Re: Honoring the POWs of Vietnam

Date: May 20, 2004

"THRIVING AFTER VIETNAM
Touring exhibit honors prisoners of war

By KEVIN HOWE

Herald Staff Writer

Vietnam POW.

The phrase conjures up memories of shaven-headed men in shackles wearing shapeless striped sets of prisoner's pajamas, flanked by guards in pith helmets toting AK-47 rifles.

But "Open Doors: Vietnam POWs 30 Years Later," a photographic exhibit that will be opened to the public at the Naval Postgraduate School on Memorial Day, doesn't dwell on the images of captivity.

Instead, the collection shows 30 men who were taken prisoner during the Vietnam War, held in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" for years, tortured, beaten, isolated and propagandized, as they appear now; successful, and surrounded by family and friends, in the settings of peace they probably daydreamed about often during their captivity.

The photo documentary, prepared by two women, writer Taylor Baldwin Kiland and Jamie Howren Quinn, documents prisoners' return to the life and culture of the United States.

The title of the exhibit is based on a remark made by former POW Paul Galanti, a retired Navy commander.

"There is no such thing as a bad day when you have a door knob on the inside of the door," he said.

"Open Doors" has been displayed throughout the nation since the exhibit left the Museum of History and Art in Coronado in 2002. It was on display at the Navy school's Dudley Knox Library this month.

It will be moved to Herrmann Hall, the school's main building, on Monday and open to the public during its annual Memorial Day Concert on the Lawn on May 31.

Retired naval officers and former prisoners of war, Cmdr. Larry Friese of Monterey and Capt. Gordon Nakagawa, an adjunct professor at NPS, recognized several old friends pictured in the exhibit. Despite the theme of getting past the barbed wire, they found themselves reminiscing about those days.

Both were pilots whose planes were shot down during bombing missions over North Vietnam.

Friese spent five years -- 1,839 days -- as a prisoner.

"It was fun to do the math on your life," he said. "On the 10,000th day of my life, I celebrated by brushing my teeth with all toothpaste."

The usual practice, Friese said, was to augment toothpaste with ordinary soap to "get a good froth" and conserve the paste.

When he was liberated in March 1973, Friese said, he was told that if he wished to take any articles with him from prison, he would have to submit a written request specifying each item for "consideration."

He emerged with a gray POW jacket, a multicolored cap, a tin cup and spoon, and a pair of sandals made from rubber tires that he wore for the five years he was captive.

He and fellow prisoners used a "tire iron" made from a saw blade to re-thread the rubber straps when they slipped out of the soles, Friese said. The POWs walked miles in those sandals in their cramped cells for exercise, always counterclockwise, "in a port orbit."

Nakagawa was shot down in the last months of the war and spent three months in captivity.

"I kept my mind distracted by learning to do square roots in my head," he said.

Soon, dealing with North Vietnamese attempts to win him over to their point of view replaced the math as his mental exercise.

"We had our story" about the causes of the war, he said, "and they had theirs. I still do that. It's fun to look at the most extreme you can from both ends."

Both former POWs credited the intense bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972 ordered by then-President Richard Nixon -- Operation Linebacker II -- with bringing the North Vietnamese to an agreement that allowed them and their fellow POWs to come home.

When he first arrived, Nakagawa said, the Vietnamese told him they had fought the Japanese, the French and the Americans for 30 years, and were prepared to fight for 30 more.

"After five nights of Linebacker II, I didn't hear that again," he said.

Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or khowe@montereyherald.com. "