US Serving Military cited in Practical Christianity, July-September 1974, pp 10-12, published by the Armed Forces’ Christian Union.
After my plane was shot down over North Vietnam, there started seven years and four months of misery in prison, which we later dubbed the Hanoi Hilton. Yet God works under the most trying conditions in which total silence was imposed upon each of us. To be caught trying to communicate in any way was punishable by torture.
One day not long after I had been there, a young man was thrown into the cell across from me. I had not seen him, but I heard the clunking and scuffling. Just before that I had heard a man screaming in the courtyard. So as soon as the guard was gone, I whispered across and discovered he was a young Navy lieutenant.
“Was that you screaming?”
“Yes,” he said, “Before we talk any further, I have to tell you something. I’ve just betrayed my country.”
“What happened?”
“I gave them more than my name, rank and number. I told them what ship I flew.”
“What did they do to you?”
“That’s just it. They didn’t torture me. I did it without torture.”
“Why did you scream?”
“They twisted my broken leg until I gave them the information.” He did not think that was torture, but he did think that he had betrayed his country.
“Do you know how to pray?” I asked.
“No, sorry, I don’t. I’ve got a lot of things to be ashamed of. How do you become a Christian?” he asked. I told him.
The next day when we got our communication going (there was a brief period when we would communicate when the guards were clear) he said, “I did what you told me. You said I would feel differently. I would feel light-hearted, and I would feel a burden lift. I didn’t feel a thing.”
“God works in different ways with different people,” I replied, “He wants to know if you’re sincere and you’re not just desperate because you’re a prisoner. Give Him a chance. If you’re really in earnest, you’ll feel a difference.”
One day at noon when we were not supposed to be talking, I got an emergency call up. He said in a quivering voice, “It finally happened. I was just walking up and down praying, and I was crying a little, and I began to laugh through my tears.”
He had finally found these communications were our lifeblood. “God bless you” was the most frequently used term in the whole prison system. Many who had never prayed, had never been to church since childhood, learned to say this.it meant a volume. It meant, “We’re with you, we know you’re in there. Just remember you’re not alone. We’re praying for you.” It meant so very much.
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