Tinker honors POW/MIA Recognition Day

Published Sept. 26, 2014
By John Parker
Staff Writer

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE - Okla. -- A former Air Force combat pilot who survived more than a year in a North Vietnamese prison camp urged a Tinker audience to remember the plights of all Americans missing in action or who suffered as prisoners in our nation's wars.

"Never forget the pain, the agony and the sorrow that those families had to endure, and are still enduring, wondering about the fate of their loved ones," retired Lt. Col. William R. Schwertfeger said Sept. 19 during the POW/MIA Remembrance Breakfast on National POW/MIA Recognition Day.

"Keep that alive. Not today just because it's remembrance day, but because it's something that we in the military always do. We strive to leave nobody on the battlefield."

Nearly 170 people attended the event to honor 15 former POWs and their family members in attendance and the more than 83,000 Americans still unaccounted for, including nearly 1,500 Airmen.

Colonel Schwertfeger said the principles of duty, honor, country and faith helped him survive 407 days as a POW amid brutality, torture and solitary confinement at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison camp.

Colonel Schwertfeger's F-4 Phantom jet was critically hit Feb. 16, 1972, while on a combat mission over North Vietnam. The three-time Silver Star recipient ejected and was taken prisoner. He was released on March 28, 1973, along with 590 fellow American prisoners released over two months.

A primary part of survival for him and his fellow prisoners was their duty to defend the Constitution, even at the cost of their lives, he said. He told military members in the audience that they have made an "awesome commitment" with their oaths.

"Sometimes we say it and it just kind of goes by," Colonel Schwertfeger said. "I want you to understand that that duty that we swore to is with us even after we get out. Even you retirees. We still live by that code, and I don't want you to forget the importance of duty."

He and his fellow prisoners also took strength from their honor, as military members bound "to stand tall to be the guiding light." Devotion to country was "very simple," he said.

"This is the greatest nation in the world, and there are people every day trying to deny our freedoms and our liberties and the threat is getting bigger as we talk," he said.
The colonel, who also goes by the nickname "Shortfinger," said faith was critical to survival, too. "The guy upstairs" was always available in their isolated cells, he said.

"He listens quite well, so you can get things off your chest and, boy, you're really just going a thousand miles an hour," the colonel said. "Why am I here? Why are they torturing me? Oh, my God, take me out of this environment.

"And what He says back to you is, Shortfinger, suck it up. You're here. You're going to have to learn how to deal with it, and I will give you the grace that you need to be stronger."

The prisoners stayed united in several ways, including by tapping a basic alphabetical code on concrete walls or other objects in their cells. Words were shortened by omitting certain letters, including vowels.

"We were doing texting before people knew what texting was," Colonel Schwertfeger said.

"The guys were so in tune with each other that as soon as a guy started to tap, the guy maybe 30 or 50 yards down in another cell knew whether that guy was up or down, just by how he tapped," he said.

Every prisoner did his best to endure repeated torture and to refuse to participate in propaganda films.

But "each and every one of us that were tortured broke," the colonel said. "The pain is so excruciating, so debilitating, that either you lose your mind and you're dead, or you break and say, 'I'll say something.' "

The Americans paid dearly for unauthorized actions. Retired Brig. Gen. James Robinson "Robbie" Risner approved his fellow prisoners' plan to conduct a prohibited Sunday church service, the colonel said. Prison staff figured out that Risner must have allowed it, he said.

"As they started dragging Robbie out to be tortured again, they (fellow prisoners) started singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner,'" the colonel said. "As they're dragging Robbie out ... his chest goes out. He stands tall and proud -- proud to be an American, to hear 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' When later asked, Robbie said, 'I felt as if I were 9 feet tall.'

"Risner was brutally tortured for 38 days straight because of that event," the colonel said. General Risner passed away on Oct. 22, 2013. He was 88.