Two Souls Indivisible (29 page)

On May 13, 1972, a convoy of sixteen canvas trucks pulled out of Hoa Lo and headed north. They carried 210 POWs in handcuffs, including Halyburton, jammed together "like college kids in a phone booth," as well as supplies and equipment to set up a new camp. The Americans had no idea where they were going as they traveled all day and night. Halyburton had a concealed kit with personal items, which included a razor blade, and he sliced the canvas, poked his fingers through, and saw the rice paddies, trees, and huts as the fresh air provided some relief from the heat. The trip lasted two and a half days and they made only two stops; the food—salty fish—intensified their thirst. Halyburton rode beside several fifty-five-gallon drums of gas, the fumes hanging in the air while fuel sloshed out when the truck made a hairpin turn on a bumpy road. Guards smoked in the back of the truck, and Halyburton thought it would be a hell of a way to end it all—a cigarette butt in the gas fumes, blowing them all to pieces.

The trip ended near Cao Bang, a mountainous region only 9 miles from China's border, 105 miles northeast of Hanoi. The prisoners moved into stone and concrete maximum security buildings, surrounded by a brick wall, a karst ridge, and barbed wire. Without electricity, the rooms were cold and damp, and with the sun setting behind the mountains early, it was dark for fourteen hours a day. Light was supplied by kerosene lanterns. One inmate compared the space to an aboveground dungeon. When meat was served, it was impossible to tell what it was unless attached to, say, a chicken leg. The bread was old; the beans, rotten.

It was eerie. Sometimes a piercing sound filled the air, and guards wheeled around and searched the trees, filled with squealing, poisonous lizards. The guards also wore knee-high "snake boots" and carried sticks to beat the creatures away. This alarmed the Americans, who discovered a drainage hole under one of the beds and realized it was big enough for a snake; they stuffed it with socks. When Halyburton was bitten by a foot-long centipede, he smashed it with a sandal—and six or seven pieces crawled off in different directions.

Like all the prisons, it was given an appropriate name: the Dogpatch.

The Vietnamese never said why the POWs were moved there, but in time a sound guess was made. In April, U.S. forces had resumed bombing near Hanoi and Haiphong, and then, on May 8, the air raids intensified and Haiphong Harbor was mined. The Vietnamese probably feared that a rescue attempt or even a misguided bomb could eliminate their most important bargaining chip—the prisoners. So they took about half the captives to the Dogpatch.

In the northern locale, it got colder sooner. Other prisoners had received long underwear and other garments in packages from home, but Halyburton had no winter clothes. The guards gave all the POWs a third blanket, which helped, but Halyburton was still cold. Then one day a guard walked into his cell, yelled "Hat" (his Vietnamese nickname, a derivation), and threw a green sweater his way. He knew it had been knitted by Marty: it had no label and had a V neck, which he preferred; he remembered that Marty had been knitting him a sweater when he was on the
Independence.

Releasing the garment and distributing the third blanket were signs that peace negotiations were progressing; the Vietnamese did not want to return emaciated or sickly Americans. But in October, after another impasse, Halyburton was taken in for interrogation and handed a copy of the proposed peace agreement.

"Why won't your government sign this?" the interrogator asked him.

"I have no idea," Halyburton said.

After seven years of interrogations and indoctrination and abuse, he was convinced of one thing: a peace treaty would never be signed unless the bombing intensified. He had felt that way for years, and he prayed that Nixon would not ease up now.

On a hazy December evening, Cherry was idling in Building 3 of Camp Unity when the air sirens began to wail and the antiaircraft guns sent flaming missiles across the sky. Jet engines roared above while falling bombs rocked the earth and plaster fell from the ceiling. "May bay My! May bay My!" came over the loudspeakers, which meant "American aircraft! American aircraft!" Cherry, standing on his bunk and looking up at the sky, thought North Vietnam had been hit by a nuclear bomb.

The POWs were jumping and slapping one another on the back. "They finally did it," someone yelled. "They nuked 'em!"

Actually, America was dropping mammoth bombs from its B-52s in what would be the war's most devastating display of air power. Bridges were destroyed, arsenals blown up, fires ignited. The "Christmas bombing" was launched on December 18 and lasted eleven days. Nixon wanted to end the negotiating stalemate by creating "the most massive shock effect in a psychological context," and the barrage was undeniably spectacular. When a missile struck a B-52 at 30,000 feet, an orange-blue flash stretched across the sky, the large burning pieces falling to the ground, in the words of one prisoner, "like fire being poured out of a pitcher."

Some of the POWs were afraid, knowing that one errant bomb could kill them all. But most of them celebrated during each attack, yelling "Thank you!" and "God bless America!" Their confidence was bolstered by the panic of the guards, who scurried for shelter or blindly fired their rifles into the air. The morning after the first attack, Hanoi was silent, the usual wakeup music, horns, and traffic all missing. The interrogators and guards asked the prisoners what they needed and delivered morning coffee. Fred Cherry knew he was going home.

In the end, the B-52s dropped 15,000 tons of bombs, though Hoa Lo itself received little damage. Fifteen planes were shot down and thirty-four crew members captured. Thirty-two died. The POWs believed the attack compelled the Vietnamese, fearing further raids, to release them. One crew member recalled that, for years afterward, "if there were ever POWs around, we never had to buy a drink." The Vietnamese had a different view of the attack. They celebrated it as the "Dien Bien Phu of the skies," a victory that led the United States to withdraw its troops, which paved the way for the Communist triumph in 1975.

The Paris peace talks resumed on January 8, 1973; the governments of North and South Vietnam and the United States, weary of the stalemate and mounting casualties, began to resolve the remaining points. On January 18, the Dogpatch was shut down and the prisoners were returned to Camp Unity. When Halyburton entered his cell, a message was written on the door: "We'll be free in '73." In the waning days of the war, the Americans played volleyball, read magazines, socialized, and ate. The turnkeys and guards were still "arrogant," Halyburton wrote in his diary, "which was good. I wanted to leave NVN with the same taste in my mouth that I had for all these years."

On January 29 the prisoners, called to the courtyard, walked out in formation. Film crews and cameramen stood by. The camp commander, a professional bureaucrat nicknamed Dog, read the peace accord first in Vietnamese, then in English. He said a truce had been reached, the war had ended, and they'd be going home in two weeks. The Americans stood in silence. No cheers, no handshakes, not even a thumbs-up. Their silence was one more act of defiance. They would not allow their elation to be captured on film and turned into propaganda. For Halyburton, caution was also a factor. After so many years and so many false hopes, he would not allow his emotions to soar, only to be disappointed again.

Before Dog dismissed them, he told the prisoners to "show good attitudes" until their release. Robinson Risner, standing in front, did an aboutface and yelled, "Fourth Allied POW Wing, atten-hut!" Almost four hundred men snapped to attention, their rubber tire sandals coming together. The "squadron commanders," returning Risner's salute, barked, "Squadron, dismissed!" The men fell out and returned to their cells, then broke out in laughter and tears.

In the days that followed, the war's end could be seen and felt. With no fear of air raids, the lights on the weather and communication towers burned at night, and fireworks streaked the sky with ersatz bombs instead of real ones. The Vietnamese hoisted their flag at Hoa Lo to signify victory—except the flag was raised upside down and had to be fixed. Inside the prison, musical performers staged a farewell show, though most of the Americans refused to attend. The inmates received haircuts, new clothes, and a bag for a towel, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, two packs of Dien Bien cigarettes, and matches. The Americans were also fitted for shoes—their first since they were captured—by standing on pieces of toilet paper and allowing a Vietnamese to pencil lines around their feet. Some men hadn't seen zippers, buttons, or shoelaces for years and now played with their wardrobe "like a bunch of little kids in a toy store." For their final dinner, wine was served.

The prisoners from the North and the South were to be released over a six-week period, the order determined by date of shoot-down and medical needs. (The Vietnamese moved up to the first flight two POWs who had willingly denounced America and cooperated with the enemy.) On February 12—which was, as the prisoners later noted, Lincoln's birthday—both Halyburton and Cherry filed out of Unity and into the courtyard, where the POWs, wearing dark trousers and gray zippered jackets, lined up two abreast in platoons of twenty. Some came on crutches; three arrived on stretchers.

As the day had approached, many of the Americans discussed what they would do when released. A popular line was, "A cold beer, a hot piece of ass, and a two-hour hop in a single-seat fighter, in that order." Several men described how they would exact revenge in ways that would repeat the brutality of their own experience. Halyburton realized that hatred had taken over their lives, and their freedom, so filled with bloodlust, would be spoiled.

Halyburton wanted to shed his own "armor of hatred" so that the Vietnamese would never impair him again. As he was led out through the gates of the Hanoi Hilton, he turned for one last look and said silently, "I forgive you." It was not, he later said, a Christian act but his final act as a prisoner to ensure his survival as a free man. He was overwhelmed with relief.

In the morning fog, two buses marked with camouflage pulled out of Hoa Lo and puttered through the downtown traffic. There were no journalists or cameramen to record the moment, and few bystanders took notice. One American said he felt as if he was sightseeing on a tour bus while another remembered "being subdued in the solemnity of our thoughts, almost hypnotized."

The buses crossed a pontoon bridge and stopped at an administration building on the outskirts of Gia Lam airport. A Red Cross tent was pitched nearby. The building was like an old bus terminal, with everyone sitting on benches, and the Vietnamese passed out tea and pig fat sandwiches. The food disappointed Halyburton—"Couldn't they do better than that?" he later asked—but, famished, he ate a sandwich anyway. Beer was then served, offering some consolation.

Shortly before noon, the men returned to the buses and watched a U.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifter descend from the clouds and land on the runway. It was an "electrifying" moment, confirming their imminent freedom, and the juxtaposition of the great white and gray transport aircraft, with its high tail and swept wings, and the two small shuttles spoke volumes about the two countries. One of the C-141 pilots said the tinny buses "looked almost like toys."

A grassy enclosure surrounded by a wrought-iron fence served as the reception area, and officials from the United States and North Vietnam waited for the prisoners at a small table. Also milling about were representatives from South Vietnam, the Viet Cong, and an international advisory commission. As the POWs stepped off the buses, many saw a familiar face—Rabbit. Air Force Captain Charles Boyd recalled, "He was holding a muster sheet and was calling off the names of the men he had tortured for years. He did not look up." One by one, the men walked past the table and saluted a U.S. Air Force colonel, signifying repatriation, and a U.S. serviceman escorted each one seventy-five yards to a plane. One pulled from his jacket a white canvas with a message in blue letters: "God bless America & Nixon." Everett Alvarez, in captivity for almost nine years, stepped onto the plane and walked past a blond flight attendant, who took his arm. "I felt like I might oxidize into thin air," he later wrote.

Cherry, on the first flight, was welcomed onboard, checked for any immediate medical problems, and seated. The plane raised its ramp, taxied down the runway, and lifted into the sky. Like all the POWs, he restrained his emotions until the plane was airborne and the pilot announced "Feet wet," meaning "over water." Then the men hugged, screamed, laughed, and cried, toasting their survival with juice and coffee. When a "liaison officer" mentioned that the Miami Dolphins had won Super Bowl VII, someone asked, "What's the Super Bowl?"

They were headed to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, a three-hour flight; to ensure that no Americans were left behind, the officers began asking for the names of all known POWs. Navy Commander James Mulligan recited the name, rank, and date of shoot-down for 450 men. The officers also briefed them on the elaborate welcome that awaited them. Originally called "Egress Recap," it was now heralded as "Operation Homecoming."

For Cherry, the jubilation masked underlying worries. He was now forty-four years old, and he had been in prison for so long; decisions on such matters as sleeping, eating, and smoking had been made by others, and he wasn't sure how he would adjust to freedom. It seemed that he hadn't made an important decision on his own, beyond resisting the enemy, in ages. At the same time, the years of indoctrination and propaganda had shaken his confidence in America. He had heard so much about its troubles—the race riots, the assassinations, the antiwar demonstrations—he didn't know what kind of country he was returning to or whether he, a conservative career military man, would fit in. Meanwhile, he had no idea if his wife was dead or alive or what had become of his family. He felt as though he was experiencing his own
High Noon,
a moment of reckoning that would change the course of his life.