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Re: Iraq War POWs Were Focus of Spotlight

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: December 17, 2003

"No jealousy harbored

Iraq war POWS were focus of spotlight

By Steve Fry
The Capital-Journal

The attention lavished on soldiers who returned to the United States after having been POWs in Iraq isn't lost on older veterans who arrived home decades ago virtually unnoticed.

But they don't begrudge today's veterans their time in the spotlight.

Army Pvts. Patrick Miller and Jessica Lynch, who were captives of Iraqi forces for less than a month, have been in the official spotlight since before they even returned to the United States.

"We're tickled that they got acknowledgment they were prisoners," Carl Fyler, of Topeka, said Thursday.

Fyler, commander of the Kansas Chapter of Ex-Prisoners of War, was a POW for 17 months after his B-17 was shot down on Nov. 29, 1943, while bombing German submarine pens and a plant where fighter planes were assembled .

There was no recognition or official ceremony when Fyler, 83, returned home, which then was Hutchinson.

Harold Lusk, 81, Osage City, is a former B-17 tail gunner who spent two years in a German POW camp after his plane was shot down on May 8, 1943, during a mission over Germany. He, too, is supportive of today's POWs.

Lusk eventually returned home to Osage City, became the Osage County sheriff for nine years and was law enforcement chief of the Kansas Fish and Game Commission for six years.


Nick Krug/The Capital-Journal
World War II veteran and former prisoner of war Dr. Carl J. Fyler says he is supportive of the admiration given to rescued POWs, although he received no public recognition after his return. From 1943 to '45, Fyler, the captain of the 303rd Bomb Group and pilot of a B-17 heavy bomber, was a prisoner and held at Stalag Luft 1 in Pomerania, Germany.
If he could talk to Miller and Lynch today, Lusk said, he would tell them: "You had a bad time. Don't let it get pent up in you."

Miller, of Park City, was a POW for 22 days. Lynch, of Palestine, W.Va., was a prisoner for nine days. They were captured early during heavy fighting in Iraq.

The positive response for Miller -- traveling the country, interviews and talk shows -- and Lynch -- a movie, a book and talk shows -- and parades for both former POWs, has been fine, according to Charlie Plumb, a former Vietnam War POW who returned to a welcoming ceremony in February 1973.

Miller and Lynch were no less POWs than Vietnam War veterans who were POWs for years, he said Thursday.

Plumb, a Lecompton native and Naval Academy graduate who now lives in Calabasas, Calif., was a POW for almost six years during the Vietnam War after his F-4 Phantom fighter was shot down on May 19, 1967, over Hanoi, North Vietnam.


EX-POWS

World War II:

• Carl Fyler, 83, of Topeka, pilot of a B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber, was a POW for 17 months

• Harold Lusk, 81, of Osage City, tail gunner on a B-17, was a POW for two years.

Vietnam War:

• Charlie Plumb, 61, a Lecompton native, F-4 Phantom fighter pilot, was a POW for five years and nine months

"You can spend 2,103 days in captivity or three days in captivity, (and) you're still a bona fide prisoner of war," said Plumb, 61. "The fright that goes through a person when you don't know your destiny from one millisecond to the next is the qualifier. The qualifier is not in years. It's in milliseconds."

Plumb, who was on the front page of The Daily Capital and another newspaper several times, said his book, "I'm No Hero," reflected he didn't feel like he had done anything spectacular.

"That's exactly what you're hearing from Lynch and Miller. They're saying, I was just out there doing my job," Plumb said. "They certainly did something pretty spectacular, I think."

Miller and Lynch are a rallying point for the country as were the returning POWs in the Vietnam War when there wasn't a definitive, final victory, and the public looked for something to cling to, to take pride in and to evidence the end of the chapter, Plumb said.

Fyler, who flew 25 bombing missions before he was shot down, supports a proposal by the Veterans Administration that would recognize a veteran as a POW if he or she is in captivity even for a day.

"Some (POWs) get beat to hell the first day," Fyler said.

Lusk said German interrogators thought he was a spy and beat his head against a concrete block wall during questioning, fracturing his skull.

"I just lived it day to day," he said. "I thought there was a possibility I would make it."

Steve Fry can be reached at (785) 295-1206 or steve.fry@cjonline.com.

©The Topeka Capital-Journal"