Return with Honor

"Return with Honor"

(Tales of American POWs in Vietnam)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0176093/
==================================================================

There's Lt. Leroy Stutz, remembering that he ate 19 fried eggs and a
steak on his first day back from prison in the Philippines. Talking
about torture sessions in Hanoi, he says, "I thought I was the
toughest fighter pilot in the world. I found out real fast how wrong
I was . . . When the screaming gets so bad they stuff a rag in your
mouth so they don't have to hear you, all you can think is, "God, I
don't want to die and nobody even knowing.' "

(American prisoner of war)

===================================================================

"The Sounds of God"

"The mournful wail of a distant train. The rooftop patter of
falling rain. Crash of thunder from the sky above. The words, "I
love you,' from the woman I love . . . "

- George McKnight

(American prisoner of war)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/e/a/1999/08/20/WEEKEND10034.dtl

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Return With Honor Transcript (partial?) is here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/honor/filmmore/pt.html

Excerpts:

MCMANUS: They did a lot of beatings but beatings are easy. Uh, the --
the body responds to a beating very well you know, for that point
where your body can't take it anymore, it just shuts down and you go
unconscious...

MCGRATH: I was in terrible, terrible pain. They were using the rope
trick. The Vietnamese -- we called it the Vietnamese rope trick and
that was to take the arms behind your back, tie your hands together,
tie them up real tight and then rotate your arms behind and over
your shoulder until your shoulders dislocate...

SINGLETON: The hardest time that I had in North Vietnam and
obviously this is an emotional thing to me, was listening to the
screams of other American prisoners while they were being
tortured...

And yet we keep putting our soldiers at risk for this kind of thing.
When it's just talked about as numbers, it's dehumanizing, it's harder
to envision the consequences.

On 11/29/06, stephenszpak <stephen_szpak@...> wrote:
>
> "Return with Honor"
>
> (Tales of American POWs in Vietnam)
>
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0176093/
> ==================================================================
>
> There's Lt. Leroy Stutz, remembering that he ate 19 fried eggs and a
> steak on his first day back from prison in the Philippines. Talking
> about torture sessions in Hanoi, he says, "I thought I was the
> toughest fighter pilot in the world. I found out real fast how wrong
> I was . . . When the screaming gets so bad they stuff a rag in your
> mouth so they don't have to hear you, all you can think is, "God, I
> don't want to die and nobody even knowing.' "
>
> (American prisoner of war)
>
> ===================================================================
>
> "The Sounds of God"
>
> "The mournful wail of a distant train. The rooftop patter of
> falling rain. Crash of thunder from the sky above. The words, "I
> love you,' from the woman I love . . . "
>
> - George McKnight
>
> (American prisoner of war)
>
>
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
> f=/e/a/1999/08/20/WEEKEND10034.dtl
>
> ==================================================================
> ******************************************************************
> ******************************************************************
> ******************************************************************
> ******************************************************************
>
> Return With Honor Transcript (partial?) is here:
>
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/honor/filmmore/pt.html
>
> Excerpts:
>
> MCMANUS: They did a lot of beatings but beatings are easy. Uh, the --
> the body responds to a beating very well you know, for that point
> where your body can't take it anymore, it just shuts down and you go
> unconscious...
>
>
> MCGRATH: I was in terrible, terrible pain. They were using the rope
> trick. The Vietnamese -- we called it the Vietnamese rope trick and
> that was to take the arms behind your back, tie your hands together,
> tie them up real tight and then rotate your arms behind and over
> your shoulder until your shoulders dislocate...
>
> SINGLETON: The hardest time that I had in North Vietnam and
> obviously this is an emotional thing to me, was listening to the
> screams of other American prisoners while they were being
> tortured...

--TRISTAN
Dreaming of Eden is a Comic with no Pictures
http://dreamingofeden.smackjeeves.com

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "stephenszpak" <stephen_szpak@...>
wrote:
>
> "Return with Honor"

Unfortunately, not all returned, and not all were honorable:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/my_lai.html

I'm willing to bet that these men were not monsters before they were
sent off to Viet Nam, but war does evil, ugly things to men. One of
the great failure of mankind is a lack of balance: what if there were
a yin to the yang of war? What if, to balance out thousands of people
hating, killing each other, brutally abusing fellow humans at the most
profound levels... what if there were occasions where thousands of
people professed love for each other, huge mobilizations of good will,
charitable events, the fortunate giving a hand to the unfortunate?

Silly, I know.

Jon

On 11/29/06, Jon Szanto <jszanto@...> wrote:
> What if, to balance out thousands of people
> hating, killing each other, brutally abusing fellow humans at the most
> profound levels... what if there were occasions where thousands of
> people professed love for each other, huge mobilizations of good will,
> charitable events, the fortunate giving a hand to the unfortunate?

Sounds dangerous. What if those downtrodden people are actually
terrorists making use of our goodwill to gain an edge? They'll do
that, you know. Communists will, too.

--TRISTAN
Dreaming of Eden is a Comic with no Pictures
http://dreamingofeden.smackjeeves.com

Hi Jon!
very good very good!
actually there is a yin of war that Hillman talks quite a bit about in his a terrible love of war.
One of the reasons that war is often the peak experience in many peoples lifetime are the qualities you mention here directed to those on the same side. It is those moments of great unselfishness that so often rise the whole event up to the epic.This is what happens all the time.
Now if we could spread it both ways would be miraculous!

Jon Szanto wrote:
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "stephenszpak" <stephen_szpak@...>
> wrote:
> >> "Return with Honor"
>> >
> Unfortunately, not all returned, and not all were honorable:
>
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/my_lai.html
>
> I'm willing to bet that these men were not monsters before they were
> sent off to Viet Nam, but war does evil, ugly things to men. One of
> the great failure of mankind is a lack of balance: what if there were
> a yin to the yang of war? What if, to balance out thousands of people
> hating, killing each other, brutally abusing fellow humans at the most
> profound levels... what if there were occasions where thousands of
> people professed love for each other, huge mobilizations of good will,
> charitable events, the fortunate giving a hand to the unfortunate?
>
> Silly, I know.
>
> Jon
>
>
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
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>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> You don't have to be a member to post.
>
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>
>
>
>
>
> -- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/index.html>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main/index.asp> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

Kraig,

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@...> wrote:
> actually there is a yin of war that Hillman talks quite a bit about
in his a terrible love of war.

Aha, just looked it up and they have it at the local library. I'm
going to pick it up in the next couple of days, thanks. Peace is still
a ways away...

Cheers,
Jon

The full power of the U.S. military was never brought to
bear against the North. The result of the half measures
exists even today, decades later. (S.S.)

---------------------------------------------------------

Media

The media of Vietnam is tightly regulated by the government, which
views the media as "the voice of the party and of the masses" and
sees its main function as being "to propagate the party's lines and
policies". The official media is a tool for government information
and propaganda. Though market competition has caused the Vietnamese
media to embrace popular culture, newspapers, radio and television
are still compelled to reflect on the fundamentals of Marxism-
Leninism and the ideals of Ho Chi Minh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam#Media

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Regardless, if America should or should not have gotten
involved in Vietnam, the full force of the U.S. military
should have been used, once we did get involved. It is always
the same. The more we hold back in such and such a war the
greater the deaths. (S.S.)
-------------------------------------------------------------
"War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it. The crueler it
is, the sooner it will be over."

William Tecumseh Sherman

http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/William_Tecumseh_Sherman/

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Total war is a 20th century term to describe a war in which
countries or nations use all of their resources to destroy another
organized country or nation's ability to engage in war. The practice
of total war has been in use for centuries, but it was only in the
middle to late nineteenth century that total war was recognized as a
separate class of warfare.

American Civil War

US Army General William Tecumseh Sherman's 'March to the Sea' during
the American Civil War destroyed the resources required for the
South to make war. He is considered one of the first military
commanders to deliberately and consciously use total war as a
military tactic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war