Quote of the Day

"To picture an American president offering to bow to those who had done this to us was an abomination."

Leo Thorsness
(referring to candidate McGovern)
Surviving Hell: A POWs Journey

Book Report: Surviving Hell

I mentioned last week that I'd ordered Surviving Hell by Leo Thorsness; I finished it last night.

Thorsness, as you may know, was a POW for 6 years in Vietnam and was at the Hanoi Hilton. I was lucky enough to meet him several years ago when he came to the school where I teach to speak to our students.

NRO recently excerpted the chapter where Thorsness and his cellmates (at times he was in solitary and other times with cellmates) were determined to have a church service on Sundays.

Thorsness has an easy writing style; the book reminded me of Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell in the fact that I just could NOT put it down. I couldn't put Lone Survivor down until "I" got Marcus off the side of that mountain in Afghanistan and I was the same way with Leo. Until "I" got him out of that cell, I had to keep reading.

He tells you, of course, that he was tortured and a little about that, but that's not the focus of the book. He writes of how they got through the days (the "Tap Code" was like POW texting! An ingenious system!) As Gary Sinise said in his jacket-blurb: "Surviving Hell tells it like it was in combat and in prison, but the story is also uplifting and helpful for anyone going through tough times. Leo is a survivor who shows us that, even in hell, we are much stronger than we think."

At 127 pages, there's no excuse for anyone not to read this book.

I'll leave it with this story he told about his cellmate Mike. Mike scrounged a small piece of fabric from the bath area one day. All the cellmates pitched in a tiny chip of precious soap so Mike could wash his fabric.

"Mike scrounged a small piece of red roof tile and laboriously ground it into a powder, which mixed with a bit of water, became a faded red or maroon color to make the flag's stripes. We had gotten a bit of medicine in the last year of our captivity, usually a blue pill of unknown provenance prescribed for afflictions. Mike patiently leached the color out of one of the pills and used it to make a blue square in the upper left of the handkerchief. With a needle made from bamboo wood and thread pulled from our single blanket, he stitched little white stars on this field of blue."

It took Mike a couple of weeks to make that flag, working secretly so the guards would not know, and when he proudly showed it to his cellmates, some of them cried. When the guards found the flag, of course, Mike was tortured as he knew he would be all along.

It's men like that, and like Thorsness, that inspire me. It's men like that who I look up to and admire. Those are Americans.

Surviving Hell: Leo Thorsness

On April 19, 1967, Colonel Leo Thorsness was flying a F-105 (Wild Weasel) on a mission to destroy surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) deep in North Vietnam. After destroying two SAMs, his wingman was hit and radioed Col. Thorsness that he was going to have to eject from the aircraft. Col. Thorsness replied that he would keep him in sight.

As the other plane’s crew ejected from the aircraft, Col. Thorsness noticed an enemy MiG-17 fighter preparing to shoot the parachutists. Although his plane was not equipped for dogfights, Col. Thorsness was able to destroy the enemy fighter with his battling gun.

Low on fuel, Col. Thorsness quickly air-refueled and returned to protect the parachutists. His rear-seat weapons officer spotted four more MiG fighters in the area. He was able to down another one although he never received official credit for it because the film in his gun camera had run out.

Col. Thorsness climbed to an altitude of 35,000 feet on his way back to the nearest U.S. airfield. With his fuel tanks on empty, he glided to the base. As he landed, his engine ran out of gas.

Two weeks later, Col. Thorsness was shot down on his 93rd mission. He spent the next six years in the Hanoi Hilton where he ran into the two crew members that he had tried to save. The officer that wrote up Col. Thorsness’s Medal of Honor citation was also shot down and joined him at the Hilton.

Be sure to read "Our Father" at NRO; it's an excerpt from the recent book by Medal of Honor recipient Leo Thorsness. I was fortunate enough to meet Col. Thorsness when he came to speak at the school where I teach in 2001 (or 2002 - can't remember exactly!). I took lots of pictures of him, none of which I can find at the moment, but he was very gracious and extremely humble. It was a real privilege to meet him.

In the NRO excerpt Thorsness tells the story of the determination of a group of POWs to hold a brief Sunday service. It's heartbreaking.

When the 42nd man said yes, it was unanimous. We had 100-percent commitment to hold church next Sunday. At that instant, Ned knew he would end up in the torture cells at Heartbreak. It was different from the previous Sunday. We now had a goal, and we were committed. We only needed to develop a plan.

Sunday morning came, and we knew they would be watching us again. Once more, we gathered in the far end of the cell. As soon as we moved together, the interrogator and guards burst through the door. Ned stepped forward and said there wouldn’t be a problem: We were just going to hold a quiet ten-minute church service and then we would spread back out in the cell. As expected, they grabbed Ned and hauled him off to Heartbreak for torture.


In these days of weak leaders and a general lack of leadership, I'm finding inspiration and hope from people like Thorsness and Marcus Luttrell; people that have the courage to make sacrifices for a country they believe in. People we can look up to and hope to emulate.

I've ordered his book and can't wait to get into it!