This Day in History

On this day in 1954 the French surrendered at Dien Bien Phu. Their defeat lead the way to the partition of Vietnam into North and South. It is interesting to note that 2 Americans, James McGovern and Wallace Buford, were killed in the action. They were flying for the CIA in support of the French when their C-119 was hit and crash landed in Laos.

Interesting People

I attended Grandparents Day at the middle grandson's school. (He goes to a LaSallian School.) While we were waiting for the program to start, one of the brothers, a Vietnamese man of about our age, came over to chat. I was at the other end of the group so I only caught snippets of his conversation but it was enough to gather that he and his father had escaped from Vietnam in 1989. ( I assume they had been in a "re-education" camp since the fall of Saigon) They managed to survive a typhoon and when they thought all was lost, a passing freighter picked them up and took them to Japan. He joined the La Salle Brothers and is now teaching.

Sometimes you never know what astounding stories people may have. It pays to keep your ears open. You can't underestimate the pull that the USA has for people who yearn for freedom. I can't wait to engage this man in a longer conversation.

Living History

Our Navy neice asked if she could invite a friend to the family dinner and we, of course, agreed. Her friend was a single mother, Naval NCO and had been our neice's recruiter. She had no family in the area - it was just her and her pre-teen daughter. When you have as many people coming for Thanksgiving as we do, two more hardly make a dent.

It turned out that this woman had a unique history. Back in 1975 she was one of the babies flown out of Vietnam in Operation Babylift.

You never know when you will meet someone that was part of history. Take the time to meet new people and listen and you might be surprised.

Thoughts for Memorial Day

I’ve built a network of contacts over my career and the internet is useful in keeping in touch with them. Here is an email I received from a friend of mine who received it from someone we both worked with who was a POW in Vietnam. The article is written by Leo Thorsness, another POW. Its topic is timely, and educational

Memorial Day – Torture Thoughts ©
By POW and Medal of Honor recipient Col (USAF Ret) Leo Thorsness
Author of Surviving Hell – A POW’s Journey

Think Memorial Day and veterans usually come to mind. Think Veterans and
our national debate about torture comes to mind.

Of the 350 “old timer” Vietnam POWs, the majority were severely tortured by
the North Vietnamese. Ironically the Department of Defense did not
formally study torture after the POWs were released in 1973. We provided
our military an actual “torture database library” but to this day, the
Pentagon has never tapped the resource to help clarify national debate
about “what is torture.”
I and many other Vietnam POWs were tortured severely – some were tortured to death. Several POWs wrote books after our release in 1973 describing the torture in detail. Mike McGrath’s book had extensive drawings vividly depicting types of torture the North Vietnamese used.

When I wrote “Surviving Hell” in 2008, initially I did not include torture
knowing that others had earlier described it. My book editors encouraged me
to add it; if our younger population reads only current books, they may
perceive that the treatment at Abu Grab and Gitmo was real torture. I
added my experience being tortured so that readers will know that there is
abuse and humiliation, and there is torture.

If someone surveyed the surviving Vietnam POWs, we would likely not agree
on one definition of torture. In fact, we wouldn’t agree if “waterboarding” is torture. For example, John McCain, Bud Day and I were recently together. Bud is one of the toughest and most tortured Vietnam POWs. John thinks waterboarding is torture; Bud and I believe it is harsh treatment, but not torture. Other POWs would have varying opinions. I don’t claim to be right; we just disagree. But as someone who has been severely tortured over an extended time, my first hand view on torture is this:

Torture, when used by an expert, can produce useful, truthful information.
I base that on my experience. I believe that during torture, there is a
narrow “window of truth” as pain (often multiple kinds) is increased.
Beyond that point, if torture increases, the person breaks, or dies if he
continues to resist.

Everyone has a different physical and mental threshold of pain that he can
tolerate. If the interrogator is well trained he can identify when that
point is reached – the point when if slightly more pain is inflicted, a
person no longer can “hold out,” just giving (following the Geneva
Convention) name, rank, serial number and date of birth. At that precise
point, a very narrow torture “window of truth” exists. At that moment a
person may give useful or truthful information to stop the pain. As
slightly more pain is applied, the person “loses it” and will say anything
he thinks will stop the torture – any lie, any story, and any random words
or sounds

This torture “window of truth” is theory to some. Having been there, it is
fact to me. While in torture I had the sickening feeling deep within my
soul that maybe I would tell the truth as that horrendous pain increased.
It is unpleasant, but I can still dredge up the memory of that window of
truth feeling as the pain level intensified.

Our world is not completely good or evil. To publically proclaim we will
never use any form of enhanced interrogations causes our friends to think
we are naïve and eases our enemies’ recruitment of radical terrorists to
plot attacks on innocent kids, men and women – or any infidel. If I were
to catch a “mad bomber” running away from an explosive I would not hesitate
a second to use “enhanced interrogation,” including water bordering, if it
would save lives of innocent people. Our naïveté does not impress radical
terrorists like those who slit the throat of Daniel Pearl in 2002 simply
because he was Jewish, and broadcast the sight and sound of his dying
gurgling. Publicizing our enhanced interrogation techniques only emboldens
those who will hurt us.