The following was written by Air Force Captain, Eugene "Red" McDaniel, whose plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967. His experience in the Hanoi Hilton proves both the depravity of man and the grace of God.
"Between the pressure and pain were monotonous gray gaps --- tedious hours of boredom, endless hours of doing nothing but think and wonder and sometimes worry. To combat the mind-numbing dullness, we invented elaborate mental exercises to while away the time. We taxed our ingenuity and mental resourcefulness with mind games, calculations, remembering, construction projects, planning vacations, thinking through adventures and fantasies, reliving history, composing poems --- anything to keep our minds alert and alive.
"On Sunday mornings, we worshiped the Lord together, tapping our clandestine worship through the walls. We found bits and pieces of scripture buried deep inside our minds and shared them with one another --- missing words, missing lines, passages paraphrased. We prayed together, through the walls, then we closed our primitive worship service facing the east, each man in his own cell, toward the Gulf of Tonkin where we knew U.S. Navy ships were waiting offshore, as we pledged our allegiance to our unseen flag.
"We learned to pray for our guards, Spot and Rabbit, Jawbone and Sweetpea, Slug and the others who inflicted such ruthless torture on us. We learned to share our sparse food, to tend another man's wounds, to find and share the courage and strength we needed to meet each day.
"We put together, as best we could, a makeshift copy of the Bible. It could never be called the Living Bible or the King James Bible. We called it the Revised Prison Version. We wrote down all the scripture we could recall on pieces of toilet paper stuck together with glutinous rice. Ink was a problem We tried brick dust and water. We tried blood and water. Finally, we tried cigarette ashes and water, and that worked. The V.C. gave us three cigarettes a day in the good times when they were feeling generous, and we found all kinds of uses for the tobacco . . .
[A few years later in 1969]
"At some point during the seventh night [of torture], I became dimly aware that I wasn't going to make it after all. All the positive thinking, optimism, and hope I had so carefully nurtured from two long years was exhausted. I was going to die. And death would be welcomed.
"As I knelt crumpled on the floor in my own blood and wastes, I found myself yielding control to God. I found myself surrendering my fate to Him unconditionally. There was no more human resolve or pride or tenacity of spirit --- just surrender to Him: 'Lord . . . it's all Yours . . . whatever this means, whatever You have in mind now with all of this, it's all Yours . . . .' God knew my breaking point. He knew exactly when the torture had to stop. And it did stop, at the threshold of death. He had a larger purpose for me. He had spared me at my shootdown. He had graciously allowed me the privilege of serving beside men of great courage --- to help them find strength, and to receive strength from them in turn. He had preserved me through two long years of torture and deprivation. He delivered me that seventh night, as well. Kneeling there, empty before God, I was overwhelmed by the sheer awesomeness of His presence and profound awareness that He was forging a deeper dimension of faith and commitment in my life to glorify Him in the years ahead.
"He was not ready for me to die. He would bring me through four more years of imprisonment, back to my home and family, back from the brink of the grave. He would give me back my health, and I would testify of His power to heal. He would help me to see His divine purpose in allowing me to suffer, and He would use me as an example that others might know of His power and turn to Him for life.
"To my amazement, I was put in a cell with Windy Rivers and Ron Bliss, two outstanding Christians. They didn't recognize me at first because I looked like a specter out of hell. My eyes wee sunken, my skin turning jaundiced, legs pitifully swollen, body caked with scabs and sores, and my hands dangling limply at my sides. But they rallied on my behalf, and lovingly nursed me back to health. They fed me, shaved me, washed my wounded body, and even helped me to relieve myself. Jack Van Loan, another prisoner, massaged my hands for hours on end over several months, slowly bringing back the circulation. During that time, my broken arm finally began to heal.
[After being set free]
"For me, the Vietnam War is not over. It won't end until we bring home those men who were left behind in 1973. The ordeal won't end until my questions about my country's honor are answered. America has forsaken some of her highest ideals: liberty, justice, loyalty, righteousness. It was these ideals that kept me going from day to day in my captivity. They are the ideals that keep me going from day to day now in my search for answers to some deeply disturbing questions about my country.
"I know that God will give unmeasured grace and mercy to those men still held in bondage, just as He ministered to me in the Hanoi Hilton. He has not forsaken those forgotten heroes in their quiet suffering. He shares in their sufferings as He shared in mine. God is in Hanoi, in the jungle camps of Laos, and in the boxcars of the trains that move our men from one location to another so they can never be found. Nothing can separate them from the love of God. He will hold them in the hollow of His hand."
Today, Captain McDaniel is the founder and president of the
American Defense Institute and the American Defense Foundation in Washington D.C. Both are committed to preserving a strong national defense of America.
