Seizing and holding prisoners for ransom has long been an unpleasant by-product of warfare. Treatment of prisoners in confinement and the terms of the ransom have often assumed major importance in the final outcome of the war. The P.W. issue in the Vietnamese war was no different. Treatment of prisoners was used as both a political and military weapon by the North Vietnamese, and the ultimate release of the P.W.s was one of the major points of concern for the United States in the peace settlement. The war did provide a peculiar anomaly by casting the American prisoners in the roles of war heroes.
For the P.W.s, five years and more of confinement called for a different kind of heroism. This heroism paid off, initially through better treatment, next through return and assimilation back into society, and finally, through the adulation of the American people and the reaffirmation of those patriotic ideals of duty, honor, and love of country.
This success story of the P.W.—the victory won for him, his group, and for the United States—is attributable, I think, to the four primary weapons used in his strange war. These are communications, the chain of command, security, and the Code of Conduct.
Had we not been able to communicate with each other, many P.W.s would not have survived in North Vietnam. Communications kept us together in spirit and determination and allowed us to get home alive, in good shape, with our mentalities intact. Our absolute will to communicate, in spite of fantastic pressures brought to bear, was the secret.
By talking to each other, we kept aware of everything going on. We made sure that the group of P.W.s thought alike, worked alike, and were guided by the strong leaders. Communicating was the means by which we established unity.
Every P.W. in North Vietnam fought his own personal battle against mental depression. Depression had to be recognized and fought in all its many guises: loneliness, doubt, self-pity, boredom, and rage.
Caught in the grip of loneliness and uncertainty, the P.W. could easily fall into the clutches of self-pity, becoming convinced that he had been unfairly singled out for punishment by a blind fate. In such a state, one begins to lose confidence in the things he thought he devoutly believed in—God, country, family, honor. He begins to doubt himself. And, as the doubts grow, the P.W. "spirals down” to become increasingly pessimistic. One can fight pessimism as one can fight self-pity but, in combination, they are a formidable pair that only the strongest can withstand.
These lonely, solitary battles have been fought many times over, sometimes even when the P.W. was in company with large groups of men. Of course, for the old-timers, the worst of these encounters were fought during the first four years of captivity when there was a good deal of solitary, and when we were rarely in personal contact with more than two or three other Americans.
When times are very hard, and the body is in a great deal of discomfort if not actual pain, the mind can slip easily, almost gratefully, into this state of depression. The danger, of course, is that, in this weakened mental and physical state, the enemy’s attempts at using propaganda or trying to warp your thinking are likely to be successful. A significant part of this state of depression is the loss of confidence. This is exactly what the enemy is after. He tries to destroy your confidence in your moral values. He can then start to completely confuse you and start you believing in some of his values. He is not trying to make you a Communist, although often he wished he could. This is where he can start molding your understanding of such matters as the war and its causes, how the fighting is progressing, who is doing the fighting, and who is suffering from it. You are extremely vulnerable to this type of propaganda. For this reason, this state of depression has to be avoided at all cost. If not, you can eventually get yourself into a very deep personal problem. This in fact happened, and is exactly why we lost several people in the prison camps in North Vietnam.
After extended periods in this state, the mind starts doing very funny things to the body, such as refusing to eat, or to wash. Other prisoners try to talk to you, but they are telling you things that your mind no longer wishes to hear. You start to refuse to communicate. The deeper you get into it, the more you wallow in your own muck, as it were, and the more you like it there. Others are trying to get you out, but you cut yourself off. You are isolated and slowly you go crazy. Regardless of the physical event that actually killed a man, the thing that led up to it was the lack of communications, the resulting isolation, and the total aloneness which put a man into this state. Eventually he was unable to get out of it and his mind began to act irrationally. At length he died either from mental problems, or from some physical problem that was actually psychologically based, such as refusing to eat.
The importance of communicating is vital on a personal basis. Let’s say that I am in one cell in solitary and there is a fellow next to me in the next cell, anti I start going into one of these depressed states. Often it may follow a torture session. I have just been forced to do something that I did not like to do and I am really upset about it. I become gloomy and start spiraling down. My buddy next door does everything in his power to talk to me, to encourage me, to try to get me to cheer up, to have a stiff upper lip, to come back, to remember there is another round tomorrow. He does all he can to cheer up my spirits and to bolster my confidence, so that I am ready to roll again. He will spend all of his time tapping to me. The total effort of his life is devoted to getting me out of my poor mental state. This is where communication is so vital. This is not a time to be saying "I don’t feel like tapping today” or "communicating is unimportant.” I need help very desperately and he is going to give it to me. This was the experience in over 90% of the cases in North Vietnam. This is a mutual understanding, which can work both ways. Next week, it may well be his turn for one of these states of depression. Then I will spend all my time tapping to him, trying to get him out of it. Here is where two men work together. You must use all your energy in these efforts. This is the key factor in helping another out. It bolsters both men in confidence and gets you back together. That mutual confidence is highly important since it makes you both stronger for the next ordeal. If you are living in a cell with two or three men, it is much more personal and it should be much easier.
Without directly knowing it, communications allowed the weaker P.W.s to draw strength and guidance from the stronger. It was important to guard against the enemy’s efforts to identify weakened prisoners and to isolate them. We did not want this to happen. The best way we found to avoid this situation was twofold: to have each individual make every attempt to draw in anyone being held in isolation or a remote position; and to make every effort to contact every prisoner, taking sure they were brought into the communications net. Thus, everyone became aware of what was happening and what the guidelines and policies were. Most of the problems we had could inevitably be traced back to a lack of or breakdown in communications. Failure to communicate led to disaster for a few. When good communications existed and capable seniors exercised firm control, the group and the individuals performed very well.
This extensive, continuous, unrelenting dedication to communicating with one another was a major reason why so many P.W.s came home well organized and in good shape. We worked together, making sure each man kept his spirits up, making sure he never lost his confidence. We were able to maintain an integral solid front strong enough to continue to fight the enemy. By taking command, our seniors made sure that this was done officially. No one went down the drain because the guy next to him was lazy.
Hand-in-hand with the need for communications is the need for a command structure. A chain of command, working in two directions, formalized and solidified the prisoner society in the camps. The junior officers organized themselves automatically, because they were military men who instinctively looked toward their seniors. On occasion, the senior man had no command experience, or was incapable of, or not motivated toward leadership. Regardless, it was absolutely essential that the senior man take command of those junior to him. Whether he did a good job or a poor job made little difference, as long as he established a command structure. Decisions had to be made and had to be followed as a group to achieve group strength.
Experience showed that it really did not make too much difference what was being done as long as it was done together. Although there may be a lot of talk, and a lot of group consensus achieved, there still has to be a senior who finally says, "We will do it this way!” If the senior man hid in the woodwork, leaving his juniors to make decisions, it really upset the apple cart because it forced each man to act for himself. The command problem was simplified by the extensive communications nets that were set up. This allowed discussion between groups and helped override the problem of a senior not promulgating definite decisions and policies. If it had not been for the extensive communications nets, everyone would have been doing things differently, with each group doing what they thought best. On occasion, this happened and it was quite detrimental to us.
Taking command can be a thankless job. The senior man may get his head beaten in rather often. He must stand up to it. This is what he has earned by virtue of his seniority. He must take command and he must take the responsibility that goes with it. He must make decisions and issue orders even though they may be unpleasant ones. During our prison experience there were some very real leadership problems which were gradually overcome. As in any group, there are good leaders in all ranks and there are some poor leaders regardless of rank. Those who had this capability for good leadership seemed to emerge and help guide others along the right path. The poor leaders just drifted into the background. Sometimes a weak senior would pull some really good men around him and act as a figurehead for them. There should be no objection to this, since it is really just a different method of providing the essential command structure. The real headache came when a senior refused to make decisions, would not let another make them in his place, and would leave the decision up to each individual. This type of leadership was worthless. In my book, such a man did not have the courage to stand up and do what was required. In military training, I think this should be stressed more. If a man does not like the responsibility of command, he should consider this fact before accepting a promotion to a senior level.
Late in the war, the Vietnamese tried to use some poor leaders to their advantage. They knew the relative seniority among the prisoners. Over the years they were able to determine which of the senior prisoners were poor resisters. It was a simple matter for them to place these officers in positions of authority within the prisoner organization. The senior hard-line resisters were grouped together while some poor resisters were placed in various cell blocks as what we called Squadron Commanding Officers (SCO). At the same time, hardline junior officers were placed in rooms headed by a weak SCO.
How to combat this was the subject of much discussion among the prisoners but we never arrived at an acceptable solution. These SCOs were never guilty of any overt act which would be cited as a basis for relieving them of command, but their "don’t make waves” instructions to their juniors put a damper on prisoner resistance. This problem needs to be studied extensively since it proved to be very troublesome in this war.
Third in importance is the need to maintain security. This goes hand-in-hand with the ability to communicate. Communications are vital to establishing prisoner policies, and to filing reports. The methods of communication between cells obviously must be protected. The mechanical means of communicating, the codes involved, and the hours for communications, are highly classified. Although it is ridiculous to stress the necessity to maintain security of P.W. communications systems, this was at times a problem. People became lax or complacent, simply because they were doing the same things so many times. On occasion this cost us dearly. Someone would suddenly be caught communicating or some method of communications would be compromised. The need for security became more important as the need for communications privacy grew within the P.W. system itself. The Squadron Commanding Officers at times found it necessary to communicate between themselves without informing the general prisoner population. On other occasions, individual prisoners would want to communicate with each other without informing anyone else. There were also some extremely sensitive communications about such things as escape plans that required limited distribution to minimize the chance of compromise and to protect those not involved. In all of these cases security had to be maintained. We had to devise methods which accomplished these objectives but still protected the system being used. Prisoners must understand and accept the fact that there are some things which cannot become general knowledge and that a true "need-to-know” policy must exist.
Some prisoners became extremely curious, to the point that if they did not know all that was going on, they felt that they were personally being discriminated against, or that something very vital was being withheld from them. Sometimes they became too impressed with their own importance. It was necessary to maintain overall security as well as security within each smaller P.W. group. People should be taught this. They should never take it personally. They should promote and protect this type of security, because the entire ability to communicate is compromised when security is lost. In spite of all of these difficulties, security was, in general, maintained very well throughout.
The last major area of interest is the Code of Conduct. In discussing the Code, some very basic questions first must be asked. What is worth dying for? What is worth taking torture for?
There have been many opinions expressed by responsible people to the effect that a P.W. can say anything he wants to and it won’t be meaningful to anybody. Their theory is that it is not worth being tortured avoid saying something that is derogatory towards your government. For my part, I definitely disagree with this whole philosophy.
American tradition provides the backbone of the Code of Conduct. Two of our greatest heroes are Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale. Patrick Henry said, "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased the price of chains and slavery? I know not what others may say, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” He did not say, "Give me liberty or give me death, but not if it means suffering for awhile." Nathan Hale, just before dying, said, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” Apparently he did not object to being hanged for a cause, because he felt that cause was more important than his own life.
This ideal, or tradition, has come down through the years to the American people, perhaps moreso to the American military man. He is told to act in accordance with this tradition. In the life of the P.W., these esoteric ideals became very real and meaningful in everyday living. A P.W. faced three choices—life, death or prolonged suffering. I am not sure that the addition of prolonged suffering really changes anything. You expect an officer to live up to those principles he has sworn to protect. If he is prepared to fight and to die or them, he should also be prepared to suffer for them.
There are those who say, "Yes . . . but we have to practical because man just cannot do all that we expect of him.” What is important is that he tries to live up to these ideals. I believe in the American democratic form of government and the American political system. I believe in this very strongly and am completely opposed to Communism. As a military man, my country expects me to fight when required, and mV self-respect forces me to live up to that duty. It seems to me that if you are thrown into a situation where suddenly you are going to suffer rather than simply is most unfortunate, but you must be willing to suffer without giving up. You cannot arbitrarily say, "Let’s forget it,” and say anything convert. Your self-respect does not permit this.
You cannot reach into your personality, take out a chunk and throw it away, and think that it won’t make any difference. When a P.W. does that, it is exactly what the enemy wants him to do. The P.W. has weakened himself. He has thrown away a portion of s strength of character. He has provided his enemy with an inroad to start working on. This will cause real problems, since he is giving in to the enemy’s primary objective. At the same time, he is destroying himself. An old proverb says, "If a man loses his wealth he has lost nothing, if he loses his health, he has lost little, but if he loses his spirit, then everything is lost.” This is the important thing here. He may suffer, he may be forced to do many things that he does not care to do, but the will to resist must remain. Concerning beliefs, whether they be political, religious, social, personal, or family, they should be lived up to, to the very best of a man’s ability. These are his beliefs, his ethics, his code, his true values. He should never back down from them. If he is forced to violate them due to forces beyond his control, so be it. As soon as that is over, he must spring right back and do the best he can to live up to them once again. He must keep the spirit, the desire to try, the will to resist as a P.W., and to continue trying to the best of his ability. This is my answer and, I think, the answer most P.W.s would give to this question. A P.W. will resist and take torture for some very insignificant things simply because he believes in them. If he truly believes in what he is doing, he will continue fighting and resisting the enemy to the best of his ability no matter how long it lasts. No matter how painful it may be, no matter how many times he may fail, no matter how many times he may be broken, he will spring back. He will maintain his will to resist. He will maintain his spirit and continue fighting. In this respect, the Code of Conduct is good as it stands today. It tells you that you are an American fighting man, that you will evade, that you will never surrender of your own free will, that you will continue to resist if captured, that you will keep faith with your fellow prisoners, and that you will resist giving any information that is in any way derogatory or harmful to your country. These are the guidelines that we should continue to follow. The only point in the Code that needs revamping is a technical one, relating to escape.
As the Code is written, it states that a prisoner will make every attempt to escape and aid others to do likewise. It also states that a senior will take command. All P.W.s will support the senior man in every way. If the senior officer says escape is not feasible and should not be attempted, there is a contradiction. The only change that needs to be made then is simply a statement of priorities. What takes precedence? The obvious answer is that a military man should always follow orders. Thus, the orders of a senior officer should take precedence over general guidelines. This should be spelled out more clearly, perhaps with an appropriate phrase added such as, "within reason,” "within discretion,” or "in keeping with senior officer policy.” This was a problem in North Vietnam because these situations did arise. After the second escape, there were fantastic reprisals. Whether this would have taken place after a third escape can only be debated. The issue remains controversial, with strong feelings in both directions.
This question of whether orders take precedence over the Code needs to be answered. Also, I think a realistic appraisal of the odds against escape should be given. There have been too many hero movies about escapes that blow this out of proportion. You should not say, "If I have a 25% chance of escape, I’ll go.” It is really absurd to anticipate even a 2% chance of escape. I believe if you base it on the number of attempts and the people in prison from World War II and the Korean War and Vietnam that if you come up with a 1 in 1,000 chance of success it is pretty good. To demand a reasonable chance of success is in itself unreasonable. At the same time, if reprisals are going to be high, this should perhaps dampen the enthusiasm for taking such a long shot. If you do not know that reprisals will exist perhaps the enthusiasm for taking that long shot should go up. There is a need for clarification and better understanding in training concerning the possibilities of escape, and the odds for its success. The general guidelines need to be taught, but I don’t believe the Code has to be changed.
Students should be told again and again that they must obey the senior officer’s orders. I believe that this basic military philosophy must prevail. If you have a strong case which will stand up in court then you might consider disobeying the orders of your senior officer and relieving him. Human nature being what it is, often the person who thinks he is the greatest is also the most hard-headed. It is impossible to get across to him that he is wrong. This is the one thing that he will not accept. Even when you think that he is doing something stupid, or even holding hands with the enemy, as a junior your responsibility is to follow. The best comparison that is reasonably valid is the ship at sea during warfare. It may be that the captain is less than fully capable. He may very well do something wrong. He may very well get his ship sunk when all hands are obeying orders. However, if they do not do what he says, do not work together, and do not support the captain, the damn thing sure as hell is going to be sunk. The best thing you can hope for is to do everything you can to support the captain and just hope to God he has enough skill and luck to get you out of it. If you do not stick together, maintain your unity and strength, your military organization, and follow orders, it will be far more detrimental. Experience for us actually showed that as long as everyone worked together and did exactly the same thing, even when that thing was wrong it seemed to work out okay. The most important thing was that where there was unity there was strength, for better or for worse.
My final thought for the Code is that it should be incorporated into our military law. By so doing, a violation of the Code would be a violation of military law. One could then be convicted for its violation. Many prisoners assumed that the Code of Conduct was a valid standing order and that you should conduct yourselves accordingly. Also, they felt those who did not follow the Code could be prosecuted. They came home to find that it is considered to be a guideline. Let us alleviate the confusion and make sure all hands understand exactly what the Code of Conduct is. Better still, make it into law. Let us write it into the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and thus make it a defined military order so that its violations can be prosecuted.
The other item that should be clarified is the legitimacy of command structures in prisoner of war camps. If the law requires that the establishment of a military organization requires the acknowledgement of each member, in the clandestine communications environment, membership is automatically limited to "volunteers.” The dissident "loner” can claim legal immunity by merely refusing to utilize the tap code. Further, the legitimacy of a joint multi-service command structure is spelled out in the Code of Conduct, a non-punitive document. As things now stand, the validity of orders in P.W. camps is too vulnerable to "sea lawyer” type defenses. All should be made to understand that the senior officer, regardless of service, will take command and that he has the authority.
Will it apply also to other nations? What happens if a more senior South Vietnamese Colonel is put into the same prison? Would he take command? Points such as these need to be clarified and understood. We have been taking them for granted for a long time, but technically they are invalid. Command authority should be covered in the UCMJ.
Those of us who endured the long, lonesome years of captivity are marked by our firm belief in the limit' less strength of character of an American fighting man, and in the ability of a cohesive group of these strong hearted men to overcome seemingly hopeless odds.
In this age of American self-deprecation and breast-beating, we are all too prone to overlook the tremendous national strength residual in our people. We are not only bigger, stronger, and healthier than most other humans, we are also far better educated, better trainee in all manner of individual and team pursuits, and have moral goals loftier than most of the rest of the world. These people of character are a great national strength whose true value was ultimately decisive in bringing us home.
Lieutenant Commander Coker received his commission and wings August 1964 through the NFO Program. Assigned to VA-65, he transition with the squadron to the A-6A and deployed to Southeast Asia in 1966. After 55 missions he was shot down over North Vietnam and captured on 27 August 1966. His 6 1/2 year sabbatical in North Vietnam was marl by an escape and three years of solitary. Following his release on 4 March 1973 and discharge from the hospital, he joined VA-42 flying the A6-E.