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Grim as the Briarpatch
was, the company was good and so was the entertainment-the daily
American air strikes against the military installations around
the nearby Sui Hal Dam. The POWs watched, enviously, exultantly,
as the fighterbombers rolled in, delivered their lethal
payloads, then pulled up and away. In a sense, it was a wrenching
experience to see the attacking aircraft streak off after expending
their ordnance; the POWs could not help thinking that in a little
while these pilots would be back at their bases, reading letters
from home, drinking beer, eating well, showering, walking about
freely. Still, it was grand to watch them in action, especially
since enemy aircraft gunners seemed unable to down any of them.
On Wednesday, September 15, Lt. Col. Robinson Risner, commanding
the 67th Tactical Fighter Squadron, got his canopy knocked off,
but this merely made things uncomfortable. His wingman, Ray Merritt,
closed up on him, and Risner led his flight home to Korat.
Far below, from his cell
window, Larry Guarino watched them go. Suddenly, he was full of
a dreadful premonition. He called to Smitty Harris, on the other
side of a wall, "Hey, I got some real funny feelings about
Risner. Real strong feelings about Risner and his assistant ops
officer, what's his name? Ray something. . . Ray. . ."
"Ray Merritt,"
Harris answered. Smitty had been a member of Risner's squadron.
"That's right,"
Larry answered. "Gee, I've got the strangest feelings about
those two guys." He worried about them all the rest of that
day and through much of the night. He had known Robbie Risner
for a long time; the two had been close friends. He recalled that
Time magazine had featured Robbie on its cover earlier in the
year, describing the Korean War ace (eight Migs destroyed) as
the classic example of the kind of dedicated, military professional
who was leading the American effort in Vietnam. Boy, Larry thought,
if the gooks ever Bet ahold of him, they'll skin him alive!
The next day, Thursday,
September 16, Risner and Merritt both entered Hanoi's prison system.
Risner was shot down and
captured approximately ninety miles south of Hanoi. He reached
Hoa Lo at midmorning on September 18 and was installed in Room
18, off the main courtyard, just to the left of the entrance to
the prison. Room 18 was also to be known as "The Meathook
Room," for a hook that extended down from the ceiling-some
uncooperative Americans were to be trussed up and hung from this
hook, upside down and rightside up. Entry into Room 18 was from
a hallway through French doors with opaque windows. It was a large
room, perhaps 30 feet by 20 feet. High on the wall, looking down
on the hallway, was a window which had been boarded over. For
interrogations, the room usually was set up with chairs behind
a conference table covered with a blue drape. The prisoner was
made to sit on a low stool before the table. During punishment
or torture sessions, the place was emptied of everything but a
waste bucket, which was usually left full of the previous interrogatee's
leavings. Room 18 was a dirty, sinisterlooking place. Here
and there, patches of dried blood fastened clutches of hair to
the grimy walls.
Rabbit joined him, and
interrogations began immediately. As quickly as Risner established
that he would answer no questions beyond those sanctioned by the
Geneva Convention, he was made aware that the Vietnamese knew
a good deal more about him than name, rank, and serial number.
The Time article was quoted to him; so were other articles that
had appeared in American newspapers the previous spring, after
Risner had been awarded the Air Force Cross for leading a maximumeffort
air strike in which three important North Vietnamese bridges had
been destroyed.
"Do you want to see
your wife and family again?" he was asked.
"Yes," he answered,
"I expect to."
"Only if you talk
and answer the questions we ask will you see them. "
The full, soulshattering impact of being separated indefinitely from his wife and family reached him on his second day in Hoa Lo, as he was served his morning meal, a miserable, weedy gruel. Robbie's existence centered on his wife, Kathleen, and their five sons who ranged in age from 16 to 3~. Mealtimes had been especially precious, a time of joy, where all had shared in the small and large triumphs, problems, and plans of each. By now, word of Robbie's showdown would have reached his family. He could see Kathleen, her eyes abrim with tears as she served the boys, who would be casting covert glances at their father's empty chair and thinking private thoughts.
No one had ever gone to war better prepared than Robinson Risner. Deeply religious, he was at peace with God, and engaged in activity he knew to be absolutely right. He had no regrets over anything he had ever done and he was not afraid to die. But he could not ward off a deep sadness at the prospect of long separation from his family.
Over the next two weeks
more than a dozen interrogators had at Risner. He would not cooperate.
He was assured that he was a war criminal. There was much talk
of turning him over to the people, who would tear him apart. He
was told that he would be burned at the stake. These threats were
lost on him; he simply was not able to believe them. In any case,
he was as ready to die as he ever would be.
Soon he was installed
in a Heartbreak Hotel dungeon. Sensing that there were other Americans
in nearby cells, he waited until he thought the guards were out
of earshot, then sang, softly and to the tune of ''McNamara's
Band":
Oh, my name is Robbie Risner,
I'm the leader of the group.
Listen to my story,
And I'll give you all
the poop.
Up from several cells came greetings from three members of his own squadron: his wingman, Maj. Ray Merritt; one of his flight commanders, Maj. Ronald E. Byrne; and Capt. Wesley Schierman. Another Heartbreak resident was Navy Comdr. Wendell Rivers, an A4 pilot off the carrier Coral Sea. Rivers, who had flown nearly one hundred missions, had made a ritual before each mission of running into his room, which was on the route between the ready room and the flight deck, and kissing a lipstick impression his wife had made on a water pipe, then kissing a picture of his wife and children. On September 10, a second mission had come up, and it had been necessary to brief and launch on a crash basis, and there had been no time for the ritual. Shortly, Wendy had found himself parachuting into North Vietnam and grousing to himself, "Shit! Shit! Shit! Here goes the next two years of my life!"
All wanted to know how
long Risner estimated the war would last. Reporting that Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara had indicated it would be over by next
June, he affected a cheerful optimism. He deemed it his duty as
senior officer to try to keep up the others' morale. "Don't
sweat it, guys," he said. "We can stand on our heads
'til June."
He hoped it made them
feel better. Privately, he found the thought of imprisonment in
this place for another ten months intolerable.
One day in October, Robbie
Risner's cell door opened to admit Dog, the camp commander, and
a stout, bullnecked, scowling civilian. The civilian strode
about the cell, looking it and the prisoner over. Finally, he
stood before Robbie and snarled, "So-you are also Korean
hero!"
"I cannot answer
that question," Robbie said, "that's military information.
"
The civilian's neck swelled and his face reddened. He shouted, "We are preparing for your kind! You will soon see that you will answer our questions!" He turned and left the cell, Dog at his heels.
Toward the end of the
month Ron Storz returned from interrogation to urgently warn Risner,
"They've found everything! If you've got anything you don't
want them to have, get rid of it. Pass the word."
Robbie had no time to
do anything but fill his communications holes with rocks, soap,
and pieces of bone he had salvaged from meals and to wonder frantically
what had happened.
In a surprise inspection
the Vietnamese had discovered the communications holes between
Storz's cell and the one beyond it. Ron had managed to eat several
Risner policy papers, but the inspectors had found one in the
next cell. Using it as a search checklist, they were combing every
cell in the Zoo for the materials the SRO had directed his men
to seek and save. The POWs lost everything they had collected,
every piece of wood, wire, metal, soap, string, every nail. Communications
holes were being found everywhere.
Ron Storz had been missing
for three days by the time he got back and warned Risner. He had
been taken into a bare, lonely cell somewhere which seemed to
be inhabited by every mosquito in Southeast Asia. He had been
stripped down to his shorts and made to sit on a stool, and it
had been demanded of him that he betray Risner as the organizer
and leader of prisoner resistance. He had refused to do so, and
now, as Robbie filled up their communications holes, Ron tapped
a question: "Have you confessed?"
"Never!" Risner
replied.
"Neither will I" tapped Storz. "G B U." ("God Bless You.")
"G B U." Robbie answered. Then guards arrived and took him from his cell. He was brought to a room in the Barn away from the others. He was seated on a stool before a table. On the table were pencil and paper. Storz, he was advised, had told all, and now it was required that Risner confirm what Storz had admitted-that Risner was the instigator of prisoner resistance, that he had set himself up as the camp commander, that he was organizing a revolt by the prisoners, and that he had been sent to this place by the American government to do these things.
He was left alone to write
this confession. Each hour, guards entered to see if he had done
so. When after twentyfour hours Robbie had not lifted pencil
to paper, he was taken to the camp commander's office in the headquarters
building, called Gook House by the POWs, at the northeast corner
of the camp. The camp commander was now a man the prisoners named
Fox; he had superseded Dog, who was still on hand as deputy. Fox
was middlefortyish, perhaps five feet seven inches tall,
weighed about 160 pounds, and kept his thick, black hair combed
straight back. "You will be severely punished," he told
Risner, "unless you admit to all of your mistakes. Here is
a pencil and paper. Write!"
"I will not write,"
Robbie said.
"You know you were
breaking the camp regulations. You were communicating, and telling
others to resist." He waved the length of toilet paper containing
Robbie's policy. "From now on, you will not make a sound.
You will not communicate. You will not talk. You will not look
at others. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said
Robbie, "I understand. I understand that I am to be silent,
like an animal, and that you are going to treat us like animals!
Don't forget, someday we will tell our story to the world, and
the world will know what you Vietnamese really are!"
Fox was beside himself
with rage. He shouted in Vietnamese to the attending guards. He
waved the SRO's policy paper at them, pointed to Risner's admonition
to the POWs that one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar,
and told them, "He calls you flies! Flies!" Then several
of them came at Robbie, grabbed him, pinned his arms behind his
back, held his head up.
"Open mouth!"
someone ordered.
He refused to do so. Thumbs
were pressed hard against his cheeks until his mouth was forced
open. Then balls of crumpled newspaper were shoved into his mouth.
A stick was used to shove them over his tongue and deep into his
throat. Robbie felt himself gagging and panicking. He had a cold
and had been having trouble breathing through his nose, and now
he was unable to breathe through his mouth. More newspaper balls
were pressed in, until his throat and mouth were full. He could
not salivate. He was suffocating, and he was scared-the idea of
dying in combat, or even of being deliberately tortured to death
had never really frightened him; but somehow, the idea of dying
like this, for no reason, did frighten him. He was determined
not to accept such a death. He concentrated, subdued panic. By
immense effort of will, he kept thrusting air from his lungs up
to his throat and forced himself to take air through his swollen
nasal passages, breathing slowly, carefully, evenly.
He was blindfolded, his
wrists were tied tightly behind him, his ankles were bound, and
he was thrown into the back of a truck. He was taken from the
Zoo to Hoa Lo. There, his bindings, blindfold, and gag were removed,
and he was taken into Cell # 1 in New Guy Village. The stocks
at the end of a cement bunk were unlocked and opened. Robbie was
ordered onto the bunk, his ankles were locked into the stocks,
and he was left alone. His morale had never been lower. The Zoo
was no bargain, to be sure, but this lonely place was the end
of the world.
Shortly after Risner was
put in stocks, written "Camp Regulations" were posted
on the inside of the door of every POW cell. According to these
regulations:
U.S. aggressors caught
redhanded in their piratical attacks against the DRV are
criminals. While detained in this camp, you will strictly obey
the following:
There were twenty such
regulations. There was no way that an American POW could adhere
to them and at the same time abide by his own Code of Conduct.
The regulations demanded that the prisoners commit treason, against
each other and against their country. As it turned out, the Vietnamese,
in promulgating these impossible regulations, were merely establishing
the launching platform for a grim program; they were providing
themselves with an excuse for punishing and torturing their American
prisoners. Starting now-Rod Knutson was just coming out of the
torture wringer at Hoa Lo-the Vietnamese were to apply as much
punishment and torture as required to extract an apology from
an American POW for having broken any of the regulations. After
apologizing, the transgressor was to be afforded an opportunity
to demonstrate his "sincerity" by offering something
in atonement: military information; information about other POWs;
written or taperecorded statements that might persuade other
POWs to cooperate, or be used in the DRY's propaganda program,
or held and used later, to blackmail the prisoner for something
more valuable.