WEBVTT - Charlie Plumb’s Unexpectedly Long Mission 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:19.440 Pushkin. Hello everyone, it's Jr. In today's bonus episode, I'm 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:23.560 excited to share a special interview with a friend of mine. 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.920 He's a pilot who spent nearly six years as a 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:31.760 pow during the Vietnam War in Asel not far from 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:37.360 the Medal of Honor recipient, but Day Captain Charlie Plumb 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:41.040 is a retired US Navy fighter pilot who earned his 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.080 wings in nineteen sixty five. He went on to fly 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:50.840 seventy four successful combat missions over North Vietnam, making over 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:57.800 one hundred carrier landings. Then came his fateful seventy fifth mission. 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:02.400 It was May nineteenth, nineteen teen sixty seven. Charlie was 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.399 flying an F four Phantom Jet off the deck of 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:10.400 the aircraft carrier USS Katie Hawk. His mission that day 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.640 was a high risk alpha strike targeting a military complex 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:20.560 south of Hanoi, known by pilots as Little Detroit. He 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.919 was just five days away from his scheduled return home 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.080 when he was shot down. If you listen to our 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.840 last episode, you'll remember that while he was a pow, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:37.959 Bud Day expressed his courage through pure stoicism and steadfastness, 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.720 a belief in upholding the code of conduct above all else. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.280 But Charlie is a model for another kind of courage, 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:53.000 a model based in forgiveness and unbelievable grace. I wanted 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.080 to talk to him to understand how a man who 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.240 endured years of brutal captivity could return to Vietnam decades 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:06.280 later and find common ground with the man who ordered 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:13.960 his torture, something unimaginable to many, including by Day. Here's 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:18.960 our conversation. So, Charlie, thank you so much for joining. 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.560 That is such a pleasure to have you on. How 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:22.080 are you doing. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:24.720 I'm doing fine, Jr. On this honor to be with you. 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.200 Well, thank you so much. And I'd like to begin 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.480 before we get into the nearly six years that you 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:32.640 spent as a POW, I'd like to really get into 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:34.360 why you wanted to join the military. 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.079 I was a farm kid from Kansas, never been out 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.560 of the four states of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, never 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.160 seen the ocean, and age seventeen, I knew I needed 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.000 an education. My parents were poor. We didn't have running 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.080 water in the house until I was seven years old. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.760 So at age seventeen, I knew my parents couldn't afford college, 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:56.840 and so I started looking for scholarships. I sent my 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.760 application to everybody I can think of, just a shotgun 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.840 aer and lo and behold, I got an appointment to Annapolis, 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.240 the Naval Academy. Well I had no idea what they 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.320 did in Annapolis. I really did not. And I like 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.760 to tell you that I had great aspirations of being 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.679 an admiral and commanding ships and squadrons around the world. 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.160 That's not true. I needed an education, and this was 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.920 a free one. And so got on that greyhound bussem 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.400 two days later. Just like you, I was pledging to 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.240 defend the Constitution United States against all enemies. That's how 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.080 I got into the military. 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.800 And so you joined the military. How soon after was 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.440 it for you where you realized, Okay, this is not 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.520 just going to be maybe a free education. There's going 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.200 to be a little bit more involvement here. 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.000 The day I actually showed up at Annapolis, I didn't 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.960 know how to salute or march or puld my socks. 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:57.119 You know, it was quite a transition, you know, from 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.480 a farm kid from Kansas into a military uniform. I 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.480 looked back on those days and they were wonderful, but 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.280 they were not easy. 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:12.280 You know, you find yourself deployed on missions seventy four 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.400 missions talk us through seventy fifth. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.240 I flew seventy four combat missions trying to protect the 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.000 air group from enemy fighters, and I had a couple 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:27.040 of ground support missions. But those are very difficult flights 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.280 for me because I knew I had to be accurate, 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.240 and so we went lower and took more risks when 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.400 we were supporting ground troops. And so I was five 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.320 days from the end of my tour of duty on 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:43.000 that seventy fifth mission. I mean, I felt like I 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:48.400 was bulletproof, over confident probably, and felt like I really 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.960 was the top gun. It was a big, big deal. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.360 It's a big strike called an Alpha strike. We had 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:57.320 three aircraft carriers, one of which I was on, the Kittiehawk, 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:02.360 and five air force bases on these targets in Vietnam. 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.360 So I launched off the Kitty Hawk rendezvouoted twenty thousand feet, 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:08.800 took on another three or four thousand pounds of jet 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:12.520 fuel in an airborne tanker, and pointed the nose towards 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.799 the beach. Got in just south of Hanoi, the capital city, 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.159 the most heavily defended city in the world. At that 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:25.680 time my role was fighter escort and we came up 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.080 close to the target, thought we saw an enemy, and 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.440 we skirted out to the side of the formation, which 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.039 was my big mistake. Hit by a surface to air missile. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.520 It exploded some twelve thousand pounds of jet fuel I 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.960 had in that airplane. Sent that bird a topsy turvey 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.800 endover and down towards the rice patty below. I ejected, 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:52.480 my copat had ejected, Our parachutes opened, and in ninety 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.120 seconds I went from king of the skies to scum 0:05:56.160 --> 0:06:01.200 of the earth. Spent the next and three in communist 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:01.880 prison camps. 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:07.159 Wow, So you find yourself now as you're parachuting, What 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.080 is going through your mind in that moment? Talk me 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:11.960 through what is about to happen. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.679 I was in shock. I truly was out of body, 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.680 almost watching this whole thing happen. And about that time 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.719 I find myself about waist deep in a rice patty, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.880 and so my first thought was to my buddies. I 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.599 was a schedules officer in the squadron, and I had 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.839 a book coded for the names of all the pilots 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:37.919 and the missions that they were going on, and that 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.120 kind of thing. I did not want the enemy to 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.800 get a hold of that book. I pulled the book 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.360 out of my pocket and ripped up the pages eight, 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.039 about half of the pages the book. I took my 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.000 two way radio up because I could have called for help, 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.080 but I was so far into enemy territory that I 0:06:55.160 --> 0:07:00.160 knew that any rescue would probably be disastrous for the 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.640 guys in their helicopters coming in to get me. So 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.160 I made one call and said, see you guys at 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.000 the end of the war, Please don't try to rescue me. 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.760 Tore the antenna off the radio, through it one way 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:12.960 and through the radio the other way, and then I 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.239 bowed my head and I said a prayer. I prayed 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.760 for my wife that she would understand this. 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.000 I mean, I can't even imagine finding yourself in that 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.320 position and yet still have the awareness to take that 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.640 book and to take that radio, to throw it an 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.920 opposite end, to say your prayer just one of those 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.400 things that I think as myself and listeners of this 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:41.520 podcast are just in awe. So what's transpired that has 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.880 prepared you to have that type of awareness. 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:52.040 I don't remember actually thinking logically. It was all almost automatic. 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:54.440 Of course, I had been trained. I'd been through four 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.640 different survival camps, but at the end of it, I 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.760 think I learned more. In the sand is four years old, 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:03.520 you know. I mean, you don't kick saying in the 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.960 other guy's face if he's bigger than you are. I mean, 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.880 all those schools I don't think prepared me just as 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:15.280 well as my upbringing. I had a very strong family. 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.920 I was a very optimistic person. I felt like there 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.880 was some kind of master plan that I was involved in, 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.280 and I might never know exactly what it was, but 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:32.200 I felt like that somebody or something was in more 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:33.480 control of this than I was. 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:39.080 So you land, how quickly did you find yourself now 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:40.840 being taken prisoner? 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.760 I ejected into a very populated area, so I was 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.280 captured immediately, they were right there. I haulowed me into 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:55.800 the prison camp, immediately interrogated, tortured for two days, and 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.320 of course code of conduct. As a lot of your 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:02.040 listeners will know, rank, scherl number, data birth, that's all 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.320 you're obliged to give to the enemy. I flew the 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.920 skies of Vietnam thinking I'm tough enough. I will never 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.160 give more the name, ranks, serial number to data birth. 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.160 I mean how old were you at this time when 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:13.880 this is happening. 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.000 I was twenty four, Okay. So after two days of 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.360 the torture, they primarily a bunch of ropes and irons, 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.760 and they waded us up like a human pretzel. I buckled, 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:25.760 and I never told them anything they could use. I 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.040 didn't know. I was a junior officer. They didn't tell 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.600 me secrets. But I certainly went farther than I had 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.559 intended to go. They tossed me into this little eight 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.280 foot by eight foot prison cell, eight feet long and 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:41.240 eight feet wide. There's no window. There's a door with 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.199 a flap in the door so that a guard could 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.480 come by at any moment and drop that flap and 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.440 see what you were doing. And of course we were 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.920 supposed to be sitting on our board bed thinking about 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.199 our sins against the North Vietnamese. Inside the cell, we 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.080 had a two gallon bucket he usually rusted out at 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.599 the top with no top on it. Largely this was 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.959 our latrine. You got to empty that bucket about every 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.680 two or three days. It was very nice at all. 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.720 They delivered two meals a day, about ten and two. 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.640 We got a cup of rice each time, and sometimes 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:25.800 a cup of broth, and so I was alone and scared, 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:31.520 and I felt very guilty. Lucky for me, Well, it's 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.400 more than luck. I think it was providence. A fellow 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:40.840 two cells away passed a wire across a storeroom. The 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.120 cell between us was being used as a storeroom. He 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.400 passed this wire over the boxes, around the shovels, through 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.600 the ropes of the storeroom, and into the little hole 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:55.199 in my cell wall fourteen feet away. The wire scratched 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.000 on my concrete floor. I thought it was a cricket 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.640 at first, but I found it and I pulled on 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.360 the wire and it pulled back, and then it disappeared, 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.320 and man, I'm in real trouble. Now they've tricked me. 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.360 The wire came back about an hour later with a 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.800 note wrapped around the end of the wire. The note 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.280 was written on a dirty piece of toilet paper, and 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.480 just blobs on this piece of toilet paper, and I 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:22.440 could barely make it out, but it said, memorize this code, 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:27.800 then eat this note. Well, I'd volunteered for a lot 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:29.840 of things in the Navy, but I didn't know it 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.480 was going to come to this. So I did it. 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.280 The codes of five y five matrix of the alphabet, 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.199 indicating any letter would be represented by two numbers number 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.920 of the line than the number of the row. So 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.040 A is one one, Z is five to five. We 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:51.559 left out K, substituted C for a K. So a 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.280 very cumbersome code. But I started tugging on the wire 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.760 and the guy on the other ends had designated various 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.360 letters of the alphabet by certain numbers of tugs. I 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.640 talked for him for a while. Bob Shoemaker passed me 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:11.360 some very important information. He said, you will find that 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.920 you've joined the finest team you'll ever play on. He said, 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.000 barn None, I don't care where you go what you do. 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.040 This team of American fighter pilots like Jim Stockdale Medal 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.520 of Honah winner and Bud Day Medal of Vannah winner, 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.839 Leo Thurstness Medal of Vannah winner. In fact, we had 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.360 a total of five in that camp. Our leadership in 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.760 this prison camp is the best leadership you will ever 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.400 see the rest of your life. You will never see 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.520 leadership like this. Some of them have been there for 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.200 over two years when I showed up. Surely they know 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.560 something that I don't know. 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:54.079 It's incredible. I mean I think what I hear is 0:12:54.640 --> 0:13:01.640 when given purpose, right, we show up and respond right. 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.280 And I think that's what I hear is purpose. 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.280 Yeah, it was a mission that our leadership had established 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.800 for us. Everything you do, every answery you make in 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.679 the torture room, everything you do has to be seen 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:24.040 through a prism of return with honor. And Shoemaker was 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.240 telling me this. I felt very ashamed. How can I 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.920 ever go home and face my family, my fellow fighter pilots, 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.720 the community and admit that I had failed in my 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.160 mission Because I did fail in my mission, and I 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.080 didn't do what I came there to do and what 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.640 I was proud to do when I did it. Suddenly 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.440 I am on the other side of this equation. I'm 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.800 a failure. And I paced three steps one way and 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.120 three steps the other in that eight foot by foot 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:57.760 prison cell, feeling guilty about what I had done. 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:19.840 We're gonna tell make a quick break. We're back with 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.840 Captain Charlie Plumb. He's just gotten in touch with other 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:28.080 captured US airmen in the camp, using a secret code 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.880 to talk to Bob Shoemaker, and he's realizing the gravity 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.160 of telling the enemy the information he has. 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.320 But I was convinced that there were other fighter pilots 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.880 in that prison camp, that they were all probably older 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:47.480 and more mature, they were better fighter pilots, and they 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.360 probably didn't stray from name, rank, sheryll, number, day to 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.600 birth like I did. That they had accomplished their mission 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.440 and I had failed. In mind, so pacing along, feeling 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.800 sorry for myself and blaming everybody I could think of, 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.920 I was blaming the enemy. I was blaming the guards 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.760 that tortured me. I was blaming the mechanics that put 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.920 the airplane together. Thinking that at the end of the war, 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.840 maybe I would go to some foreign country change my 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.960 name because I didn't want anybody to know how terribly 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.800 i'd failed. And finally I said, Bob, I have a 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.120 confession to make, and when I tell you what I did, 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.320 you might not want to communicate with me anymore, because 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.600 if our roles were reversed and you did what I did, 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.760 I wouldn't want to talk to you either. He said, 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.960 would you do, Plumber, there's my call sign Plumber. I said, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.160 I failed. I broke. I'm sorry to tell you this, 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:47.520 but the torture was too great, and he tugged back 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.440 on the wire through the wall. He said, Hell, everybody broke. 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.440 There's not a man in his prison camp who was 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.840 as strong as he wanted to be what he expected 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.840 of himself. So get over it. We still have a 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.840 war to fight. We're going to pursue this war till 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:10.760 our last dying breath. I dropped the wire that somebody 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:15.800 else had gone through this experience and falling down but 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:20.600 then gotten right back up and pursued his mission. And 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:25.200 just their sharing with me, how they have responded to 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.800 the guilt and the pain and the misery that they 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.520 were going through with a strong sense of community, that 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.080 we were helping each other out. And so that was 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.360 sort of the beginning of my understanding that I had 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:41.760 to forgive myself for being so weak in the torture room. 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:47.840 You know, it seems like the opportunity to interact with 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.880 the other prisoners in that particular camp is essentially what 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:56.720 saved you. That brotherhood and that camaraderie, and how no 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.600 matter where you are, no matter what the conditions are, 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:02.880 you're gonna be together, You're gonna stick together, You're gonna 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:03.800 show up for one another. 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.680 Yeah. Once I gained communication with the other guys, we 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:13.240 spent hours and hours on the wall, tugging on wires 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.640 or tapping on walls. And I think it's a great 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.000 lesson of life is lots of times we need help. 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:23.119 And your listeners will probably be surprised that in that 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:28.320 prison kit, I remember many times my stomach hurt from 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.679 laughing so hard. There was just an awful lot of 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.240 humor jokes, you know that. We would tell We even 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:36.760 numbered our jokes and you just come up with a 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:38.600 number of The guy knew the joke you were talking about, 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.959 and then he would add a pun to the end 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:46.920 of the joke. And when your birthday came, man, your 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.520 buddies were giving you plates and plates of food and 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.760 an orchestra of play. And the birthday cake was always 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.720 the shape of a big aircraft carrier with girls hopping 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.760 out of the aircraft carrier. It was all in our mind. 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.000 It was all tapping on walls, but you always look forward. 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.159 But it worked. It worked. We were saving the lives 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.240 of each other, and we had a purpose in life. 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.080 We had a goal and to keep that goal and 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.320 foremost in your mind, regardless of what you're going through. 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.080 I tell people all the time, Yes, the physical recovery 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.119 was obviously challenging, and I'm not going to dismiss that 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.439 overlook that, right, that's difficult. But for me personally in 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.760 my recovery and what I had to navigate the mental 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.080 that's where it's at, and what are some of the 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.639 daily things that you're saying to yourself to remember that 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:40.760 you're on the offensive. 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:46.200 So Shoemaker passed along to me patriotic quotes and Bible 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.679 verses and stories and jokes, and one of the little 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.360 poems that he sent across really turned me around. The 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.439 poem is this acid does more harm in the vessel 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:02.600 it stored, then on the side it's poured that wire 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.840 was a revelation to me the first time that a 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.000 young guard couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.720 years old. He brought his girlfriend into my cell to 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:14.960 show her how tough he was. He hit me with 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.880 his rifle button, kicked me with his steel toed boots, 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.560 and she's back in the corner of my prisons, all 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:26.119 laughing and enjoying how tough her boyfriend was. And that 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.080 was tough for me to overcome, but that I couldn't 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.760 waller in this misery and pain because it wasn't doing 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.240 me any good at all. In fact, it was very harmful. 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.960 This acid that was within me wasn't hurting the enemy 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.239 at all. It was destroying me. I thought, I'm not 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.359 going to do this to myself. I got to do 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:50.400 something to make this worthwhile. I found in that prison camp. 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.480 If you harbor this acid within you and you don't 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:58.040 forgive people, you're on a downhill slope. You're not going 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.120 to make it. And it's not hurting the enemy, It's 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.920 gonna kill me. It's gonna be more harmful than anything 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.919 I spew out towards the enemy or anybody else. I 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:11.840 looked around that eight foot by eight foot cell, with 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.720 the rats and the bugs and the filth. That wait 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.119 a minute, My restriction was not the eight feet between 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:23.080 the walls. It was the eight inches between my ears. 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:27.640 This was a mental game. I was in this mental box. 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:32.200 I designed this box by myself, and I recognized immediately 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.240 that I had to get out of that mental box. 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.080 That was the true restriction of what it was going through. 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.000 I'm gonna find some value in all of this pain. 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.879 And then I saw the value in forgiveness, and I 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:52.000 found great pleasure and joy and peace in that action 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:57.080 of forgiveness. Now just took a while, but eventually I 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:01.879 was ready to forgive the guards the torture me. I 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:05.280 was very forgive the camp commander. I was, and after 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:07.600 that life became a lot easier for me. 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.440 So here you are, twenty four years of life. I mean, 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:16.280 you were in captivity for nearly six years. I mean 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:20.560 over twenty one hundred days of doing this exercise, in 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:24.480 this work. I mean, is that enough to get you 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.879 through everything that you endured for nearly three years? 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.879 So we had no books to read, the windows to 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.800 look out, and no TV, telephone, we'd have any communication 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:38.600 with the outside world at all, And so especially in 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:44.000 solitary confinement, we were in our own heads, probably twenty 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.919 hours a day. That's all we had was ourselves. So 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.520 I went back through my life. I decided to try 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.560 to make an autobiography from the very beginning at three 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.639 and a half years old, a step by step, every day, 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.480 every book I'd ever read, every movie I sin, every 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.959 teacher I ever had, every girl I ever dated. How 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.320 long do you think it took me to recapture every 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.000 memory in my life? About three months. I felt like 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:17.879 I had totally exhausted my entire memory database. But in 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:22.040 going back for the twenty four years that I had lived, 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:27.280 I tried to pick out the positive parts. Then I 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.040 decided to plan the future. I started to try to 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.760 figure out what I'd do, what kids my wife and 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:36.080 I would have together, where we would live, where we 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.480 would vacation, what kind of cars we would drive, all 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:44.199 this stuff for twenty years. Well, that took another three months, 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.760 and then I wasn't home. So I went back through 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:53.680 that future and replanned. So anyway, I'm telling you all 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:57.280 of the mental things that I came up with myself. 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:03.040 We're going to take a quick break, and when we're back, 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:24.280 Charlie goes home. When you came home, you were given 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.679 sort of this hero's welcome. How did that land with 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.200 you after nearly six years as a pow and during 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:35.679 everything you endured, coming home and being put up on 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.280 this platform of I'm a. 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:42.640 Hero coming home was a wonderful event. But we were 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:46.520 sure surprised, and they had organized ticker tape praise. They 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:50.040 gave me a brand new Ford, We got lifetime tickets 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:53.760 to World Series, and I think we had like two 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:57.920 hundred major gifts. One of my favorite was lazy boy 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:06.280 gave me a recliner, a leather recliner. Readers Digest had 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:10.560 produced a set of books called While You Were Not Here, 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:15.080 and each one of the books was one year of 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:17.560 things that had happened while we were there, And so 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:21.760 I got six volumes of this from nineteen sixty seven 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:24.280 to nineteen seventy three. It was a hero's welcome, but 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:27.040 we didn't feel like heroes. None of us felt like 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:32.800 heroes at all. The heroes were the guys that didn't 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:36.800 come back. The heroes are the civilians that waited for 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:40.520 us and prayed for us. And in a lot of cases, 0:24:40.640 --> 0:24:43.080 you know, I think my wife had it tougher than 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:45.160 I did, but I knew I was alive every day. 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:48.680 I knew I was coming home every day. They didn't know. 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:51.439 And about half of us came home for divorces. My 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:56.520 poor wife had so tough, and she found another guy, 0:24:56.600 --> 0:24:59.280 fell in love, and filed for divorce three months before 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:03.199 I came home. And so obviously another gut punch for me. 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:08.000 I'll never forget laying in that hospital room and Great 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:11.720 Lakes Naval Hospital in Chicago and thinking to myself, how 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:14.880 terrible this is, and I started blaming everybody I can 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:18.240 think of, blame her boyfriend. And it didn't take long 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:20.600 until I said, wait a minute, Wait a minute, you 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:26.800 hypocrypt You know that little poem about acid within you 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:30.080