| OCR Text |
Show POW reflects on Christmas Air Force Lt. Col. Jay C. Hess was shot down, captured by the North Vietnamese and held as a prisoner in the POW camp known as the Hanoi Hilton in August of 1967. He spent the next five Christmases trying to survive. Hess advises families of the troops serving in the gulf to have a merry Christmas. "That's what they want for their families, so just have one," he said. Hess recalls Christmas in 'Hanoi Hilton' prison By JUDY JENSEN Asst Managing Editor "We were asleep when we heard the guard at the door. We jumped up and tried to get to the door to be in a bowing position before he came in. We didn't make it He was angry, but there was no beating that day. It was Christmas." Lt Col. Jay C. Hess, an Air Force pilot shot down and captured cap-tured by the North Vietnamese on Aug. 24, 1967, spent "67 months" in the North Vietnamese Viet-namese prison known as the Hanoi Hilton. Today, the memories are still painful, especially during the holidays. r Getting the Christmas spirit in prison was particularly tough that first year. "I missed being home with my family, and they didn't know where I was," he said. "There were four of us in an 8 -by -8 foot room, three Air Force and one Navy pilot We just wouldn't talk about Christmas. It was too sad." Hess, in the warmth and safety of his brightly lighted classroom where he now teaches school, spoke slowly and deliberately, choosing his words carefully this holiday season as he recalled the dark hours of Christmas 23 years ago. He explained that about two hours after dark on that first Christmas Eve in prison, I Christmas music began to be I broadcast through the speakers I in their hut. "It was the worst and the oldest, but also the most I beautiful music I had ever heard. Later that evening a guard 1 opened the small hole in the door and passed in four bags saying they were "gifts from the minister min-ister of the Evangelical church." Each bag contained a tangerine, a cookie and two pieces of can-dy. can-dy. "We didn't know what to think. These men who had beaten and tortured us every day I were giving us this food. After that we sat around and talked about Christmas all night," he I said. I SEE Hess A-2 Hess CONT. FROM A-l It was that fact that kept the prisoners from awakening the next morning when the guard "pounded on the bucket," the signal used to indicate when it was time to awaken and time to retire. On that Christmas morning, Hess said, as he belatedly bowed to the guard he caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a Christmas tree in the comer of the barren hut "When the guard left I got a chance to see what it was. A couple of the guys had gotten up during the night and placed an old broom upside up-side down in a teapot. One of them was badly wounded so he took the gauze off his arm and wound it around the broom and they decorated dec-orated it with leaves. It was like magic. like Cinderella's coach it was the most beautiful Christmas tree we had ever seen until midnight when it became a pumpkin again," Hess said emotionally. Christmas for those serving in Operation Desert Shield will not be as terrifying and formidable as it was for those in POW camps, but Hess does see some similarities. "It's hard to be away from your " family at Christmastime. But I don't think the families should wear black and mourn. Let this be the year when the real values of Christmas come through," he said. Hess was released when the war ended March 13, 1973. Since that time Christmas has taken on a new meaning for him. By the same token, 1990 will be a Christmas that won't be forgotten by the men and women serving in the gulf. "Being a part of this call up will change their lives,' ' said Hess. 'Most will react with renewed patriotism. Service to their country will change them. When we give service we tend to appreciate things more,' ' Hess said. "Have a good Christmas," is the pansion of Vietnam, here in Kuwait we have the complete occupation of another country which has worldwide world-wide impact," he said. "To try to guess what will happen is impossible. impossi-ble. Can we win a war against Saddam Hussein? "There's a story about an uncertain trumpet. If the call is not clear then we won't win," Hess said Lack of an attainable goal in Vietnam was one of the reasons the U.S. lost the war said Hess. "Our goal was to help the South Vietnamese Viet-namese be free. North Vietnam's goal was to fight until the last American left. We needed a measurable, attainable goal." Hess said he is "frightened" by the number of different objectives being discussed regarding Kuwait "If we have a clear goal of freeing Kuwait that goal is achievable. It depends on who fights the war. If the military is given the initiative we could win. But if we have other objectives that have nothing to do with winning we won't win." He explained in Vietnam oil refineries were bombed with the hope that would deter the enemy. "That was not effective," Hess said. "If our goal is to reoccupy Kuwait, we need to concentrate on that. Someone else may think the objective is to get rid of their future nuclear capabilities. The objective could be changing the leadership of Iraq, then we need to proceed in another an-other way," Hess said. Although he supports President Bush's decision, he would not have given the Jan. 15 ultimatum to Hussein. Hus-sein. "We don't have enough troops there. I agree with the Russian Rus-sian philosophy. You have to have an enormous advantage for a war to be feasible." Hess said when the deadline arrives he would increase the U.S. advantage by significantly building the number of troops on Jan. 15. "Honefullv we can end this advice the colonel has for all the families who will be alone this year due to Operation Desert Shield. "Maybe this will be the Christmas when we aren't so preoccupied preoc-cupied with toys. We won't remember re-member this as the Christmas when we got a new gun. We'll remember it as the Christmas when we wish Daddy could be home." "The thing the guy hopes most, said Hess blinking back tears as he remembered his past, "is that his family will have a good Christmas. And the thing the family hopes is that the guy will have a good Christmas. So just have one," he said. Hess, who is retired from the Air Force, teaches ROTC at Clearfield Clear-field High School. Although he is not directly involved, he is keenly aware of the gulf conflict There are few comparisons between Operation Opera-tion Desert Shield and Vietnam, he said. "There we had communist ex- peacefully. We should try to end it diplomatically or with economic sanctions first. The last choice would be military power," Hess said. Should the U.S. be in the gulf? "We're doing the right thing," Hess said. He said having been a prisoner of war helps him understand how important it is for Kuwait to regain its freedom. During the five and one half years he spent in the Hanoi Hilton the POW camp the men called "Camp Unity," Hess's energy was directed toward the goal of once again experiencing freedom. In the beginning there were only four men in the small room, as time passed that number increased to eight, and before the end of the war, when an rescue attempt failed at another camp and those prisoners were taken to "the most secure camp" the number of men sharing the room with Hess increased again. "You spend every day in one room, you eat there, you get sick there, you get well there and you don't have a comer where you can go by yourself," Hess said living like that makes you appreciate freedom. Those living conditions also made the men grow very close. "We would teach each other. That closeness led to punishment "I was in solitary confinement for two months. They thought breaking our resistance would be easier to do if we didn't have moral support so they would torture us in solitary," Hess explained. He said things that today seem insignificant were highly valued by the prisoners. "If I was hungry I missed a hamburger and a malt. If I was lonely I missed special people. When I looked at the landscape it was the mountains and the streams I missed, Hess said. |
