Out of the Furnace of Affliction

"There's no such thing as a bad day when you have a doorknob on the inside of your door." CDR Paul Galanti, former resident of the Hanoi Hilton.

The story of the men inside Hao Lo - the Hanoi Hilton - amazes on many levels. Do you find it at all uncomfortable to think about confinement, torture, inhuman conditions, solitary confinement, etc. producing anything worthwhile? Their experiences teach the lesson that suffering can bring about great good and make us better - more like Christ. No one would prescribe suffering for themselves, even as these men would not have either. I wonder whether any of them would trade what he gained if could rewrite his own history and erase the time in the prison cell.
Let's be specific - and I don't mean to be deliberately grotesque - but torture for these men meant (one example) no treatment for serious wounds like dislocated joints and broken bones; it meant their arms being taken behind their backs and tied together so the wrists would touch - the full length - and then they were hung from hooks in the ceilings. The prisoner's arms and shoulders cruelly rotated forward, forcing dislocation and incredible pain. Their tiny cells without beds housed them, alone, for years - up to eight years.
But out of this emerged not bitter, unproductive men. They learned about what is truly important and how to persevere. Many found, at the end of themselves, a waiting Savior to help bear their burdens. Most flew fighters and a certain breed of man flies fighters. They were self sufficient, cocky, aggressive to a fault - and this fit the bill for Naval and Air Force aviators. In their prison, they learned to be different. Determination looked very different and proved more elusive over the duration of captivity. They came to appreciate fellowship with the others through deprivation. Lessons were learned about true servant leadership - leadership which transcends rank and culture; unity which grew stronger in isolation as the thirst for communication brought innovation. They learned how, even in the most humiliating conditions and treatment to not yield to humiliation but maintain their God-given dignity.
Consider these statistics from "Leadership Lessons From the Hanoi Hilton" by Peter Fretwell and Taylor Baldwin Kiland in the November 2009 Proceedings magazine: "The Hanoi Hilton POWs were an unusual and remarkable group. Instead of returning home unraveled from years of abuse, isolation, and deprivation, about 80 percent of the 591 men that Operation Homecoming returned continued their military service. Many later became leaders in government, business, law, or academia. Twenty-four attained the rank of admiral or general; 18 have served (or are serving) in elected or appointed political positions at both the federal and state levels, including as senators, U.S. representatives, Federal Trade Commissioner, and the first U.S. Ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Numerous others served in executive positions in corporate America and small business; many also continue to serve in their local communities for scouting, religious, and civic organizations. Eight received the Medal of Honor.

Despite being the longest-held group of POWs in our nation's history, they brought home most of their comrades without major incidents of long-term mental illness. According to the Robert E. Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies in Pensacola, Florida, 96 percent of the Hanoi Hilton POWs were free of post-traumatic stress disorder. By comparison, a 1997 American Psychiatric Association report found more than half of 262 World War II and Korean War POWs studied had symptoms of lifetime PTSD."

Old School Tough Guys

Tom Callahan's Johnny U captures football in a generation where working class athletes filled the ranks of pro football teams. These men worked jobs during the off season and defined the tough guy male.His story captures "the life and times of" John Unitas, Hall of Fame quarterback of the original Colts - the Baltimore C-O-L-T-S - from the original cheer. We Redskin fans often wondered if spelling this proved difficult for the Baltimore fans... but I digress.

The story demonstrates the determined athleticism of Unitas who played both ways in college and came into the pro ranks after being cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers - who also notably passed on Lenny Moore and Jim Brown...oops.

Lenny Moore describes what he saw in his first scrimmage against the Eagles in Hershey, PA (1956): "For most of the game, I just sat ont he bench and watched. I couldn't believe what I was seeing." It seemed to Moore that absolutely nothing was illegal. "Chuck Bednarik and another Eagles player didn't just tackle Ameche out of bounds. They carried him out of bounds and slammed him against a table behind the bench. I said to myself, Man. I can't do this. These guys were beating on guys like you couldn't believe. I thought, Am I strong enough to take this kind of punishment? I had my doubts." Sitting next to Marchetti on the bench was a rookie tackle. "I forget where he was from," Gino said... "He looked at me and asked, 'Is it like this all the time?' I said, 'Hell no. Wait until the league games start. Wait until the season starts.' Honest to God, I never saw him again." (Johnny U; Tom Callahan; Crown Publishers; 2006; pgs.75-76)
Johnny Unitas demonstrated a remarkable toughness, courage, and determination in a very different time. Callahan captures the times and the changes the nation and football would undergo over the next 20 years.

Others Over Self

During the last presidential campaign, the American people were reminded of the unique, individual heroism demonstrated under the most intense pressure. John McCain was captured as a downed pilot during the Vietnam war and sent to the now notorious "Hanoi Hilton" prison.

One reason so many of the men survived the outrageously brutal conditions in the North Vietnamese prison was a man - James Stockdale. Stockdale, an outstanding pilot, graduated from the Naval Academy a rising star. In 1965, at age 40, he commanded VF-51 on board the USS Oriskany and took off in his A-4 Skyhawk on 5 September. His plane drew antiaircraft fire, was hit, and Stockdale was forced to eject, breaking a bone in his back while doing so. When he landed in a small village, he badly dislocated his knee, and injury from which he would never fully recover.
For seven years, he remained a captive in Hoa Lo Prison, the highest ranking American officer in captivity. He was not passive. He organized the prisoner's resistance against the Vietnamese attempts to use them for propaganda purposes. He developed a communications code for the men made of a simple five-by-five matrix with the letters of the alphabet filling the rows and columns. The men used the code to tap messages on the walls or even when sweeping with a broom. For example an "e" would be tap-tap, tap - Row Two, Column One.

He endured four years of solitary confinement, two years in leg irons, and fifteen torture sessions. But it was his determination and organization which carried the men through. He organized a code of conduct centered around the acronym US (unity over self). His determination and refusal to break ultimately led to the easing of torture and improvement of conditions. For his steadfast courage in the face of seemingly impossible odds and his determined leadership and care for the men in his charge, he received the Medal of Honor. No other three-star admiral in U.S. Naval history wore both the aviator wings and the Congressional Medal of Honor. Check out RETURN WITH HONOR, PBS movie DVD.

Tom Brokaw said it was the "greatest generation." That WWII brought out the best in many of those who served is unquestionable. Consider the Princeton honors graduate, drafted at age 32, who initially failed the weight requirement for the Army Air Force. He weighed in at 143 lbs - falling five pounds short of the weight requirement for his height of 6' 4". He remained undeterred. Over the protestations of his boss - he was a valuable employee - he convinced an enlistment officer to "forget to weigh me" on his next test after winning an appeal for another chance. He accepted his salary of $21 per month with out complaint, though it fell significantly short of his civilian salary of $12,000 per month. Despite being a Princeton grad, he entered service as a private, but his flying experience soon landed him in training as a flight cadet. That cadet was Jimmy Stewart. His story is compelling - but no more so than the stories of so many others.

Brokaw said, "They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting..."
I grew up, with my contemporaries, unaware of the sacrifices and the great personal price so many of our parents paid. I watched my generation with youthful arrogance declare, "if it feels good, do it." We only wanted a life of freedom while having no real conception of what real freedom is or the cost paid by those in our home or next door or down the street to secure the freedom we enjoy.

War is Hell

Possession of secret information burdens the holder. Consider the burden of prosecuting war. Decrying war from a distance (done often by those who were not directly affected or many years after the fact) avoids the complexity and true moral dilemma faced by those actually forced to decide. For example, the firebombing of Dresden - a horrific event late in World War Two - garners criticism even from participants. When one is confronted with photos or first-hand accounts of the flesh-eating firestorm created by Allied bombing, criticism comes easily.

Moral complexity emerges when a peaceful people are attacked or are forced to decide to defend others who are attacked by a nation or people with evil intent (evil can be gauged). Should there be a response to evil? Should the strong protect the weak? Did the U.S., for example, along with the Allies, have an obligation to put a stop to Hitler who was bent on genocide and the domination of Europe?
If yes, how much force was required to stop a nation bent on destroying others and materially and economically aligned to do so? Can a little force, a little war stop a juggernaut like the Nazis?

Hermann Goering executed a plan to destroy London by air and bombed indiscriminately with the goal of creating chaos to pave the way for an invasion force. The Germans used incendiary bombs in the destruction of Coventry and other cities. They attempted waging a terror war through the use of the V-1 and V-2 rockets.

Moreover, the German people supported and embraced Hitler and the Nazi party. They were not innocently caught up but were the very means (election) by which Hitler came to power and they did nothing to stop him when he began to act (speaking generally of the multitude, not of the few who tried and failed). No German cry for help or deliverance was heard.

I am nearly finished my journey through Donald Miller's Masters of the Air. He removes any glamor associated with flying a B-17 or B-24 on missions over the European Theater of Operations. He captures the horror, the hardship, the hellish nature of war. He draws the reader into the moral questions of the bombing of civilians - either purposely or by virtue of proximity to military targets. The technology of the time did not include means for precision bombing. Bombs were often off-target because of weather, smoke, and anti-aircraft fire. Those in charge of strategic decisions and those working out those decisions tactically faced the awful weight of the moral questions of warfare: What is right? What is necessary? What is immoral? Where is the line? How does one wage limited warfare with blurry lines between military and civilian?
Another reason to read history and reflect on the wrestlings of those who've gone before us...

The Awful Weight

"Be careful what you ask for." Sage advice.

I often wonder, perhaps now more than ever, whether those who serve as president or prime minister, or other significant positions of leadership - even down to the tactical levels, really knew what they asked for when pursuing the position. Leadership means engaging real problems and making decisions - decisions which history may prove ill-advised or wrong.
Yesterday we explored the subject of intelligence - the "ultra" secret - the decoding of the German Enigma machine. Were you to be asked,
if you served as Prime Minister of England, "would you like to the ability to read the German correspondence during this war?", what would you answer? Certainly yes!
With that knowledge the weight of leadership would greatly increase on Mr. Churchill, who already bore an immense load. Why? Shouldn't this information make the job easier, not more difficult?
Consider one dilemma brought on by this new knowledge. Your intelligence branch intercepts messages from the German air forces indicating plans for bombing English cities. This in itself is not new information, as the Germans have been bombing for some time. What is new is information indicating attacks on a location previously untouched by German air assaults.
The dilemma: should you, as Prime Minister, take action in that previously untouched city to protect it and the people living there? If you do, you can probably save lives and precious property. If you do, you will also tip your hand as to the knowledge you possess.
Is it worth saving lives now but losing the means to save lives and make strategic decisions down the road? Or, is it worth (if words like "worth" can be used here) sacrificing lives and parts of a city now to keep the knowledge secret for lives and cities and battles in the future?
Thus, the awful weight of leadership.
F.W. Winterbotham wrote in The Ultra Secret, that such a decision faced Mr. Churchill about the city of Coventry on 14 November 1940. He was privy to a German message which accidentally, according to his book, broadcast the word "Coventry" in the clear. He said he passed the message to Churchill's personal secretary, warning of the pending attack several hours before its occurrence. The city was heavily bombed with minimal RAF resistance, destroying the famous cathedral pictured here along with hundreds killed.

It is not certain Churchill knew and could have done anything to spare Coventry. Others have disputed that Churchill had the information and made a decision to let Coventry be destroyed. This has been debated for many years.
The possession of a secret nonetheless makes demands upon the possessor to weigh and measure carefully each response, each public statement, even when one's actions are questioned. It is even more important now as television and the internet allow for dissection of every word spoken by a leader to see if what is said reveals the source of information informing a particular decision.

A Distinct Sound...

In previous posts, I reference codebreaking efforts of the U.S. Navy and the success achieved even before the outbreak of World War II. The fascinating story of the British codebreakers at billeted at Bletchley Park shows the fruit of tenacity and painstaking effort, not unlike looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Add to that human effort, Providential intervention.

The secrets of the codebreaking success gained at Bletchley Park and, to a some degree, their methodology, were not revealed until about 30 years after the war. One can imagine the complexity of German engineering on anything mechanical - and it was a mechanical device used for encoding the messages sent by the elements of the German war machine. The British intelligence effort found a Polish man who actually worked on the construction of the machine, which would come to be known as Enigma. From memory he began to reconstruct the wooden box with its complex rotor system. But he could only provide insight from memory - this machine created permutations seemingly beyond the boundaries of normal human capacity to break them. The real thing was needed. So, with the help of this man and the Polish Secret Service, the Brits actually captured an entire machine and set to work on understanding how it worked.
My memory may not serve me here, but as I recall the machine would take a basic message like, "The 347th Bomber group is to fly the northern route to bomb targets of opportunity in London at 4:30 p.m. on December 29th. All crews must report for briefing at 1:oo p.m." This is not a real message - but basic details and specific details would be passed from commands to subordinates giving orders. That message would be broken into groups of letters something like this:

The34-7Bomb-ergro-upist- oflyt-henor-thern-route-tobom-btarg-etsof-oppor-tunit
yinLo-ndona-t430p-monDe-cembe-r29Al-lcrew-smust-repor-tforb-riefi-ngat1-oopmx

Kind of confusing already, eh? Numbers were probably spelled out and blank spaces were filled in by "x". The message would then be entered into the machine by keyboard. Each letter would be substituted by an equivalent in a scrambled alphabet. (Take the 26 English letters, put them in a hat and draw them out at random. Put them in a sequence. The first letter would be substituted for "A", etc.) The machine would be set mathematically to produce (if memory serves) seven permutations of the alphabet so the finished product would look nothing like the original. It required intense study - even with the machine to determine the mathematical sequencing of the machine. F.W. Winterbotham, in his book The Ultra Secret, said the following of the sequencing: "A typewriter fed the letters of the message into the machine, where they were so proliferated by the drums (rotors) that it was estimated a team of top mathematicians might take a month or more to work out all the permutations necessary to find the right answer for a single cypher setting; the setting of the drums in relation to each other was the key which the sender and receiver would no doubt keep very closely guarded."
The capture of the Enigma machine and breaking the key to it's working may be one of the great accomplishments of the war. We'll look at some interesting stories over the next day or two.