky, report to the F4 commanding officer immediately. We were in trouble. So two guys in their sweaty flight suits knock on the door of the commanding officer of the Phantom Squadron. I'll never forget this scene.

They got, come in, and we open the door. This guy sits at a long desk, okay, and he's got glasses. And of course, he's an old, old guy. We were 23, so, you know, he was probably 30. Oldest guy you've ever talked to. And so he's sitting there and talks over the top of his glasses. He's in a sweaty flight suit also, which should have been our first indication. He said, you two guys out there in the F-9s, hassling my fighter pilots?

Yes, sir, we were. did you follow a phantom through an entire loop? Yes, sir. In fact, we did. He said, did you have your gun sights on that phantom the entire time? Yes, sir, we did. He said, do you know who was in that phantom? He said, I was.

He said, I just came back from Vietnam. Our kill ratio over there is terrible. They're eating our lunch. We need to learn how to fight this airplane. See, the F-4 was designed during the Cold War as a supersonic interceptor. I was never called a fighter pilot. And in fact, I trained in a spacesuit so I could go above 50,000 feet. You know, off the aircraft carrier, climbed to 80,000 feet, shoot down the Russian bombers

and, you know, at 45-degree angle of bank, turn, return to the aircraft carrier. That was my job. I wasn't supposed to be out there hassling because it was a Cold War. We did not expect to have a Korean War World War II type hassle, a fighter pilot. Well, of course, Vietnam came around and suddenly, you know, they're flying these older airplanes that were eating our lunch. So the CEO looked at us and he said, you want to fight with me tomorrow? Well, yes, sir. That's fun.

So for the next two or three months, Paul Kruki and I with our white scarves and our Snoopy goggles. We had to start about an hour ahead of time, you know, just because they were so fast. But we'd get out to sea, we'd go out to 40 miles out to sea and turn around and here they come. And we'd have these two-on-two engagements. And that became a syllabus within the replacement air group of the F-4s that eventually became the top gun school. That's awesome. Yeah, it was the start of retraining. Well, and it was very successful.

We turned our kill ratio around by teaching pilots how to fight this F4 Phantom. Yeah, clearly that's it. Without training to fight, how are you going to know how to fight? That's right. And you've got to beat. That's outstanding for the commanding officer of that squadron to say, you know what? Instead of being mad that you were doing it, instead of he's humble and says, you know what, we need to get better at this. Yeah.

Let's keep training. Yep. That's awesome. And you eventually do get your time in the F4 fans. You learn how to fly that and now it's time to go on deployment. You're going on deployment now November 5th, 1966 You kiss Ann goodbye and you go on deployment on the on the kitty hawk It was her birthday. Oh, that's a great birthday president sir.

All right, very nice of you. That's like my first daughter my first daughter was born actual birthday like actual birthday yeah I went on deployment the next day Yeah, everyone was really happy with me on that one When now when you were going through the flight training and you were getting ready to deploy, now were you thinking about Vietnam at all? I mean, you must have been getting feedback. I mean, you got feedback from the commanding officer. So now your focus had shifted somewhat.

Yeah, it certainly had. And the squadron that I joined was just coming back from Vietnam. And they'd had quite a few casualties. And so they were talking about it. You know, the guys were giving us instruction on how to work. Another thing about the phantom was that we had no indication when a missile was in the air because we were faster than the missile, for the most part, or higher than the missile. And so one of the things the guys told me, the fellow's coming back from Vietnam, said,

go down to radio shack and buy yourself a fuzz buster, you know. Oh, like police detector. Yeah, yeah. Radar detector. Yeah, the old fuzz buster, yeah. He said because the Russian-built Sam surface-to-air missiles are on the same frequency as the California Highway Patrol. True, true story. And so we have found that if you, because we have no indication in the airplane when a missile's in the air.

And so I did. Nan-a-radio-shack by myself a fuzz-buster. And it had a little suction cup. You look the suction cup and you put it on the windscreen of this phantom and you run a little white wire, you know, down underneath your G suit and your torso harness and under your oxygen mask and finally into your ear. You know, you get your little earbud in there. And so here I am flying this $20 million airplane being protected by a $29 bus bus driver. So it worked. But the problem was there was no direction capability.

You couldn't tell where it was coming from. And so, you know. That's almost worse. Psychologically, you just know what's coming. Absolutely. You heard the warble. And boy, you know, you started to turn and jink and, you know, your head went on a swivel trying to figure out where this missile is.

But you get overseas and you're flying, you start flying missions. You're doing mostly strike missions. Is that primarily what you're doing, taking out targets in North Vietnam? The F4, of course. again, was configured and built from the keel up as an air-to-air combat machine. The powers that B decided, hey, there's an airplane, we can hang a bomb on it. They put on an extra, I believe, four hard points on the bottom of this airplane, maybe five. I can't remember.

So that we could carry bombs on this fighter airplane. Well, we were supposed to be interceptors. It's supposed to be carrying bombs around, but we found out that, sure enough, this big old airplane was a pretty good platform for dropping bombs. And so we could carry, you know, we could carry 12, 13,000 pounds of bombs into the target, which was a pretty good load. You know, we could also support, you know, guys like you on the ground that with all kinds of various kinds of weaponry. And so what happened was we had a sister squadron on the aircraft carrier. So for a month line period, we would be fighters for two weeks, and then we would reconfigure our airplane to be bombers. And we'd be bombers for two weeks, and we would go back to fighters and then back to bombers.

So to answer your question, half the time over there I was dropping bombs, and half the time I was doing the air-to-air mission. And the air-to-air mission primarily you'd be doing combat air patrols to support the other elements that were flying in with bombs. and you'd be protecting in case any mig showed up exactly yeah it was a CAP a cap combat air patrol so you're pretty much almost done with deployment where we're talking you you spend you did what 74 missions at this point you've been there for five or coming up on six months and on the 19th of May 1967 you get a phone call and you guys get like a strike mission comes in that you are supposed to execute? It was a big deal, and it was called an Alpha Strike.

An Alpha Strike was the top priority, and we knew that it would be a lot of airplanes in the air, and we'd have some pretty important targets to hit. And it was sanctioned straight from the Pentagon. It was JCS stuff, which, of course, was one of the problems in that war was that most of our instruction came from the guys back in the Puzzle. And they wouldn't let us decide targets or altitudes or anything else. It was pretty well planned by the time we got the go. And I got a call, I suppose, three in the morning, something like that, saying that I was to schedule this flight.

I was a schedule's office for the squadron. And so I was the guy that figured out who went on what strikes and who went with whom. and the airplanes that they had. And so I got up early to start planning this strike with the airplanes and the pilots and the backseaters, our radar intercept officers, our co-pilots. And so I did. Then we went to the briefing room and got about an hour brief on these targets. I later found out that the reason for the whole thing,

the reason why we were doing an Alpha Strike on the 19th of May was it was the birthday of their president, Ho Chi Men. And again, Happy birthday, Ochie Men. Yeah, exactly. The brilliance of, you know, of our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our Sywar greats was that we would catch them in celebration of their, of the big day because they, it was like our president's day.

You know, they had picnics and that kind of stuff. And so we were going to catch them with their pants down. Well, as most things that happened in Vietnam, they knew we were coming for whatever reason. And that day, there were eight F4 Phantom shot down. But I'll never forget the beginning of it because, you know, I took off and at a rendezvoused with a tanker and took on an extra 3,000 pounds of fuel and then joined the squadron. And it was, in fact, a cap mission. It was a combat air patrol. I was not carrying bombs.

So we had four of us on one side of the strike group and four of the other. And just to look, because it was three aircraft carriers and five Air Force bases. We were just throwing everything we had at the enemy that day. It was an amazing Aramata. And I could see from one horizon to the other, these airplanes. And I remember feeling really proud, you know, man, you know, just to be a part of, this doing something that very few people in the world would ever do and flying this airplane at age 24 and so that that was how it all began on the 19th of May

one of the things that we were talking about just before we hit record was the kind of the sense of humor that you have in the military and and what that's like and one of the by the way I haven't even mentioned that referring to a book that you wrote called I'm no hero by Charlie Plum and that'll be that's available on Amazon

you can get it through it'll be a link on the website but awesome book actually better on my website because I sign everyone that goes out so my website

charlieplum.com okay well there you go even better going to the book here you guys are getting before you launch you're getting ready to launch kind of getting ready for the briefing

and here we go the pilots of the fighter planes gathered in their own briefing room and read from a television screen and teletype the weather information and the position of the ship we reviewed once again the switches we would have to throw and I coordinated with the maintenance officer the weapons we would need the volume of the fuel etc serious thoughts were in the back of all our minds but outwardly our mood was light we laughed and joked

drank coffee and smoked my regular Rio which is the radar intercept officer is their backseater because the F4 phantom has two people was up to his old habit of manipulating his slide rule being a self-styled math wizard he again pinpointed his likelihood of getting bagged shot down this was based on some speculative formula he had found somewhere today friends he proclaimed my bag factor is 019376 and then you replied to him then save me a room at the Hanoi Hilton I'm glad you're still laughing about that, sir. The rest of you as we go through this book,

we'll see the true irony in that joke. You know, back to the book here. We left our ready room and entered the central briefing room where all the pilots, Rios, and standby crews scrutinized their master plan, which included maps and photographs of the targets and intelligence sports of enemies' fire capability. After our central briefing,

we returned to our ready room, meditated, last minute instructions, and put on our flight gear. Altogether these briefings took as long and sometimes longer than the mission itself I looked up at the screen pilots man your aircraft we gave each other We slapped each other on the back exchange a customary give them hell dialogue and padded the posterior of our good luck girl hanging on the door It was time to go topside You guys are now getting ready to take off and again just some of this this humor back to the both engine run-up is good takeoff checklist is complete I'm ready to go Gary you

ready yeah I'm ready okay I mocked this is your captain speaking welcome to flight 403 to Hanoi North Vietnam we'll be flying an altitude of 11 grand and we have a high ceiling make sure your seatbelt is fastened no smoking please so that's the attitude going out and legitimately your this is your 75th mission you've flown 74 you're feeling pretty comfortable I mean even though of course you got thoughts in the back of your mind but you feeling pretty comfortable about how you do your job and what you get done I am feeling bulletproof I wasn't gonna go that far but let's just go there I know that feeling too yeah yeah the as you push in back to the book all this coordination so it's what you just talked about this massive effort going forward dozens and dozens of aircraft all of this coordination of and machinery during the refueling was done in complete silence we called it zip lip Although enemy radar would have already detected us we were careful not to give radio spooks any additional information It was gratifying to experience such close rapport with my air wing I knew and they knew what each was doing in this intricate maneuver

Yet not a word had to be spoken and that's I've actually talked about that on here when we would train and when I was running training for for the seals I I would tell them, hey, you're not allowed to talk during this training mission. You can't say one word to each other. And it was amazing. After you do that a couple times, how much better people get because they're reading, they're reacting, they're anticipating what other people are going to do. And you guys are just so far ahead at this point, five and a half months into deployment. It's, you guys are doing this whole thing without saying a word to each other. It was amazing.

Yeah, I think that's one of the incredible things about the military is even though you're just a little piece of that big, This big powerful machine. It's it's it's pretty awesome to experience when you when that stuff's going on and You kind of talked about what what you were doing you were positioned on the flanks Anticipating makes how often are you guys seeing megs over there not not often I had seen miggs probably four or five times up to that point And so they They really were they were they were really good about not showing up until they knew that they could kill something You know, of course, they were, they had the advantage. They had the home field advantage.

And so they could wait on their bases until we came to them and then they would launch. So if you didn't get close to a mig base, you probably weren't going to see one. They were, they had a very short range. And they didn't see in the air very long. And so we didn't see them very often. And on this one, you get a call, though. You hear that, they gave you a call for there's Migs. What is it, Migs, 20, 20 West.

and you start to get a little aggressive, start leading out that way a little bit, right? Yep, yep. And the flight commander tightened you up and said, hey, plum, get back over in formation. Yeah. Well, you know, my best buddy there, Denny Wisely, had already shot down two airplanes by that time, and he shot down another one after I was shot down. and so he and you know I mean that's what every fighter pilot wants to you know to have a mig to his credit and I saw this opportunity you know five days to go you know this is this is my this is my day you know this is Charlie Plum day

so I started to ease out of the squadron so that I would be the first to go after this mig and uh Charlie Plum's gonna get his uh huh that's what happens but no that that's that that's how that's how that that's how It began. And they tighten you back up. So you fall back into formation. And now, is there a Sam call? Did you pick it up on the, on the fuzzbuster? I did.

But there were a lot of them in the air. And so that thing was warbling all the time. They were, they were salvoing their Sams that day. They just, they just shoot a bunch of them off at the same time. And so every time they shot one off, and every time they're, radar would scan me, I would get to Fuzz Buster. But we also had, you know, we had the the big radar airplanes in the sky at the same time. And they would call us. And that's how I got that call. That 20 mile away call was from our electronic folks that were flying well above us with

the radar. So you know that there's Sam's surface air missiles up there. and here we go back to the book Gary that's your that's your Rio sitting behind you in the plane you say Gary do you see it and he says I don't see a thing Charlie We had both seen Sam's before they resembled Flying white telephone poles with huge fourth of July sparklers spring silvery orange glows from their tails If we saw them in time we could dodge the missiles by letting them close in at the last second Pulling the plane into a high G barrel roll six Gs or so and letting the poles pass harmlessly underneath because of its design the missile could not follow us without cracking in two But we didn't see it I felt the thump in the impanage the a half section of the airplane

Red instrument lights jumped across the panel indicating that I had two engines on fire That wasn't good this plane only had two engines I yanked the throttles back to idle and the bird seemed to come to an immediate halt in midair Charlie were hit how bad is it she's still flying then the aircraft started a roll and while I madly scanned the instruments I looked up and found that the F4 had suddenly overturned Ground was where there was where there should have been sky and the nose was heading downward ripping air at 500 knots The altimeter needle collapsed to 4,000 then 3,500 then 3,000 we had to get out but being in We would be rocketed by the ejection seat right into the rice paddies I had to roll the plane upright I tried the stick it was frozen the only manual control was the rudder pedal not normally used to roll an aircraft I stepped on it as hard as I could adrenaline surging through my veins the plane shuttered once and again

Slowly it began to write itself Rear view mirrors reflected a screaming fireball 12,000 pounds of flaming gasoline and 30,000 pounds of flaming gasoline and 30 thousand pounds of fissionable aircraft you want to eject no wait a minute I shouted back the plane struggled then the sky was where it should be Gary let's go I jerked my face curtain to eject the rocket slam me out of the aircraft I tumbled a couple times and the shoot caught just as advertised all kinds of debris filled the air around me as wadding from the shells whistled by Son of a gun they've bagged my airplane now they're after me I went to the concussions from the exploding shells sonic booms battering my eardrums rockets of heavy smoke clouded the sky Gary and I had ejected so near the ground however that enemy guns could train on us for only a short time I checked my parachute canopy it looked good

torn in only a couple of places I thought of escape but where looking away I saw my buddies and their aircraft blending into the horizon. Below, my landing zone was nothing but barren rice paddies. Down to my left, a huge cloud of black smoke billowed at the outskirts of a peasant hamlet, punctuating a row of four or five huts, my plane. Had it wiped out a family? If so, the villagers would certainly be unhappy. I wasn't happy either.

I hadn't intended that to happen. I later learned that the plan the plane had impacted just beyond the last shack on the road There was precious little time before I could touch down before I would touch down and I had much to be done I grabbed my two-way radio and tried to contact Gary but I received no answer then I called my skipper Linfield lead Linfield lead this is Linfield two We've got two good shoots we're gonna be all right request No SAR effort. And SAR is search and rescue, for those you that don't know.

And when I read that part right there, I stopped in my tracks because here you are. You shot down. You're in a parachute. You're going to obviously be landing in these rice paddies surrounded by enemy. And you had the wherewithal to understand that if you requested for search and rescue to come and get you. it was just going to get more people killed. Yeah. And that had happened before.

I had seen that happen. And we were so far behind enemy lines. I mean, it was impossible. Jolly Green was a call sign for the helicopter that would come get us off the aircraft carrier. And they would have to go through probably 75 or 100 miles of enemy territory before they ever got to me. And I was in such a populated area that I could see that they were that I was going to be captured immediately. And so to get those guys, but them in harm's way was kind of silly. So that's why I did that.

When, you know, I've experienced a couple times in combat where things slow down and the time starts to really be different than it normally is. And they say it's because you get this big adrenaline dump and all of your sensors, all your perception. awakens to such a high point that things actually slow down. Did you experience any of that once that Sam missile hit? I did. Yes. It was almost like slow motion. And I remember thinking, this is unreal.

I've never had this happen to me before. But it was almost like I was in a movie and everything was slowing down in my life. And I tried to sense every possible. thing because of course I'm thinking escape now trying to get it get out of here in some way and so I'm trying to memorize all the little roads I could see and all the little trees and all the little huts and where are they and where am I that situational awareness how far from the water of ocean were you at this point oh I was 75 miles so no chance of that no chance we were on the outskirts of Hanoi the capital city and and and that was the bad news good news the bad news

was that I was going to be captured immediately. There was no chance whatsoever. I mean, they were shooting at me from the ground while I came down. The good news was I didn't have to go very far to a formalized prison camp like a lot of the guys did. You know, you had Bill Reeder on this on your podcast, and he was dragged for, I don't know, weeks. And because he was captured in South Vietnam. The guys that were in Laos or Cambodia who were brought to our prison camps were all just really torn up, not just because of the enemy, but just because of the rigors of the travel.

And you're going to talk about this. You talk about it in the book, but just to kind of point out the fact that whatever, two minutes earlier, you were part of this giant powerful force with a multi-million dollar, you know, aircraft under your command as a 24-year-old as part of this group that of many, many multi-million dollar with this huge destructive power, launching off of these ships and airfields, and to go from having all that to now you're under a parachute and you're about to have all of that just absolutely taken away. It was a major transition in my life. But, you know, unlike someone who's diagnosed with cancer, you know, or unlike someone who just lost a job or just lots of child or just had a car accident.

I mean, that's, you know, there are similarities in normal civilian life. I think that can be just as impactive as being blown out of the sky. Yeah. You're floating down to earth and I'm going back to the book. Then I bowed my head. Well, Lord, here I am. I'm really in a bind now and I need some help give me strength and give and strength I was surprised at how calm I was when I should have been panic stricken

But there was too much to think about and do I couldn't let myself become a rational It would all be different now I tried to envision myself in this new world and prepare for it I had a lot going for me I was in good physical condition and I could probably withstand torture I didn't believe I would be killed because I was too much of a blue chip for the enemy Which again for you to say your shot down you're about to land an enemy territory and your statement is I had a lot going for me It's a positive attitude. It's a positive attitude that's your philosophy of saying good It is indeed as my notes right there

I wrote good I said that's I've thought this before So you touched down I plunged backward into the mud and water trying to get my bearings I took off my helmet and mask and crawled out Crawled without direction in the quagmire with slimy hands I tried to wipe mud from my eyes I saw that I was about 10 or 15 yards from an embankment I looked over to see that Gary touching down an adjacent Patty about 100 yards away had disappeared behind the eight foot embankment A barefoot peasant wearing khaki shirts shorts and t-shirt ran at top speed down the path toward me grimacing with excitement and Anger above his head he waved a double-edged axe with blades about eight inches long My instructors never documented that type of weapon

I heard him scream hand up hand up I didn't understand what he meant and I kept working with my gear and shoot I had a 38 revolver strapped to my chest and it and as long as he stayed in the embankment I would not touch it It wasn't long however before 10 or 12 more peasants came rushing toward me yelling and waving the shovels and hose now there was power in numbers and they charged out in the water after me I raised my hands away from my body they started ripping my G-suit found my survival knife and proceeded to cut away at the suit and the torso harness I tried to tell them to use the zippers and even attempted to show them how to do it but they knocked my hands away the more certain they were that I was harmless

the meaner they became the shovel and hole blades flailed at my body to prove to that I was their loathed captain captive strangely the peasants failed to see my revolver probably because it too is covered with mud and the 38 rested in my holster at least three or four minutes before a peasant finally spotted it he yanked it out of the holster and slashed a few steps away a moment later he returned and screamed for special attention he fixed the barrel to my head I could see that at least Two of the chambers were empty. I had always kept five of the six chambers loaded,

so I knew that he must have removed at least one of the cartridges. There was little I could do as I felt the muddy barrel against my temple. The peasant pulled the trigger. Click. He guffawed and sneaked away, wiping off his unexpected prize. You're... As far as your thoughts about being killed... killed at that moment.

Did you accept them? Did you, were used to thinking he's not going to do it? What's your attitude at that point? I never, in the entire experience, and never thought I was going to be killed. And I didn't think so at that moment. Of course, I was very

happy when I heard the click of that revolver. But it was actually very encouraging to think that they were going to feign this execution and not go through with it. Right. And it was encouraging to me to think that, yeah, they were going to hammer me around and get me pretty bloody, but they probably weren't intentionally going to kill me.

I guess I worried more about that they would kill me accidentally than intentionally. But, and there were two or three times during the entire experience. One of them as well as being tortured, how when I felt, like I was losing it and I was close to death and they they loosened the ropes because they saw I think that I was getting pretty close to death and so and that you know again that was good because I thought all right this hurts a lot but it looks like they're not going to kill me I may wish I was dead but I don't think they're going to do it now you guys are blindfolded they they capture Gary as well and they're you're you're blindfolded but at this point

they put this kind of marginal blindfold on you that's not working really well so you can actually see and again I'm gonna go to your go ahead and highlight your twisted sense of humor here so here we go you're in the back of an old Russian Jeep back to the book Gary was held captive in the Jeep ahead of mine at the instant I recognized Gary I started calling hysterically for a doctor to tend to his burned arms the guards restrained me violently screaming foreign but distinct warnings to attempt no more communication I did however shout one more thing I don't know why unless it was for morale I shouted out these people are a thousand

years behind in blindfolds and it says later the POWs who were in nearby cells heard heard you screaming that and still laughed about it so I'm glad you kept your sense of humor. You know, sometimes I look back on that and think that I was in some form of shock. Right. Because, I mean, who would come up with that? Who would write this stuff? And they bring you in.

They kind of parade you guys around, and you hear cameras clicking, and eventually you get put into New Guy Village, and you get put into You know a torture Basically a torture room so here you go back to the books Several torture cells in the prison The green knobby room So called because the walls and ceiling were covered with gobs of plaster the size of golf balls

Which looked somewhat like mud-dobber nests The globs had a particular function Acoustics to muffle human sound Now you get through this day sunset I had different in seeing what was beyond myself so I began reminiscing about the world of active life I had loved so much Outside my every minute had been filled outside I had been king the skies Outside I had been continually learning doing accomplishing I had been proud so very proud and now I was tired so tired so tired so perplexed and so perplexed and I was tired so perplexed and

so confined so very lonely the trauma of overwhelming changed caused my mind to reel with this orientation I was afraid I stared at the emptiness shadows crept up the walls gradually becoming more pronounced curiously a vague ghost-like impression materialized the image took the appearance of the master with arms outstretched a symbol it was strange yet something I felt I should expect I began to utter the first lines of the 23rd Psalm the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth me beside the still waters he restores my soul he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake I repeated it aloud

several times not because of any deep religious drive but because it simply seemed the thing to do and then I prayed I considered making a deal with God but rejected the idea I made no big promises and asked for no miracles just strength strength to endure the hardship and strength for my wife and It would be difficult for her too. Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that was certainly where I was. An interesting point here is that in Colonel Reader's podcast, you found the same thing that he went to the 23rd Psalm.

And again, it was just almost like, well, this is what I should do. Well, I say there's no atheists in foxholes, and I guess there aren't any in the prison camp. Although you do talk about some atheists in the prison camp. I do, as a matter of fact, a couple of guys consider themselves atheists. Yeah. And you know, you also talk about faith, and one of the things that I will get to this, but when you talk about faith, you're, you talk about faith, not just in God, but faith in your country and the one that I think that regardless of, of what someone's religious beliefs are, faith in yourself. Absolutely.

And I think all three of those are whichever one of those faiths where you find strength in time like this, lean on it. Absolutely. And faith in the team as well. And we had to have faith in each other. And that was awfully important to be a part of a group like that that could trust one another.

How quickly did you realize that there was, that you were part of, I guess we'll get to it. But I mean, when you first got, you're in this room, did you feel completely isolated at first and there's no one else here? No, no, I knew that there were other prisoners there. I could hear them.

You know, some of them were being tortured as I was. I could hear the torture. I could, you know, I could peek out sometimes and see them walking by myself. So I knew there were other prisoners in the area, and they just wouldn't let me, they wouldn't let me talk to them. So the interrogation begins. the torture begins we're going back to the book we read copy regulations you obey you live no trouble okay

i did not respond first regulation you answer all question the way that the north vietnamese justified torture was peculiar when they asked me questions and wanted military answers I was not tortured to answer questions but punished for disobeying camp regulations what what airplane you fly I'm sorry I can't tell you lamb and they were calling you lamb what airplane to answer this question was of course not in my rules I'm sorry I can't answer that the officer again reminded me about the punishment for disobeying camp rules You talk me or you talk steel To which you responded bring it on the two higher ranking officials left the remaining officer with one word ordered the guards forward

They brought it on the steel mentioned by the interrogator consisted of iron manacles shackles and a leg bar The shackles were cylindrical iron bars shaped like horseshoes but rounded at the end so the that the five-foot leg bar could be slipped into them and locked the prisoner's ankles could then be forced through the openings and secured by the bar the junior officer walked out guards blindfolded me forced my wrist behind my back and placed the open jaws of the manacles around them these had obviously been intended for the more modest Vietnamese arms they were so small that they had to be forced together just so the screw could be seated in the the bottom of the threads with what looked like a roller skate key a guard began to turn the

screw my skin was pinched between the metal and quickly succumbed to the vice I screamed in agony surely the guards wouldn't get these things much tighter blood oozed down my hands and still the guard kept turning the key like powerful magnets the iron was finally set flush. Circulation stopped. My hands burned, grayish blue, tingled, and became numb. A guard then wrapped a rope first around my left elbow and then around my right and drew my elbows together behind my back. My shoulder muscles writhed, and I feared that my sternum would separate.

I gasped for air. Then I was thrown abruptly to the floor shackles were jammed around my ankles and the leg bar was fastened and padlocked Electric wire similar to the kind that I had hidden underneath the table was brought forward I thought that the guards were going to use this to shock me but typical of the Vietnamese they didn't have anything else to use for rope and it torn the wire down from some light fixtures This became the apparatus to wrap me up it was first tied to the manacles then thrown over my shoulder and at last secured to the shackles around my ankles guards forced a bamboo pole under the wire and started rotating it so that the wire contracted bringing my wrists up high on my back and drawing my face

completely to my ankles I was a human pretzel a teacup with arms for a handle and the rest of my distorted body for the bowl circulation was impaired through my limbs making them extremely painful to the touch the guards apparently drugged exhibited wide and glassy eyes they maliciously kicked me in the sides the limbs the back and the head giggling and having a great time they picked me up a few feet from the floor and dropped me since I was on my side most of the time they especially enjoyed standing on my head symbolically victorious The rubber tires sandals tore at my ear.

My face, a ready target for abuse, was repeatedly subjected to fisticuffs and kicks. I remember staring at the floor and seeing my tears drop in a pools of blood coming from my nose. The louder I screamed, the more they flailed. After about an hour, the junior officer returned. You talk now? Yes. The guards loosened the wires and ropes blood rushed back into my veins with knifing pain What airplane you fly I hesitated a moment at the thought

Well, they know the airplane I'm flying and so ridiculous to undergrow such torture for information they already have The F4 B that part right there. I mean will you hesitate for a moment and then you say to yourself okay These guys shot me down in an F4 which crashed into this paddy and they know exactly what I was flying This is not make sense for me to get this kind of abuse and torture for something that they already know And when you came to that conclusion How did you did you did you did you did you? Was it pretty we feeling comfortable with it in your mind when you came to close? Look. This is stupid No, I was really never comfortable at all in that and I felt very guilty I was very, really it was very remorseful that I had not been as strong as I wanted to be.

And through the, you know, the first several months of that experience, I felt like, I felt very guilty about having given up. You know, fighter pilots are not supposed to give up. You know, we were, but this, and the code of conduct, of course, name rank, serial number, date of birth. I flew over the enemy thinking that I was strong enough and I was good enough and suddenly I was thrust into this situation. And I even wondered, would I ever be able to go back to my country? Can I face my fellow fighter pilots that were stronger, you know, and tougher? And I found out that that feeling was across the board.

every P-O-W that I ever ran into felt guilty. And some guys even considered suicide because they felt like they could never live with the guilt of having given up. And it was quite a revelation to me

when I finally made contact with another prisoner and confessed to this guy. I remember my first contact and I said, I said, I need to confess something to you. And when I tell you what I've done,

you may not want to communicate with me. You may hate me. And if our roles were reversed, I would probably hate you if you did what I did. Because I assumed that I was the only one that ever gave in. And so he said, this is Bob Shoemaker. He said, what did you do, Plum? I said, well, I broke.

I tried to be strong, but I wasn't. I broke. and his response, and we're talking on the end of a wire, we're tugging on a wire to communicate with each other with this secret code that he had just taught me. He said, hell, everybody broke. He said, there's not a man in this camp that is as strong as he wanted to be. He said, so get over yourself, you know.

And that was a great revelation in my mind, you know, to know that I wasn't the only one that had given in. As you continue this and again, you might have felt like you broke at this point, but there's still some unbelievable spirit that you show. And I'm going back to the book. Around the courtyard in a nearby room, my co-pilot Gary Anderson was undergoing about the same treatment. As soon as I heard him exploding obscenities, I knew he was near. Hey, Gary, you all right?

called the guards are immediately on top kicking and striking Gary heard me and yelled back it was four years later that I came across a P-O-W who had been in a cell close to ours at the time he said boy that was one of the craziest things I ever heard you yelling hey Gary are you all right bang crunch thud fine how about you smack crash crack eventually get They're gonna take you and kind of parade you in front of Vietnamese people and Going back to the book the officer briefed me once more I was to walk with my head down until he gave me the command Let people see face The guards removed the cuffs and I pump my hands and twitch my shoulders to restore circulation

The guards carefully directed me to the door removing the blindfold and warned me not to look around They then prodded me down the hallway lined with photographers and journalists a group can composed of Orientals and a few Caucasians with the officer at my side I walked out of the building onto the patio where a battery of motion cameras started whirring The officer shouted to me let people see face Slowly and deliberately I looked up staring blankly into space bowed deeply to the cameras and lowered my head I was uneasy about this entire charade Feeling a combination of resentment and embarrassment at being featured as a sides show attraction and What I didn't know at the time was it was Ho Chi Men's birthday.

And so that was part of the celebration was I was being presented to the president of their country as a birthday gift, popping out of a cake. And the good news was that I was in the media, that they were taking. pictures of me and so after a few months my family saw those pictures right and and so that was the good news about being shot down on the 19th of May so that was the first indication that people knew that you were actually okay right or you were alive maybe not okay a strong word didn't mean to say okay you were alive the the the picture that was taken and and transferred to my family has me with my eyes closed and my face was pretty well swollen.

And my little brother thought that I was dead. He thought that was a picture of a dead man. And so, but I think most people, you know, thought, yeah, no, he's alive. You actually get, how did you get stabbed, bayoneted? So you were about to fall or something? Actually, I was, I was being prodded to walk faster by these guys. And I was hurting at the time. You know, I was injured from the ejection.

And I wasn't able to walk very fast. And I was blindfolded as well. And so I hit a rut in the road. And these guards with their bayonet fixed behind me, stabbed me in the thigh. And so that was, in fact, that was the worst wound that I had. And it festered for months because I had no medical care. and but I never really knew if it was intentional or it was accidental but that was that was how I got that wound now you get back in and they're going to give you they give you the rules for the first time that you're supposed to follow and the guy reads him to you and I'm just going to I got to read these rules because I think they give a good indication as to what you were facing here we go back to the book you

You are the blackest criminal that this country has ever seen. But due to the lenient, humane policy of the Vietnamese people, if you follow regulations, you live in peace. Regulation number one, criminals must give full and complete answers to questions asked by Vietnamese guard or officer. Number two, criminals must make no noise in room. Number three, criminals must keep room clean and neat and must not mark room so graciously given by Vietnamese people. number four criminals must get up and go to bed at sound of gong number five criminals must get under bed when imperialist aggressor bomb and strafe our sovereign

country number six criminals must say bow cow when they want ask anything number seven criminals must go only in area that guard orders when they go outside of room number eight criminals must bow to every Vietnamese Guards officers and people number nine criminals must not bring anything into room from outside number 10 criminals must not communicate with or look at other criminals in any other room or outside with minor variations these were the rules for the next six years Big one was the communication they didn't want you guys talking to each other No, they didn't and they did all that they possibly could do to

keep us from communicating. But we got very clever and we had a lot of ways to communicate. Now you spent some time in solitary confinement and here we go back to book. During this period of solitary confinement, I had much time to think. From the start, I established a definite schedule for personal reflection and appraisal. This included a two-hour worship service in the morning and a similar one in the evening. I spent much time praying, talking informally with God. and recalling as many scriptures, verses, and Bible stories as I could. I also revived the words and tunes to songs from a Tennessee Ernie Ford album that I'd enjoyed on the Kitty Hawk.

Once in a while I would start humming too loudly, and a guard would bang his rifle against the door. I spent more and more time thinking about intangibles, the purpose for living, ethics, the supernatural, faith, pride because the tangibles which I had identified with were no longer present my aircraft my ship my personal possessions this was the onset of a thorough reexamination of my life often these intricate thought processes ended in slumber one of the the interesting things that are really most difficult to understand is how we had

nothing going on. You know, I mean, the average American has hundreds of thousands of inputs every day, colors and sounds and smells and touch and all these things. And when you're in a little prison cell, especially if you're in solitary confinement, you know, you might hear a bird, you know, and that's delightful. That's a big deal, you know, to hear a bird and nothing else. So, again, the good news and the bad news is your mind goes internal and you start, you have to, you have to create things on your own. And so you think about these intangible things and you go back through your life and you think about the things that sustain life and why we are here because there's nothing else to do.

Did you put some kind of structure around your thoughts? It seems like people might have a tendency just to let their mind wander and maybe it wanders into places they don't want it to wander into. No, there was a lot of structure to it. And in fact, one of the things I did was to go back through my life to the very first memory that I ever had at three years old in Lecompton, Kansas, when my grandmother came through and wanted everybody to go with her. Well, and I remember that date. And then I went from that to the day that I was shot down and tried to remember every book I'd ever read, every friend I'd ever met, every girl I'd ever dated, every teacher, books, movies, experiences. And it took me about, as I recall, maybe three months working pretty hard on that total autobiography in my mind. And after that, then I would continue to go back through those individual days and try to remember something else, you know, a different color that I'd forgotten or a different person that was in the room.

And whenever I would, when I would discover something that I hadn't discovered the first three months, it was like, it was like meeting an old friend. I could think about that one person or that one book or whatever, you know, for an entire day. And so it was just, it was a way of, of using that time and making the time go by by working our minds. Did you somehow catalog the days in your mind? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was a, it was a chronology. It was, and most everybody did that. And a lot of guys did it much better than I.

They could tell you, you know, what was going on this day last year, the year before and the year before. they you know they they they could remember everything had it all packed away but yes it was very well categorized finally get some pair of pants couple pairs of pants couple shirts some underwear undershirt toothbrush and some soap and you are going to use it for the first time i stripped and with my little drinking cup doused myself with water lathered with my new bar of soap and rinsed shedding a two-week layer of grime and sweat then I shaved using a double-edged razor which had no handle at last I was clean no itchy beard no reeking body I put on my new clothes and wondered what impressions I would now make on the newly captured POWs

dressed in fresh habilment I experienced a sublime physical and mental catharsis even the pain of my wounds seemed to wash away with the Filth. Fifteen minutes later, I was back in my cell, re-inspired to outlast any Vietnamese endeavor to debase me. The door opened. I waited for something to happen. And then, in the doorway, sauntered in a tall man, back hunched and forehead deeply lined. He studied me with uncertain eyes. An American. Another American. I rushed to the door as quickly as I could and grasped his hand, a hand which was completely numb from inadequate circulation at the elbows. Hi, I said, I'm Charlie Plum.

So now you're linked up with another American. I am. Kay Russell was shot down the same day I was. And so he and I were, he was my first roommate. And, you know, I was in the same cell with a lot of different guys. And they moved us around a lot, about every six months. months they'd move us around, but they would give us different roommates every few months or take them all away and I was in solitary confinement again. And we never really knew why, but we

assumed that it was tried to destroy any fraternization with the guards and try to disrupt any unity within the prisoners. And so, in fact, sometimes it's a little bit difficult to describe exactly what it was like because we were in different camps and different cells and you were different guys for the entire six years. But didn't you like it when you got a new roommate? Because it's like you kind of explained. It's like now you have a bunch of stuff to talk about with this person. Absolutely.

Absolutely. It was glorious, you know, to find a, because, you know, he, of course, had all of the stories and he had the movies that he could tell you about and the things that he had learned and that he could teach you. So, you know, it was wonderful. Now, that would last for maybe a few months until you ran out of the things. And then it became almost like a marriage, you know,

where you've got those periods of time. Honey mood periods over. Well, exactly. Well, the fact of the matter is, you couldn't, in some of those cells, you couldn't be more than eight or ten feet away from a guy 24-7 for months and months and months at a time. Right.

And so little things start to bug you, you know. Yeah. And not the least of which was our toilet. You know, the toilet was a two-gallon bucket in the corner. And lots of times it was rusted out at the top with no lid. And it was just quite a, you know, it stunk to high heaven in a lot of the cases. And it was quite an irritant. Yeah.

You guys established a routine Once you got in there and you know there's a whole chapter in the book called routine And you're waking up at 6.30 in the morning You're doing prayer at that time You're at seven o'clock You're you're practicing piano Which I like right? You're practicing piano and that was just from memory

You had you ever played piano before? I had I had not now. What I did know was that my span from my pinky to my thumb was not was a I was I could span nine notes on a piano and so I laid out a keyboard on my board bed and I knew where the black keys were and I had played in in the band and I also played guitar so I knew a little bit about chords and scales and that kind of thing and I thought well I've always wanted to play the piano you know now's my chance this this piece of wood looks good to me yes yeah this this is a work and then and then and it and eight o'clock you're doing push-ups yep and sit-ups and leg lifts and whatever else so you're doing some some physical training and then you have school the school bell rings at 930 a.m. And you guys are you guys are learning and teaching each other whatever you can possibly teach each other. Whatever subject you were good at you were going to teach. We did.

And it was serious stuff. As a matter of fact, when we got home, University of Maryland gave us credit for what we had, you that the courses we had taught, you know, without books or paper or PowerPoints or instructors or professors or anybody, because we were so intent on using that time for something of value. And these guys, most of them smarter than I,

would go back through their minds and recapture all of the subjects that they had learned. One of the guy, Joe Milligan, I was with him, I don't know, the first few months, I guess, and he taught a course on chemistry. No, no, biology. It was biology. And I'd never taken a course in biology, and I was very interested. And his course lasted about a week, and that's all he knew.

But Joe, and I live with him for a while, would lay back on his rack about an hour a day and just think about biology. And after being there for six years, his course lasted six months. And he knew everything from protozoas to metazos and all of this, just because that was back there in his mind. So he was able to recall that information?

He could recall that. If you dug deep enough. And it is amazing, you know, what's back in there in your human brain. And we found that out. If you think about something long enough and hard enough, and again,

had these distractions of everyday life that there's an awful lot stored back in there yeah i had to bring this one up too because you talked about how you didn't have powerpoint or whatever you didn't have pens and chalkboards and here you go often in my dreams i must admit i envisioned leaving the noy hilton going home looking for and finding a brand new yellow pencil and bringing it back to my cell Or I would dream of entering shops containing nothing but rows and rows of pencils I've never since taking a pencil for granted That's you know we take so much for granted I mean we take so much for granted and and to think about that right there and what what power a pencil gives you the power to take notes the power to create the power to draw the power to write This incredible power comes from this little thing that we just gaff off like it's meaningless

That's right. And for you to have that much appreciation for it that you would dream about it at night. True. Yeah, it's incredible. 10 o'clock you'd eat. And what was the food? What was the food? Did you just eat rice balls?

Yeah, mostly rice. That was the mainstay. You'd, you know, you get a small bowl of rice twice a day. Once about 10 o'clock, once about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And then you had a 20-hour stretch with nothing to eat. Sometimes they'd give you a bowl of rice. broth and sometimes it would be some kind of vegetable turnips or weeds of some kind. One we call sewer soup.

You couldn't identify this stuff. But I didn't eat, you know, there was not enough meat to put in a coffee cap for a year. You know, it really was no, there was no meat of any variety. How much did you weigh when you got out? I weighed about 140 when I came home, but they fattened us up before we came home. And I figured most of the time I was there about 115 pounds. Did you ever, was the hunger, did the hunger go away? Did you just grinding hunger or did you just get used to it?

It went away for the most part, you know, after, I don't know, four or five months. your your stomach sort of shrinks and when you know that there's nothing else to eat and so you know that they in all fairness they gave us enough to keep us alive and and so that you know and rice is a pretty perfect food

this is unpolished rice it wasn't the uncle Ben's that we have today and there's a lot there's protein in there and there's nutrients in the rice so that kept me live yeah at dusk you guys would have showtime and people would do what you're talking about describing everything and every movie they've ever seen every book they've ever read and all that and uh you mentioned it here that in the beginning of confinement the movies that would get described or created because people are creating movies too right in their

head. Yes. Yes. And they went from PG to triple X over time. So did anybody come out and execute on some of these ideas that they had? Is there anybody that came out and said, yeah, I followed this movie or I found this book. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In fact, several guys had great plans. One guy was a farmer and he had planned a pig farm. That was his whole thing. And he did. He came back and he, I live with a guy by the name of Danny Glenn, who was an architect or student at the University of Oklahoma. And Dan and I were together for a lot of years. And he dreamed about building this home. And that's all he thought about was building this dream house. And he had several little things about this home. that were very peculiar.

One of them was as the sunlight would come through the top of the wall around our prison, the wall was capped with barbed wire and electrical wire and broken glass. The glass was from bottles of various colors. And in one particular cell that Dan and I were in, the sun would come through the glass, the colored glass, and onto this tank of water and then reflect up under the under. the eaves of our fatched roof and into our cell. So he had all these colors. And it was a beautiful thing, you know, it was a kaleidoscope of colors. And so he designed a house. And he figured this

whole thing out, you know, with the asthma of the sun and in all of this stuff and how he was going to do this. But, and he would lay this out, and he would draw on the concrete floor with a piece of brick. And he was a great artist. You know, the, you know, the, The guy could design all this stuff. And, of course, he wanted me to be involved in this and bore me to tears. Charlie, what color do you think my bathroom ought to be? I don't know, Dan, I don't know. No, Charlie, green or blue?

I don't know, green, Dan, green. Okay, so we get home in about a year after I was living in Kansas, and he was in Oklahoma, and he called me up. Charlie, I got something to show you. And so I had a little airplane at the time, and I flew down to Norman, Oklahoma. And he picked me up at the airport, and we drove outside of town.

From about a quarter of a mile away, I saw this house that I recognized, but I'd never been in Norman, Oklahoma. And I swear I could have walked in that house and touched any faucet or any light switch, you know, on the whole place, because it was exactly as he had designed at the prison. Unbelievable.

So I went to the bathroom and it was blue. He had gone back. You know, he had built it from building materials that he had remembered. And over the years that we were there, they changed. And so there were some of the, it was not available. And so he went to these old lumber yards and he would find the building materials that he had planned this house with and used those to build his house.

But it was incredible. But yeah, a lot of the guys, a lot of, of the guys wanted to sail around the world. You know, a lot of us Navy guys knew how to sail, and that was the big fantasy, was to take a sailing trip around the world. And two or three of the guys actually did that when they came home. Awesome. The guards, some of the guards were pretty sadistic.

And here we go back to the probably the most sadistic practice of all was a game involving mice or puppies. Guards would douse them with gasoline, set them on fire, and turned them loose to squeal and Scurry in search of relief from the heat and the soldiers were chasing with sticks playing polo with their live fireballs Until the little animals blackened and died So you had some serious sadists just doing evil things And you say you didn't see anything Book magazine newspaper lyrics a song written speech any billboard or anything while you were there that wasn't just a hundred percent propaganda

That's true you know Their music doesn't talk about love except for love of Ho Chi men and love of their country and dedication to that. It's really incredible how they just fill the minds of their people with this propaganda. And, you know, you tell somebody long enough and loud enough and they believe it. And that's, you know, that was the whole country. At one point, you got this propaganda newspaper and it's the front page headline was that there's been a revolution. in rice planting technique and you were thinking yourself oh man they must have invented some big machine that can like plan all the rice and now they don't have to be out there on doing the manual

labor in the fields and here's the actual article for 4,000 years the Vietnamese people have been laboring sweating and toiling in the mud and water of rice patties we've discovered a revolutionary method of planting rice through extensive research we have found that instead of grasping the rice sprouts and planting them with the palm of the hand facing downward It is much more efficient to plant the rice sprouts with the palm of the hand facing upward. So there's the propaganda coming at you. And there's the advancement of the, you know, them trying to tell the people how we're moving forward in the world. And that was another thing that surprised me or it didn't surprise me, but how, what their understanding, you know, their brainwashed and their understanding of what American culture was like.

And when you'd say, well, yeah, I have a car. and I have an air conditioner to them that was just unbelievable because the only people that could afford that in Vietnam were the state itself. True. And they assumed that if you had a car, you could carry pigs or chickens or something in your car because that was the whole purpose of any kind of transportation

was a haul something around. And they were really surprised that you could actually just get in the car and go wherever you wanted to go. And they also thought that a third of Americans we're starving to death. So that's, you know, something to think about always when you deal with these countries

where people are being indoctrinated and they're being fed information from the state. It's going to be lies. And you can't be surprised when they believe something like that. You just have to say, that's what they believe.

How do we re-educate them? I went back to Vietnam. First time in 43 years, I hadn't been back. And a lot of things had changed, you know, I mean, they still call themselves a communist country, but, oh, by the way, capitalism is alive and well. But the propaganda still exists there. And I took my family with me, my wife and three of our four kids. And in the 11 days that I was there, I never met anyone.

And I was at the embassy. I spoke to the students at the university. I spoke to the university. I spoke to cab drivers and waitresses and anybody, and they're really, really nice people and very, very nice to me, but nobody knew that Americans had been tortured in the Vietnam War. And in fact, it was just the opposite. They all would tell you

that we got better treatment than the soldiers did and better medical care than the soldiers did. And so, in fact, in one of the last days I was there, I ran into a lady in a park selling card, postcards. And she was missing one leg. And she was about my age. And so I sort of piece this thing together. And she said, want to buy a postcard?

Well, I'll buy a postcard, but I went to hear your story. Sit down on this park bench and tell me your story. And she did. I said, how'd you lose your leg? She said, linebacker two. linebacker two was the code name for the B-52 bombings that ended the war in the Christmas of 1972. But it was a secret code name, you know, and for her to say, she didn't call it an air raid or a bomb or anything else. She's called her linebacker two.

That was our, you know, that was her pilot jargon, not her jargon. And I said, what was the date? She said 24 December, 1972. So I knew that she wasn't lying to me. She said B-52. Oh, yeah. Well, so we talked for maybe 30 minutes on that park bench. And she spoke very good English.

And at one point I said to her, you speak excellent English. You could be an interpreter. You could be a guide. Why are you out here making a living, selling postcards in a park? She said, oh, my country would never give me a permit because I'm an invalid. Ah, man, what a country.

And then I said, well, do you know about the museums? Oh, yeah, I know all about the museums. It's in the Hano-Hilton Museum. See, they've made a museum out of my old prison camp. The Hanoi Hilton is now a museum. And I said, well, how were the prisoners treated at the museum? Oh, they were treated great. They had great food.

They played volleyball. They had ping pong. I said, how do you know this? She said, oh, documentaries. The government shows us documentaries. And so she finally figured out that I was about her age. And she said, were you a pilot? I said, yeah, I was a pilot.

She said, B-52? I said, no, I flew F4 Phantoms. Oh, so were you flying on the 24th of December of 1972? I said, no, I was right here with you. I was in the Hano Hilton and I was being tortured. She said, no, that's impossible. That can't possibly be true. I could not convince this lady that I would, that I, or anybody else.

So the propaganda is alive and well. They continue to tell their people the lies and the folks have no way of figuring it out. You know, it's another thing that you point out in the book on that culture or that system of government. Back to the book, the Vietnamese rarely exerted themselves. Why should they? If they were going to get a meal at all, they'd eat regardless of whether they worked for it or not. They didn't worry. They didn't have to.

The state was responsible for their welfare as well as their guidance. Even the upkeep of state property was not their problem. So the scary thing when... It really is. When, you know, when folks are indoctrinated to that level. And, but it's so prevalent, you know, and they tried to do the same thing with us. They tried to brainwash us. And it was more important.

And you were kind of worried about that too in the beginning, right? Like you thought it was something you needed to be concerned about. And then you saw that how ridiculous. kill us all this. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, they, they used a lot of the Russian military equipment, but they never invited the Russians in to try to brainwash us. And we felt very, very happy about that because their brainwashing techniques were so silly. And, you know, they would tell us just unbelievable things that we laughed at. But you thought the Russians would do a better job? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sure they would have. But more important than the rice we ate or the water we drank, and every prison

cell I was in, the first thing they put in there was a speaker. And, you know, lots of the prison camps didn't have any electricity at all, but they had speakers. And they were put well above our reeds so we couldn't turn them off or adjust the volume. And several times a day, they would come on with propaganda and telling us, you know, how bad we were and how terrible our country was and how wonderful they were. And, and, and, it was pretty easy to turn these guys off, you know, just to ignore the, the broadcast. But it was also very concerning, you know, to see that that's the way they, it's the way they indoctinate their own people. Horrible. You talked about, a little bit You talked about the communication and and what that was all about and you had this the first time you were in your cell

You hear a little scraping and eventually you go over and it's a little wire and and eventually a note comes through it and here we go back the book It had a piece of toilet paper tied to it I unfolded it and found these words memorize code eat note The code was easier to memorize than the note was to eat but I did both I rechecked the door sat back down on the honey bucket and tugged on the wire the code was a series of tugs which represented letters the alphabet and it's it's basically a five by five code ABC DG EFG and that is how you guys communicated and that had to be how long does it take to have a conversation with that code because you give you know one two tugs to go down and then one two three tugs to go across how long is it

take these conversations must have taken a long time well that's true but that That was the beauty of it because that's all we had was time. And that was a very good way of whaling away the hours, tugging on the wires, tapping on walls or sneezing and wheezing. We had all kinds of ways to communicate. And we took great pride in our communication effort. And the sneezing and wheezing and wheeze, that just, was it more? How did the sneezing and wheezing work, coughing?

It was the same kind of thing, you know. it was all based around this five by five matrix of the alphabet. And so a cough would be one, a sneeze would be two, a wheeze would be three, and so forth, so that two sounds would equal a letter. And we use this in a lot of different ways. If a guy was outside chopping wood for a fire, for instance, and he would chop in this code, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. chop chop chop chop and it was what we called it we called it a radio station because everybody could hear it

and and so if if a new guy came into the camp and and we knew who the president was because you know lots of we did we had no information at all or knew who won the world series for instance why that was really big deal you know to get out there and and chop the wood in the radio station and and tell the entire camp who was the president. Did the guards ever catch on to that five-by-five code? Yes, occasionally. A couple of guys were tortured to reveal the code. But they could, but they were, it was really interesting

because they were so uncoordinated that they couldn't replicate the code. And they, on several cases, they tried to trick us. and they would empty out a cell, and they would go into that cell and try to tap on the wall or tug on the wire in the code. And we knew immediately that it wasn't an American. And you guys would get, like I said,

it's interesting, you laid out two things that first the Vietnamese were like pretty much okay with stealing. And so you wouldn't get punished for stealing that bad, but the communication thing is what they would definitely punish you for. Yep, true. Yeah. That, I mean, that's the same thing.

I mean, when we'd capture prisoners overseas, we don't want them to talk to each other. We'd separate them and you don't want them to talk to each other. And at some point, you started getting letters and receiving letters. And how did that change the environment? Well, you know, first of all, we were just overjoyed to see that our families, you know, that my wife was okay. and that they knew that we were alive.

And so it was a wonderful connection that we made. Now, we call them letters, but actually they were postcards, and they were highly edited. It began with the postcards were just blanked out, and then the Vietnamese decided that's not good enough. They actually would cut out certain words. And so you get a postcard of six lines and maybe of the six lines there might be 15 words that were just cut out with a pair of scissors so that sometimes you really

couldn't figure it out what they were trying to say. But, you know, the fact that that was in the handwriting of a loved one was was very comforting. And yet those bastards, and I use that term very, specifically for this situation the dear John letters they'd leave those completely good to go and turn those over yeah you know I say bastards for that's that kind of behavior some bastards yeah they were quick to to tell us that our wives had filed for divorce or that you know our parents had died or that any bad news they were they were very quick to promote yeah the chain of command

You know here you are in this prison camp and you guys all you know you figured out you realize we need to have a chain of command and you put that structure into place And when you did that did that I mean it seems like it would have it seems like that gave you guys so much strength as an as a group to get in the chain of command to organize yourselves it seemed like that gave you guys so much strength and and fortitude as you as you were there It was absolutely our survival, was our chain of command. What you don't know in reading my book, because there only happened two or three years ago, a study was done of all the combatants of Vietnam, of all the million and a half people that were exposed to that war, 30.6% have PTSD. Almost a third of the combatants in Vietnam, post-traumatic stress disorder, of the prisoners of war, 4% of us have PTSD. And it's primarily the guys who were shot down near the end of the war were only prisoners for a few weeks or a month or two.

And what we really believe, this is spelled out in another book called Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton, which was written about two years ago. Lessons from the Hano Hilton explains that the reason why we came back and are in such great shape is because of the unit that we had in the United States, and the leadership that we had in the prison camps. Because of the 591 guys came home. And of the 591, and they thought we'd be in baskets. They thought we'd be vegetables. They had our families brief to institutionalize us for the rest of our lives. That's what they thought was coming home from the prison camp.

And what can you expect? From 591 guys, we've produced 17 generals, seven admirals, most of us retired as senior grade military officers. We have doctors and lawyers and preachers and teachers and teachers. and bishops and judges. We have a bunch of congressmen, two United States senators, two ambassadors. We have a vice presidential candidate, a presidential candidate, my old flight instructor, John McCain.

And they're telling us today we're healthier mentally and physically than if we hadn't been shot down. And it was primarily because of the leadership, the chain of command that we had over there, the unity that we found and the purpose. That's what the leadership in the prison camp did for us. Jim Stockdale was our senior SRO, senior residing officer in the prison camp for a long time. And he said, we are no longer victims of circumstance beyond our control. We are not on the defensive here.

We are military men. We are combatants. And we will pursue this war until our last breath. And so what that did was it gave us a reason to live, a reason to be, a reason to unify. And the way we fought the war from the prison camp was to try to deny them any propaganda. Because as you've already said, Jocko, that this, the propaganda was the mainstay. I mean, that was, that was, numero uno in their world was propagandizing. And they felt that, that they could use us to tell the rest of the world how wonderful communism was and how terrible capitalism was and how they were right and we were wrong.

And so they would force guys to make tapes or write letters to the anti-war element and, you know, proclaim the wonderful nature of communism. And so our job was to defend against this. And so we set up all kinds of methods so that we would deny them any propaganda. Or even in some cases, we would even go farther than to deny the propaganda. We would use their tools against them and that we would tell the world that, oh, by the way, we are being tortured. And oh, by the way, you know, these guys are attacking our neighbor in South Vietnam. And so that was the big effort. And, you know, like I said, this whole thing just came out a few years ago that this was the big reason that we did so well and that we're so healthy mentally and physically today was because we had this chain of command.

And on top of that, and this is what I've really, one of the big points I wanted to talk about today was what you're just hitting on is that people have. this idea that the military chain of command is this rigid structure and that's why it survives and that's but that but you guys were put into a position that it was yes there's a military chain of command just like I had in the SEAL teams and if you if you think in the SEAL teams that I was the guy that was in charge and I was barking the orders and everyone was falling everything I said to it's like no it wasn't like that it's a much more collaborative deal and you you and and this really became clear one section of the book here I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna to read that what you were dealing with and how challenging this leadership position was

for the people that were leading so here we're going back to the book making sure that everyone was on our team was the first of many objectives understanding the rules of the game was the second it was assumed that all of us had a basic knowledge of the military discipline and the code of conduct this code a very general document was open to many interpretations how we construed the code often depended on the severity of the situation no longer could we pick up a telephone and call the Pentagon for advice the broad spectrum of the code divided the men into at least two groups those who were disciplinarians by nature and

interpreted the code strictly and those who were liberal and rendered the code loosely we called these two groups the tough guys and the softies but this is this is the key part right here softie was not deroggy The name simply indicated a different approach to the code tough guys who referred to the line I will never surrender of my own free will Sometimes flaunted their incorrigibility and taunted the guards The Vietnamese answered with torture and the tough guys occasionally relinquished more information than the softies who never committed themselves Regardless of our attitudes we were all in the same boat each of us had acquiesced to the Vietnamese control to some extent and whether accepting cigarettes or bowing to guards the line which separated the tough guys from the softies was often unclear the important thing was to display unity regardless of our individual philosophies we clearly understood that the Vietnamese would capitalize on any chinks they found in our armor unity didn't evolve automatically learning its value required from us such introspection and sacrifice how could a

Camp SRO appease the softies if he interpreted the code too strictly or if he was too lax for the tough guys he was in an untenable position having little control over the actions of men in other rooms he had excessive responsibility but none of the tools of authority no reduction of salary suspension of liberty court martial indeed most of the fellows he had never seen his only association being a tap on the wall or a scribbled message to meet this impractical setting the SRO wielded gentle sticks of diplomacy they knew we were not boots meaning boot camp guys fresh out of boot camp who who asked how high at the command to jump we were all trained leaders who acted independently for the first few years the SRO's

authority was limited to advice rather than orders realizing the importance of unity we respected his this advice as though it were in order what if we refused an order on the basis that it did not come from the commander but rather from five men who interpreted it through our air ridden system what if compliance to the order brought certain torture we were very alone in answering these questions once I received an order plum request you communicate with captain Abbott at all costs what did the SRO mean by at all costs Did it include being caught and put in leg irons for months at a time? So the way that that is laid out, it reflects not just leadership in a prison camp. I'm here to tell you, it reflects leadership in every situation because the minute that you as a leader decide that you're just going to impose your will on other people is where you start to lose respect and people start questioning what you're doing. That's very true. And I think that the way that this comes out and that probably is one of the reasons why you know I didn't know about the the facts that you just told me about the only 4% having PTSD I mean and obviously rattled off all the successful POWs that came out of this horrible situation

But that openness that open mind as leaders and and As subordinates to say look. I'm getting this advice right this is so-called advice from the boss I respect it I'm gonna act on it not because I have to but because I understand the mission I understand why we're doing this and therefore it's not something that's being imposed on me it's something that I am accepting and pushing forward of my own accord that's a huge difference it truly is I I but I must admit that when I first heard about this I I was taken aback and I'm thinking you know this is really silly I've got some

senior officer down to the in-cell of the cell block and he's putting more restrictions on me than I already have, you know. What's you going to do? You know, take away my Liberty card. Throw you in the brig? Yeah, throw me in the brig. Yeah, throw me to brig. I'm there. And I had to be convinced, you know, that this was in our best interest. But it truly was. And obviously that's the reason we came out as healthy as we did was because we we well you know you say it better the most discipline you know a discipline brought about freedom and and it was kind of crazy because we were being restricted even more and yet because of the restriction we had unity which gave

us the freedom yeah yeah and then you guys started taking the broad code of conduct and and specifying it because you guys had so much time into these things that you called plumb Right and you didn't really know what the establishment of the word plums came from but they were they were detailed tenants of how you all were going to carry yourself and you called them plums and they were things like the order that you're going to go home You know not aiding the Vietnamese and in whitewashing the truths The resistance how what level of resistance you were going to give when you were when you were interrogated how much resistance you were going to give with and and and Rescon 6 was just, you know, military bearing, and then Rescon 1 was straight up hunger strike. Mm-hmm.

That was one of greatest displays, I think, that really affected the enemy was when they found out that when our commanding officer of a camp could say, okay, Rescon 3, no more bowing to the enemy. And so throughout the camp, in these individual cells, you know, there might be a commanding of a camp. be there might be 75 different cells and suddenly at the stroke of one one button you know nobody would bow to the guards and it really frightened them to know that we had that much control that much unity and it was a silly thing but it but it really felt so good you know that that we had that we had some leverage here and and the the other thing was that how you stayed unified was by not accepting favors and then you had it just the dichotomy of leadership right you got a balance between hey if I can accept a favor and it's gonna help us and it's gonna make me healthier it's gonna then I should probably do it but then they put this then that the commander the SRO would put a a restriction or a reasonable time frame so this was a classic example because I already talked about how how how in love you were with pencils at this point and at some point you got a pencil somehow you got up they gave you a pencil and you know the word spread that you guys had a pencil and the the the report or the

the direction came back was okay you have 30 days to get more pencils so we're all equal or you got to give the pencil back right and you didn't get any more pencils and you had to give that pencil back yep that's but that you can see how when you how unified you are and how just like you said that shows the the the guards and the camp leaders, hey, we are unified. You can't break us. You can't give somebody some special help

and not give it to everyone. Yeah. Unbelievable. Now, you started talking about this a little earlier, and I had to do a little bit deeper on it because I think it hits a pertinent message, right? So when you talk about living with somebody and how, when you're living with somebody,

and the furthest you can get away from them is eight feet, sometimes I feel like this with echo and we're, you know, we don't even live with this guy, But sitting in this podcast thing for and you start saying, okay, that's good what it's things start to grind on you and irritate you. So whether they were exercise, you get a guy that's going to exercise while you're trying to sleep or you get a guy that snores, which if you've ever dealt with somebody that snores, they can't help, but they don't even know that they sound like a chainsaw in your room. And you deal with, you might get roomed up with somebody that snores every single night. And the worst thing about somebody that snores is when you start thinking that it bothers you. You it bothers you even more right the pacing pacing was another thing that would you know I'm gonna just get up and pace and hey man just sit down So all these things some POWs ate rice a grain at a time a grain at a time and You know they got all these little These little I guess these little idiosyncrasies right and what you eventually said was

I'm gonna take those idiosyncrasies that bothers me about you and I'm gonna take the blame on myself I shouldn't be bothered by this and I'm the one that can't let it bother me and that is a huge difference to what most people do which is hey it's all about me and if you're bothering me you need to change right and your all's attitude was no you know what my attitudes you don't need to change I need to change I need to become more accepting of the way you are that's a big deal if you can make that transition your life you'd be a much happier person that's true and I'm still trying

we all and it's it's one of those things where it really is a game changer because now in you know it's extreme ownership right I'm not gonna blame everything on you for annoying me I'm gonna take it on myself and then sometimes you would you'd have something that really like maybe you couldn't sleep and now you got to talk to somebody else and have have an indirect conversation instead of saying a echo is really bothering me clicking his panel over there it's gonna drive me crazy can you maybe talk to him about his pen etiquette and have him stop that he's not doing it today sir but there was a there was an episode where he had the pen in

his hand things got a little bit fidgety yeah and uh yeah i didn't let it bother me you know what i did brought him a new pen that didn't have the clicker on it i took ownership of that situation you know in today's world we have uh so many people that are so offended by certain things and and it's It's the same principle there is that if you offend me, that's really more of my problem than it is your problem. I'm the one that decides if you offend me. So I need to change my idea of what's offensive. Yeah.

One of the things that, you know, where it's easy to sit and laugh here a little bit about some of this stuff, but one of your chapters is called insanity. and I'm going to the book here the first I knew of it was in the fall of 1968 and I didn't understand an old beat-up French ambulance ram rattled into the courtyard an American wearing prison guard crawled out he weaved like a robot with head down and shoulders slumped it was odd guards never allowed POWs to walk that way we devil timed who was this man had he just come from the hospital was he tortured into semi-consciousness or was he When would we find out? The man was hallucinatory Insisting that his cellmates were communists Peased together with limbs and heads of dead Americans.

Whose arm is that he asked? Is that my pilot's arm? How can you commie speak such good English? Because this man was wasting away, it was necessary for his cellmates to force feed him. The hostile patient was still strong, requiring four or five men to constrain him so that a bamboo stick could be

forced between his teeth another prisoner massed rice down his throat when they finished he would gag himself to regurgitate what he thought was poison from the communists spewing rice all over the room he was entranced when the Vietnamese entered a room he refused to bow angered a guard screamed bow bow bow and whipped his fist across the expressionless face the man continued to stand the guards continued to beat him unmercifully You guys continued to see this every six months or so. We saw our sick POW comrade transported between solitary confinement and the hospital.

We felt helpless. The only way we could assist was with prayer. After September 1970, we never saw him again. There's a little more to that story that I did not know when I wrote the book, that he had been a part of an experiment done by a Cuban. The Cuban came over to the communist country, and as near as we could tell, his sole purpose of being in Vietnam was to establish the breaking point of an American fighting man. And so this guy that I'm talking about in the book, and I didn't know his name at the time I wrote the book, Earl Cobiel, was actually tortured to insanity. And that is why he was insane.

And so his roommates, and he was very belligerent. And I mean, here's another leadership principle, because you've got a group of guys in that prison cell that were being threatened. And some of them had broken bones or lacerations because of this crazy man, he goes on a hunger strike and is going to kill himself by not eating. And they had to decide whether or not they were going to force feed him and keep him alive and bring him back to his belligerents or, or let him die. And so it was quite a dilemma in the prison camp and quite a dramatic time when that was happening. And they did. They forced feed him and brought him back to health.

And then the Vietnamese, for a reason, we never really knew, but possibly because they saw that we had some control. They didn't want us to have that control. They pulled him out of that cell, put him in solitary confinement, and then he died after that. But it was a tragic event that a guy would be tortured to the point of insanity. And that was the purpose of the torture. Exactly. You said they were the purpose. Oh, no, the purpose was to find his breaking point.

Yeah, to find the breaking point. And they found it with this with Cobeel. You have another chapter and we touched on this a little bit earlier about faith. Going back to the book, I will be dumb. That will be done. It seemed presumptuous to try to change God's will to make a deal with the omnipotent if I promised to devote my life to the ministry in exchange for freedom and failed to follow through what then no trying to bargain with God was unfitting From the beginning I offered prayers of acceptance I remembered the experience of seeing the Christ-like shadow in the green knobby room and the comfort I felt in that time of great need

that day I asked God for strength to endure whatever hardship I might face and I prayed for Anne not for her fidelity or success but for tolerance courage and most of all her happiness with or without me I continued this daily prayer now this was faith was not just yours but everyone and here we go again showing some of the power that you guys had as prisoners back to the book thousands of bibles had been sent to us from church groups all over the world but the Vietnamese gave us none asking wasn't enough so we decided to go on a hunger strike our senior officer informed the Vietnamese that we simply didn't want more food until we could have a Bible an uninterrupted worship they retaliated by shutting off

our drinking water after a few days the Vietnamese were ready to settle and so were we they would give us a church service if we abided by certain stipulations the service would be held according to their schedule no one could sing no one could stand and everyone would adhere strictly to camp regulations every word spoken in the ceremony was to be written down for the censors perusal after all the restrictions we hadn't gained much but at least the V had given an inch. After a few weeks later,

the V saw that our services were not militant and relaxed restrictions. They permitted a four-man choir to sing two hymns. Most important, they gave us a Bible for two days. So you guys decided to hold the line on that one. We did. And it wasn't easy. An interesting thing, back to the leadership,

was the guy who promoted this was a was a very staunch Christian guy. The number two in command was an atheist and and and really had no great interest in having a Bible in the cell. And so when the number one guy told the Vietnamese that we were going to go on a hunger strike, they hauled them out of there. They took him away so that the number two guy, the atheist was suddenly in charge. And it was interesting to watch what was going to happen. here and it was very encouraging when the atheist said continue the hunger strike we're going to get this bible that's awesome you talk about their perception of the vietnamese perception of of religion in general back to the book the large majority of vietnamese were not catholic however and when they

discovered us in prayer as they did only the last year they asked what what you derive from this thing god We tried to explain that we received strength, comfort, help, and promise of eternal life. These concepts were too difficult for them, yet many seemed interested and did not mock our beliefs. To the diehard Vietnamese communist, the state was their God. Their truth, their way, their light. The controlling body in the government decreed infallible canons without fear of correction. Whenever peasants asked, who is the power of? the state they were told that they themselves were and that they had control in making

decisions each was told that he was part of the omniscent state he was as long as he didn't interfere I consider my confinement in prison to be spiritually beneficial I was given an opportunity that few men have the time to pause to reflect and to establish priorities I found that my previous value system was a unrealistic stripped of all my material wealth the only beacon I could hone home in on was my faith in an unchanging God and you also went very deep on thoughts around patriotism and here's you're talking about patriotism some POWs were super patriots feeling the United States could do no wrong a few felt that we had made a mistake and it was time

for us to get out. With most of the prisoners, I accepted the fact that we were not perfect, but felt that we were fighting for a worthy cause and should persevere into the end. And this is something I've brought up on many occasions, the fact of how hard we, when I fought in the war in Iraq, and we went through extreme measures to try and protect the civilian populace and the civilian infrastructure. And here's your comments on that. Back to the book, great efforts were made to persevere the lives and property of civilians. Pilots were threatened with court-martial if they failed to pinpoint accurate military targets, even to the extent that they would jeopardize their own lives by swooping just above treetops

to preserve a peasant hut 50 yards from a SAM radar scope. The Vietnamese capitalizing on this made targets especially difficult by placing their military equipment in the middle of peasant hamlets, or next to schools. In fact, several anti-aircraft artillery guns were stationed on hospital rooftops. And your thoughts about the involvement

here, the most powerful free nation in history could not idly watch. The communist world gobble up and dissolve sovereign nations. We had to play the surgeon to excise the malignant disease of mind control.

I don't condone war. I think there are few justifiable reasons for killing in Vietnam war was a last-ditch effort of international diplomacy it was difficult to justify my six years of imprisonment when politicians with expense paid trips to Paris should have solved the problems through negotiation in this case our negotiations were at the end of their rope the communists didn't understand anything but the big hammer when our B-52s shattered Hanoi's defenses with thousands of

of bombs the Vietnamese realized we meant business and this thought here we faced East once a week and pledged our allegiance we contrasted our Bill of Rights and the Constitution to the Communist Manifesto daily we saw how big brother destroyed individuality we compared our lot with that of the guards While prisoners of war were behind bars, the Vietnamese were captives inside their own bamboo borders. We consider ourselves more fortunate than they. One day we would leave ourselves. Powerful statement.

And that's exactly the way we thought was that they were the prisoners. And we weren't. We were always of the belief that we would go home. And they had to stay there. They had to stay in their prison, and we would eventually be released. And you were right. And during the week of 21 to 28 January, 1973, for the first time treatment was actually humane. The Vietnamese set up a volleyball net and allowed us to play or to exercise.

They gave us books and magazines from home. knew something was happening so you guys started a sense that it was and you and you talk about this in the book I didn't go into it much but there was always some people that were what'd you call them the people that would look at the amount of food you got oh yes and they would they would read the amount of rice you'd be given as to some foreseeing the future of how long you're gonna be in there for what'd you call them in the book we call them um I forgot like food itarians or something like that no gas Astronomers.

Gastronomers. Gastronomers. Gastronomers. Yeah. Anyone that said, oh, they gave us more rice. We must be getting ready to be released. And you hear that feeling. It sounds like, you know, once a year, once every 18 months.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, of course, it depended on the person. But some of the guys were so optimistic. And I was an optimist. You know, I would think, you know, home. In fact, when I was first shot down, I thought,

We had finally given him the big blow. You know, we finally brought them to their knees on the 19th of May. And the first few days in prison, I thought, you know, this is really going to be ironic because if the war is over and I fly home and my squadron has to take the ship home, I will be there to greet them when they come home. That's a seriously positive attitude right there. That is optimism. Those poor guys have to ride the ship back. I'm going to be home before them. Oh, man.

That's like I was I've said this before on the podcast I always when I'm in a commercial aircraft flying I always think if this thing blows up in the sky I'm gonna live I'm gonna be that guy You know of course I'm not gonna get killed sure everyone else is gonna die not me And so finally here we go back to the book the camp commander once again called our group together about a hundred and eighty of us old timers It was the first time that all prisoners in the camp were gathered in one place We lined up by buildings and military formation and were called to attention by our acting wing commander, Lieutenant Colonel Norm Gaddis. Although Vietnamese officials did not recognize our rank structure, they said nothing. The camp commander read an announcement, and the interpreter read the translation.

It had been a long time since I had heard English worded so professionally. When he finished and told us that we could go, our wing commander again called us to attention and dismissed. us with bowed heads with heads bowed we walked quietly back to our rooms we were stunned some had waited for these words for over eight and one half years the war was over we were going home did that even feel real at that point and you had your hopes up so many times it really didn't and they'd try to trick us many times you know they would call us in hey sign this confession we'll send you home And so even when it happened for real, we couldn't believe it.

And it wasn't really until finally I got aboard that C-141, and it took off, the wheels and the well. And when there was a little bit of a administrative situation when it came time, because you guys had all knew that you were going to follow the order that you were captive, the sick and injured, we're going to go first. then the enlisted guys were going to go and then order of capture. Exactly. And that was part of the plums. Right. Okay. That was part of all of the rules that we were biding by.

And so we were in, we were numbered. Okay, the second inch of guys went home. And then it was our turn, but by number of the date of shootdown. And they pulled 20 of us out that were out of order of the shootdown date. and we made a big deal of this. And they told us, well, Kissinger told us we almost caused an international incident because for whatever reason that we really never knew for sure except that all 20 of us had some disappointing feature to our return.

And we never knew if that was the reason or not. but we were either coming back to deaths in the family or disease or divorce or that kind of thing, all 20 guys. But we were out of order and we did not know why we were out of order. And so we told them we weren't going home. And it went back and forth for almost a day that we refused to go home. And then finally, Colonel Gaddis just pulled you in and said, listen, you guys are going home. He gave us the direct order.

And then you get to the airport. At the airport the bus halted near pockmark runways. We exited solemnly through a crowd of people, and by microphone we were told to walk to our receiving officer when our names were called. As I heard my name, I stepped past a table where Vietnamese and American representatives marked off the exchange. I saluted a colonel, then another,

and was escorted by an officer who was so excited he could say nothing more than, isn't it great? It's so nice to have you back. We've all been waiting for you. Isn't it great? I felt as though he'd previously composed what he would say, but in his excitement, his record stuck. He was right. It was great.

I walked up on the ramp of the C-1-41 and saw the first Navy uniform. The officer inside that uniform grabbed me and hugged me and told me his name. I didn't know him until he told me he was the briefing officer on the Kitty Hawk the day I was shot down. Gary Morrow and I had once worked many hours together, and now we could joyfully recall old times. As soon as I was in the airplane a nurse kissed me and started the first of a long chain of flash bulbs We were given American cigarettes magazines and information sheets telling us what to expect at Clark Air Force Base The pilot taxied down the runway pushed off pushed the throttles And at the moment of liftoff suddenly it hit us we were off North Vietnamese soil

We screamed above the noise of the engines Minutes later we were soaring above the Gulf of Tonkin and saw some of our ships. The commander of the 7th Fleet sent a message of welcome and Jim returned the radiocom with a thankful acknowledgement. By nightfall, we reached the Philippines and Clark Air Force Base.

As soon as the doors opened, we could see and hear the enthusiasm from what must have been 5,000 people. Banners and bands, choral groups and cheerleaders, everyone seemed to be there. I walked down the ramp, saluted a general, And then an admiral.

As I shook the admiral's hand, I was so overcome with emotion that I hugged him. So you hugged the admiral. That was embarrassing. I don't know why I did that. You know, it was just one of the world. Sir, can I maybe take a stab at that? You've been gone for six and a half years. I would have hugged him.

I think I would have kissed him. It'd been on. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. You're allowed to hug the Admiral when you come home after that. No, that's, but I could tell when you wrote that, you were sort of like, what I just do? Exactly. Overcom with emotions.

And then you start kind of the in processing thing. And that had to be, when they start handing you magazines and cigarettes and food and all that, you go into that somewhat in here. They're just, how overwhelming is that? That was wonderful. It was joyful. You know, I was reading through some Vietnam POW poetry. and I got caught you know I was you just looking for background I want to learn more and you know people express themselves in poetry and I've got locked into probably a dozen poems that was nothing but different foods like raspberry cake and I just steak and milk and chocolate milk and everything you know there was like a dozen poems that were just about food my favorite one was Jerry coffee wrote a poem it was called

Ode to a weevil and the poem was little weevil in my bread I think I just bit off your head That was it. Yeah, that was the end of the poem That's all you need to know that That was the end of the weevil too So you guys you guys are you know that had to be somewhat overwhelming But you know like you said you guys uh you guys were in good relatively good mental status at this point yeah amazing now as you're going through the motions with the doctors and the physical

people and the the the the the the PAs the public affairs people you're saying hey you know when I see my wife what's up with my wife and no one's really answering that question for you and finally you get the chaplain and you say going back to the book here I looked up at him and said chaplain I have a great deal of faith in you and I want you to level with me so far I haven't been able to get a straight answer from anyone and I want to know about my wife would you please be kind enough to tell me what's going on and he says back well charlie there is a problem with your wife she is well but she has some misgivings i'm not sure it's to the extent but i'm sure that everything

is going to be all right she's written me a letter but i didn't want to open it i felt that you should and you get the letter and it's nothing crystal clear but the the message is clear enough that, you know, she's not wanting to stay married to you anymore. And you call her the next day. Actually, call my parents first. Okay. Back in Kansas. I tried to call her, but it didn't work.

In fact, they were very protective. You know, first of all, they thought, they thought I might be. be suicidal when I heard the news. And so they were very protective of me. And I, they wouldn't, they wouldn't let me call home. Even the chaplain and the psychiatrist and psychologists wouldn't let me call home. Home, even to your parents? Even to my parents. Yeah. They had this plan of, how they were going to explain this to me, I guess, but they wouldn't let me call. I finally found a social worker in the hospital, you know, hey, I want to, I'm going to, you got to, you had a telephone around here.

So I found a phone. And I, and I call my parents back in Kansas. And, and they're the ones that actually told me. You know, never forget my mom's word. She said, a son would give 10 years of my life. I didn't have to tell you this, but she's engaged to be married to another man. She's filed for divorce. And judge wouldn't give her a divorce.

You know, the, the justification was abandonment, you know. She said her husband had abandoned her. And the judge wasn't buying that. And so, but no, that was the first I knew was when my mother told me that she had filed for divorce. You know, I, um, going back to the book here a few days later, so you talk to Ann, but then some of the stuff you say here is, I actually, I just, I just have to quote it. Back to the book. Yet Anne had told me that she wanted to remarry. I would not become an obstacle to her happiness. I called her parents and they seemed quite unsettled about Anne's decision

A few days later I called Ann again and she complained that many members in the news media had been harassing her She said she had often been misquoted and was the victim of character assassination I then talked personally to some of the newspaper men and told them that I did not want her to be maligned in any way In fact I wanted them to say nothing at all about my wife for the most part they were receptive to my wishes. I gave them a quote which they could use if they felt they had to. The divorce is regrettable, but inevitable drifting apart after so many years. By this time, my hope for reconciliation was dead. I was determined to take it on the chin and roll with the punches. Well, I may be coming off as a white night here, but it wasn't at all that way. She, I really, to this day, believe that in many ways, the ladies had it

worse than we did, you know, and it's the families back here. You know, I mean, the military guys are over there, and I'm sure you've seen this in your experience as well, is that we, we believe in what we're doing, we're dedicated, we focused, you know, we're over there having a high old time. The families back here don't have that, and especially my wife didn't know if I was alive or dead from one day to the next. She went through the same years, 24 to 30, that I did, She was supposed to be faithful to me, and she was supposed to, you know, believe that I'd coming home, not knowing if I'd ever come home. And if I did, would I still want to be married? Or would I be a basket case and a burden to her the rest of her life?

And the other part of this, which was, which I didn't know at the time, of course, but she lost her support group. You know, they had a big wives club. The squadron pilots, all of our wives got together. and they would take pictures and send us cookies and make tapes and all these things. And it was a very close-knit group, the wives of the pilots. Well, when I was shot down or when anybody was killed or captured, that wife was sort of summarily shunned by the rest of the group. Not officially, but just because they didn't want to, they didn't know what to say. and they didn't want to be associated with somebody who had that problem.

They didn't want that to affect their life. So she lost her support group. She went back to Kansas and went back to school there. And then when she fell in love with this other guy, she lost what support group she had at home because her parents were upset. My parents were upset. I have a brother 10 years younger than I am that looks a lot like me. and he was of about the same age during this, the latter part of this experience that I had been when Ann and I met.

And he would go over to Moher Lawn in Kansas and she would break out in hives, serious emergency room kind of hives, just at the sight of my little brother because he looked like me. And so they finally, the doctors restricted him from ever seeing her because it comes. caused her so much grief. So it was tough on the ladies. Any way you look at it. And I saw that and I felt that and I felt like I needed to do whatever was necessary to give her a little peace. Well, you might not think you came off like a white night, but that's a pretty, you know, awesome treatment of someone for sure. Well, and a lot of people, you know, didn't understand it then and even don't understand it to today. And, you know, some people want to, blame her but by i i i have no animosity no blame whatsoever um for what she did i mean it was

uh i have other people that will say well don't you wish that she had known early on that she was going to divorce you no way i'd say no to her no her her the thoughts of her kept me alive you know that was i mean that was my purpose was to go back and be with her the fact that it didn't happen of course is somewhat incidental but the six years I was there it was certainly a positive for me to think about her and uh you you wrap up the book with um a chapter called reflections which is just phenomenal and you know looking back at kind of what you learned there and i'm going to hit some of the some of the parts of it because there's so much that everybody can can learn from this going to hear to the book our closed society subsisted we ate slept

breathed we laughed and we cried we were frustrated and we were gratified we were embarrassed and we were proud slowly almost imperceptibly particular patterns of behavior edged into our daily activities and came until they became folkways There was nothing unusual about a man pacing the floor for hours like a cage tiger. No one, no notice was given to the man lifting his soup bowl and licking it spotless. There was no stigma in bearing our souls to one another. We had our own moors and sense of propriety. Our microchasm was a petri dish containing its own strains and culture.

Although we had not been hand-picked, we were, For the most part, out of the same mold, that of the professional officer and pilot. We were unique prisoners who acted differently from those of Korea or World War II. We had been exposed to a different selection process and a new era of lifestyles. Gathered together in a dubious fraternity of Hanoi skydivers, we were a group of cocky individuals. We knew we were the best. stripped of personal possessions of million dollar airplanes of rank and prestige we suddenly found

ourselves at the bottom of a dark pit we could no longer look outward our only alternative was to make the best of what we had and when you have so little and for you guys to take that attitude then there's so many people you know and I hear from people all over the world that will reach out to me and talk about the situation that they're in a bad situation and a negative situation and and you know it's hearing from people like you that makes everyone realize I need to make the best of what I have you know I need to make the best of the situation I'm in because if you guys could do it anyone could do you know again you this sounds like grand high level philosophy but it was it was it was

almost a survival technique. You know, it's almost, hey, this is the way that we can make it through this, is believing in the future and believing in ourselves. And I look back on that six years, and it was probably the most important six years of my life, because I came through this silly experience with this kind of discipline, in this kind of thought process that, hey, it's not the hand your dealt. It's the way you play the hand you're dealt.

You may not have four aces this round. You know, you may have trash, but if you play it right, it can still be a winning hand. A little bit of talk about you coming home. Back to the book, my first impressions of home were not too encouraging. Newspapers and magazines were devoted largely to the drug problem, permissiveness, the energy crisis abounding crime rate and eroding and eroding and eroding family structures I was worried worried from a selfish viewpoint I had sacrificed many years for my country and I didn't want some young whippersnappers destroying it but I decided to give myself a one year moratorium

before taking a firm stand on any of my observations and I found that the news media in particular had exaggerated the negative I didn't Have my wallet stolen nor did I see opium dens or gang wars when I visited schools Instead I was pleasantly surprised with student demeanor young people freely asked questions and showed a genuine concern for answers To me they seem to have been unduly criticized by an inpatient adult society rather than been given wise Counsel they have more freedom and I think they are generally capable of handling those freedoms they are more mature than their counterparts of my generation they have to be to survive and one of the reasons I called that little section out is because guess what

we hear about the Millennials right now we hear the same thing about the Millennials and maybe just everyone should give a little moratorium on themselves I'm gonna start imposing more moratoriums on myself I think that's a great idea You know, I'll start definitely doing that self-imposed moratoriums on things Yeah, you hear and you know, me with a you know, we work with a lot of businesses and companies and people will ask us about you know, we got these millennials and it's so hard to lead them and I say oh, why is that? Because they want to understand why they're doing what they're doing? Because they want to know what the goal and purpose of their of their job is that's nothing new. Oh, because they're because they want to step up and run things I want that person where for me so yeah put a little moratorium right back to the book while in prison I had a lot of time to think the same question kept popping in my mind what am I doing here I'm

10,000 miles from home cooped up in a communist prison camp unable to enjoy all the wonderful freedoms I was sent here to protect my first answer was obvious I'm fighting for my country I'm serving the United States of America I'd learned school at America was purple mountain majesties and amber waves of grain that it was Congress and the executive and the judiciary these were self-evident but I had to get more personal than that America had to mean more it had to relate to my own freedoms the product of nearly 200 years of a pioneering spirit my nation is a skinny kid who climbs on his bike before dawn to sling newspapers my country is a librarian who sits behind glasses with pencil and her

here and is quick to find answers to my questions my homeland is a truck driver who smiles down from his cab and signals me through the intersection my America is a personal friend and I am proud to serve her and you go on to say that there must be a thousand definitions for freedom mine is simple Freedom is the ability to walk through the door. It's not the act of walking through. That's proof of freedom. It's not going to church or speaking one's mind or demonstrating in the streets.

Freedom is the ability to choose whether to go to church, to step up on a soapbox to carry placards. Now that I am released again, I move about at will. I say what I wish. I criticize and take. criticism I feel freer now than ever before because I know what freedom is I appreciate those freedoms because I was once denied them is there anything is there anybody that appreciates freedoms more than people that have had those

freedoms denied probably not is there any way to transfer the appreciation for those freedoms I mean I'm doing my darn this here. You're doing your darnest. And we're in the same business. You know, I speak a couple of times a week all over the country, have since I came home, trying to impress this on people. But the truth is, there's no way that you or I can put people in that situation that we've been in and make them feel the way they feel. There's no way I could deny a person, a freedom. I do corporate workshops as you do. And I'll put, I'll put a person. I'll put a person in a room by themselves with nothing there for 15 minutes and they go crazy, you know.

Do you take their phone away from them? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You could cut that down to five minutes with my kids. Exactly. Yeah. They're going nuts. And so there's very little, well, I should say it this way, it's difficult to make that

transfer to make a person to appreciate freedom when they've never lost theirs. And all I can do is tell the story. and I appreciate you're helping me tell the story I'm trying over here I'm gonna you know occasionally I just have to go a little bit of the distance

on some stuff that I have to read and hear this is one of those situations to wrap up because I think this is just such an important message for me for everybody back to the book I'm often asked how did you do it commander how could you take

six years of filth, brutality and loneliness. I could have never done it. My answer is, of course you could. As a matter of fact, you rub elbows each day with people who have done it. We weren't the only prisoners. Millions of Americans have experienced the manacles of the body or shackles of the mind. They've been bound by unfortunate external circumstances.

Automobile accidents, disease, natural. disaster paralyzing grief from the loss of a loved one they've suffered deprivation and humiliation once a victim of misfortune many become too insecure to open doors instead they allow themselves to wallow in despair they become alcoholics unfaithful wives or husbands unruly children inability to face personal responsibility is often Hidden in seemingly innocent pastimes. Golf, poker, television, sleep.

These diversions spawn intense feeling of guilt and worthlessness. And some victims ultimately isolate themselves and become despondent. A few commit suicide. I had ample opportunity to damn society and curse my fate. but what good would that have done? To be sure the Vietnamese would not have released me simply because I felt sorry for myself. On the contrary, they used every available means to make that happen. A despondent prisoner was a prime candidate for communist indoctrination.

My secret for enduring six years of hell is really not a secret at all. First and foremost, if I had faith in God, knowing that his will would be done. I never doubted that I could persevere. I simply trusted God's promise to answer my prayers. I also loved my country, its people, and its freedoms. I realized that because of the human element, mistakes could be made. But in growing up, I had discerned that most of the people in this great land are honorable. honorable and compassionate second I had self-discipline it would have been easier to avoid

torture by succumbing to North Vietnamese interrogation it would have been easier to assume helplessness by blaming an evil world I could have rationalized myself into mental and physical paralysis however strict self-obedience gave me the ability to persevere finally I had pride I was proud to know an omnipotent God I was proud of my country and its heritage I was proud of my family I was proud of myself faith discipline pride each of these nurtured the others combined they allowed me to endure I have joined the ranks of millions of Americans who have applied heroic principles in overcoming hardships.

Every day a disabled veteran steps away from his wheelchair. Every day a life is resumed after a death in the family. Friendships erase loneliness. Addicts throw away the crutch of alcohol or drugs or obsessions. Every day someone discovers how to love. life no matter what the obstacle every day someone sees the light at the end of the tunnel these ordinary Americans are not held in esteem as heroes yet they have suffered grave misfortune and have recovered just as I so you see I'm no

hero and I think it's that very humility sir that makes you a hero Because you are certainly a hero to me and certainly a hero to this great nation. Well, thank you for that. And I show those bouquets right back at you. You're one of my heroes. I don't accept, sir. Not at all. You know, as you look at other people's struggle,

with all the things that you mentioned, the drugs, the alcohol, the obsession, the depression after the loss of a loved one. How can people find the faith, the discipline, the pride that you talk about, what do you think is that kernel, that starting point that allows those things to grow in someone's mind so that they can overcome these kind of challenges? I think the first seed that you have to plant and nurture in your mind is that that you still have the choice, that you still are in control. Because I think so many people that get bogged down with these challenges we're talking about

assume that there's no way out, that it's somebody else's problem or somebody else has to affect their lives and they feel like they have no control over the outcome. And so I think that's the beginning part of it, is that each of us makes decisions every day that control our destiny. And it truly is not the things around us. It's our approach to the things around us. It's our definition of the things around us. It's our willingness to accept a challenge

and make choices about the things around us. And so if you can nurture that, if you can believe that, yes, I have control of my life. I am the master of my fate. I'm the captain of my soul. And if you can really believe that, then the rest is just a matter of the discipline it takes to work through it.

You know, it's interesting. I was talking to your son, Alex, and we were talking about how, you know, as he was growing up and he was hearing your sort of philosophy of life in the world. And when he heard me on the podcast, and he started saying, wait a second, I've heard this kind of stuff before. And and then we were talking about how, you know, I've kind of said that now that, you know, there's some, I hate to go so far as to say universal truths, but there's certainly some things in human nature and human life that are very similar across the board.

And when you take people and you put them through this, this crazy thing of life and you provide them with some similar challenges, they're going to come to very similar conclusions. And from what you just said, you know, there's two things that you said that I say all the time. And number one, this perspective of, you know, what's that initial spark to say, hey, I can take discipline. I can take pride. The first thing in my mind you've got to say is like, okay, these problems that are happening, I've got to take ownership of what I can do. I can't take ownership of my problems. I can't blame this guy.

I can't blame that guy. I got to take ownership of them. And that's the first thing. And then the other piece that you said that I say all the time is, you know, you You got decisions to make. You got little decisions to make and if you can make that right decision If you can do the right thing at that moment in time It's not gonna change your life that one decision won't change your life, but then you're gonna Three minutes later 30 seconds later an hour later you're gonna make another decision and can you hold the line and get yourself pointed in the right direction and can you have the discipline to do that? Can you have the faith in yourself that you're gonna make that happen and can you have the pride and you know a dick Winner's talked about?

that too on the last podcast you know dick winners from the first the 506 band of brothers but one of the big things that he was concerned about with his men was if the if he saw them begin to lose pride and how hey if I don't care what echo thinks of me if I come in here I'm not ready for this podcast and he's gonna look at me like oh I guess jaco's just letting it slide and all of a sudden if I don't care anymore I don't care anymore now I'm not preparing now I'm not getting ready and and then you take someone in combat and they start to lose Pride and all of a sudden they say I don't care who sees me acting the wrong way who sees me slacking off on a watch

Who sees me not cleaning my weapon if I don't care about that anymore That's the beginning of that downward spiral and pride is one of those Things that you have to be careful of because just like any other dichotomy that we have as human beings Yes, you can get so much pride that you no longer think you can do anything wrong in which we know where that leads That's right and you can have not enough pride to keep Keep yourself on the right path. Amazing stuff. Did you have any questions?

Just wondering? Yeah. Well, this one part I kind of wanted to reflect on that, I thought, was pretty important. Even on a small, like the part where you were regarding the guards as in their own prison, you know? So you almost like, you said that they had it worse than you did. So this one time my wife told me this story where she was in the child. checkout line, you know, in the store. A lot of stuff happens in the checkout line.

A lot of things happen with the grocery store. Yeah, yeah. A lot of lessons. A lot of lessons. So she was, she found herself in the express line, but she had more than the 15 items, you know. And the guy behind her started, he was tripping the whole time, though. So she's paying, she's trying to hurry up. And he's like, you know, you know, what do you call loud talking, like talking to the person next to him about my wife. So after the whole ordeal, it was kind of like a scene, you know. So my wife afterwards was like, oh, I hope you have a nice day, you know, like, you know, she laughed.

Wait, did she say it earnestly? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well. And I don't know your wife good enough to think that she probably. Yeah, she was probably salty for sure. But at the end of the day, it's kind of like, hey, I hope you have a nice day.

And so she told me that story. And she was like, but you know what? A big part of me was like, he has to go home with himself, you know? And I get to come home and be cool and have all my girls, you know, all this stuff. And I was like, dang, that's a good way to look at it because he has to go home. He's probably pissed for the day. She gets to go home with 17 grocery items, too. After blazing through the checkout line.

Blazing, blazing right through. It's true. Oh, yeah, one question. You know when you got arrested when you bought that scooter? Right? The Cushman. He's been thinking about this for three hours. I've been in this experience because you get the scooter right.

You pack your friend. Yeah. Right. And then the cops say stop you. That happened to us all the time. But why did they arrest you, though? I mean, is it like, hey, you guys can't do that? You're going to jail.

Well, it was rather unusual, I think, for these cops to see these two little guys. You know, we were 13 and 14 years old, and then we weren't very big to begin with. And the motor scooter was bigger than we were. And it's in the middle of the night. I think they felt like there was something suspicious for it on there. Yeah, you just took it. He stole it. Well, all right, Echo.

Sir, do you have anything else on that, on that right there? No. Okay. No, no, no, no further details on the scooter rides. No, we got that clear. We'll drop that. Echo. You know, do you think that you could maybe tell us how to support the podcast if you want to?

Of course I can. That's what I'm here for one of the many reasons. So, if you want to support this podcast many ways, first way, You can support yourself. I said it before. I'm gonna say it again on it. Supplements, right? If you're doing physical stuff Supplements that gets you through. I'm not gonna spend too much time on it. I want to. I won't I'm gonna recommend the krill oil and the strong bone. That's it. See now just sir, I'm not letting this Annoy me. I'm just gonna I'm just like okay with it. It's my problem. I don't want to listen to him talk. That's my problem. He has the right to speak for a long you know hours about you know this stuff but here's the thing the part like let's say you

were to get annoyed the only reason you'd be annoyed get annoyed is because you know this stuff some people they don't know there's all those people or maybe they want to hear it again on your every word but the good thing about on it you know that's a good stuff because supplements can be kind of junk sometimes but this one hundred percent these is this is a good stuff and their stuff for everything in life everything we only talk about the cruel oil some other stuff But you go on there, protein, wellness, even like digest it, everything they got on there. Onit.com. That's where you get it.

If you want 10% off, on it.com slash jaco. Another way. Before you do your Amazon shopping, click through jocco podcast.com to do your Amazon shopping. And then, you know, do your shopping as normal. It's a good way to support. Small action, big reaction. It takes, what, three seconds? Something like that.

Maybe four. I don't know. Either way. Do that. That's a good way. Also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. That's iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and other podcasting platforms. Subscribe on YouTube.

I put some excerpts on there. I watched that last one. That was a good one. 12 minutes is you're just so you know you're getting outside the boundaries of an excerpt. Man, I'm listening to it. I'm like, yeah, it could end it right there, but I'm like, oh, wait, wait, that kind of helped, you know. What was that title of that one? What was it?

It's a good one. It's 12 minutes long. Emotion oh hangary getting hangary Oh getting a controlling your stifling your emotions your emotions Your emotions when you need to stifle your emotions Yes exactly right When it's level two or lower on the Richter scale of emotions You can't behave your emotions

Your behavior can be based on it anyway Look at that little excerpt Put more on that I will So what do you subscribe to Jocko podcast YouTube Subscribe to that that's what you subscribe to Yeah you know the Jock podcast YouTube It's like just like a channel It's a YouTube channel

Anyone Who knows what YouTube's gonna know this. I think. I know a little bit on YouTube, but I didn't quite. Good, bro. I think you're already subscribed. You get the notification. I do. No, I am subscribed.

You're all good. You're all good. 100%. Also, jockwa is a store. It's called jaco store. Jocco store.com. There's some good stuff on there. T-shirts.

If you like T-shirts, we wear T-shirts, right? I know, I do. Some women's stuff on there. Shirts, patches, rash guards, hoodies. New rash guard. Out Oh Maybe maybe not you got to look jocco store.com get some good stuff

We got some kids stuff too in there Yeah, that's right you're wearing one of those some warrior kids stuff If you're on YouTube A bunch of people were hitting me up for warrior kid T-shirts and and then immediately People said We want them for adults too so we made some for kids but then adults said we want them. I know we got warrior kids Because can you be a 45

year old warrior kid I think I am yes sir I'm in the game as a warrior kid yeah and if you didn't I mean you're gonna obviously talk about the word kid where the word kid book but man when you read that book you're like dang I wish I would have read this whether it be when I'm a kid I wish I would have read it a one day before I read it that day it's like that's how much you wish you would have known all this stuff because it's real basic yeah it's so deep man uncle Jake's got some info layers man layers upon layers yeah there's people now identifying layers on Twitter by the way which is a pre there's been some really

good identification of layers there's some layers in that book yeah they're going to get deeper too yeah man it's good so yeah anyway yeah back to the store jocco store dot com you can see what's on there this cool stuff and if you want to support get something you know also

psychological warfare if you know what that is which I know you already do but in the small event that you don't it is an album on iTunes with tracks and Amazon music with tracks, not music tracks. Spoken word tracks.

Technically, that's what's called spoken word. Number one, by the way. Yeah, still. Still. Number one since being released. I mean, for good reason, because look. Yeah, I need to put together psychological warfare too. And I got some really good suggestions from everyone

on things that need where we need help as a group. So if you got those, hit us up on Twitter to give suggestions for psychological warfare to tracks what you need areas where we need help we all need help yeah I got some

some some yeah you gave me 47 requests yeah they're all my personal ones yeah I think I got 48 now but yeah if you don't know what that is it's like it's an album you get it you have you know in your journey of what getting after it

in your getting after it journey but you're not strong the whole time you just not You have moments of weakness. Most of us aren't. You're going to have moments of weakness. But guess what? In those moments of weakness, you listen to the designated track.

If you're having a moment of weakness when you're trying to wake up at 4.30. Come on, bro. That's early. 4.30 every day. Yeah. The day is probably going to come where you're like, you know what I'm going to hit this news. Guess what? Listen to get up and get after it.

Get up and get after it. There's like two or three of those two. And I guarantee you won't hit the snoo. You'll get up. You'll get after it. Anyway, that's what I'm. I think with 100% certainty. Anyway, again, it's called Psychological Warfare.

It's on iTunes and Amazon Music and some other places where you buy and download music. They're all up on in there. Yeah. Good. And also, by the way, the book that we reviewed today with Captain Plum, it's available on Charlie Plum.com. C-H-A-R-L-I-E-P-L-U-M-B.com. That's where you can get it.

It's called I'm No Hero. That's right. And also you can get some jocca white tea on there. If you need to drink liquid in your life, you might as well drink a liquid that's going to make you smarter, stronger, stronger, faster, and a more dynamic human being. There's only one drink that does that, and that's joccal white tea. By the way, it's 147% double-blind, plasible approved and tested in a laboratory with people wearing white outfits. So you know we're good to go Way the Warrior Kid

And this is the book right there That's gonna hit your kids From another angle Yeah in a good way And it's gonna get them To understand some things like hard work Discipline Honor

Physical training Mental training Studying No one think Jocko was gonna write a book Of the Teach P. Hall to study They didn't think that did they echo Tell me the truth They didn't think that

No They didn't see my college grades They did they No So you learn how to study You learn how to get stronger in the book Where the Warrior Kid get it for your kids And you know what? You're gonna read it first

And then you're gonna get a copy for yourself Way the Warrior Kid get that Can I say something about one small part? Yeah sure We have another four hours of space on the recorder So let's do it There is a part when he sees small progress I think he was after one pull up And he's like yeah

Oh yeah Fired up The part when he says said he scolded him a small mild scolding for celebrating too early yeah or too much too early jake says hey take it easy there yeah good and but then he said now come over here give me a high five and get back to work ooh he let him celebrate a little bit that was good man I thought that was good uncle Jake is a good man yeah it's good man he puts it out to it right also you can pre-order the book discipline equals freedom field manual which explains

to you how to get after it so get after it and order the book of course extreme ownership this is for your leadership principles tested tested in combat testing the business world they're there for you to read learn lead win and if you need more than that from the book if you need more than the book in the podcast for your business or your team echelon front You can email at info at echelonfront.com leadership and management consulting training also the muster Number three Austin Texas July 13th and 14th Omni Barton Creek Resort I'm not gonna say spa anymore not going to the spa no no I'm gonna have that thing shut down while we're there

be no spa going on so come down July 13th 14th and 14th that join us in the pursuit of world domination that's the goal and if you can't make Texas You can come to San Diego September 14th and 15th back in SD for number four and And in the meantime while you're waiting for that if you have questions or comments for us You can get us on the interwebs now first of all speaking of millennials Captain Plains Sir, you are all up in the technology here.

Well, you are on Twitter at Captain Plum, right? Right. Facebook? Facebook. What's that at? LinkedIn. Yeah, same thing, Captain Plum. Just a social media junkie is what I'm hearing.

My kids keep me honest. And you also, you mentioned quickly while we were talking that you do speaking engagements and all that. place to contact you for those type of events or consulting all on my website charlie plum.com it's all there awesome so and that's where they can find you as far as echo and myself we are also cruising on the interwebs on instagram on Twitter echo is at echo charles i am at jocko Willink and we are also in the Facebook so you can check that one as well echo you got anything else for us today I don't thank you so much then surely honor and sir do you have anything

any other closing thoughts you want to add well I want to tell you about the rest of the story since people might be interested in knowing that my ex-wife married the guy she was engaged to and they've been living happily for the last 43 years. I remarried a wonderful lady, four kids, two grandkids and one on the way. Yes. My daughter is married to a Marine, and they're pregnant with her first child.

Should be due, in fact, any day now. Semper five. My daughter, have a wonderful wife that supports me and puts up with me. And I'm living the dream. I really am. I don't know how I could be happier in my life. I could not write a story that would bring more fulfillment to me personally than what I

already live. I still fly airplanes. I have two airplanes. I have a home in a hangar as well, my man cave. And it's just, it's a delight to be alive. And I appreciate you for helping me tell my story because I believe it's an important story. Now, not everybody is going to be a prisoner of war. In fact, I hope I'd pray none of the people listening to this podcast will ever be in that eight-foot cell that I was in, but we all get into our own little prisons, and we can be, I am convinced, just as confined in our little eight-inch box as I was in an eight-foot prison cell. And so if those challenges are the same, then the solution is the same. The solution to the prisons that we find ourselves in, you know, the self-discipline that it takes, the believing that, yes,

I am in control of my own life. I am a captain of my soul and that I do make a difference. So you put all those things together and you can in fact live the life with the hand that you're dealt. I won't even try and make any additional points on that other than to say when you have a hangar with two planes in it for your man cave you win the man cave contest absolutely that's unbelievable and sir obviously I I can't thank you enough for coming on the podcast for writing the book for sharing the knowledge that you paid so dearly to acquire and more important than all that I can't thank you enough for your service and your sacrifice for six years for us and for this great nation and you dedicate

your book very simply to the families of those brave men who will never return and for those families and for those brave men we will live and we will try to live as you have exemplified with faith and pride and discipline to overcome whatever hardships we might face and might face and whatever obstacles might be in our path and through those adversities discover every day how to love this so until next time this is captain charlie plum an echo and jaco