Take A Moment For Reflection, Please

Aero-VIEWS Opinion by Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

Today, April 9, is POW Day. President Bush signed a proclamation on April 6 that says so.

"While held as prisoners of war, American POWs have reflected the best of our country, acting with resourcefulness, bravery, and strength," Bush said, citing some particularly courageous examples.

The lion's share of the POWs throughout America's wars have been airmen. Aviators, of course, go behind enemy lines, and are therefore considered "high risk of capture" service members.

A downed airman is ripped from his safe cocoon in the sky and plunges earthward, usually by parachute. The experience is physically shocking and psychologically debilitating. Then his situation takes a turn for the worse when he is captured, usually.

Perhaps because of the US tendency to go to war with barbarous and lawless states, the captured airman has little hope of good treatment. Joe Nason, a World War II airman, fell into Japanese clutches in the Phillipines. He was beaten and tortured. At one time, he was in a cave prison camp -- of the over 200 POWs there, only six, counting Nason survived.

Nason did not make a big deal about his experiences. He went on with life, attending law school and serving for many, many years as a corporate attorney; only late in life did he put pen to paper and tell his story.

Thousands of American servicemen were imprisoned during World War II. Their treatment ranged from poor, but scrupulously correct, to outright murder, which happened to Joe Nason's buddies.

It was only after Vietnam that the US recognized Prisoners of War as worthy of recognition -- before, the military brass may have thought surrender just a mite shameful. But the return of the POWs of Vietnam brought out the stories of Bud Day and James B. Stockdale (above), who were all awarded the Medal of Honor for their conduct as prisoners.

They were all aviators. In case you're keeping track.

Given the nature of our enemies in the current unpleasantness, the life of any airman captured by them is likely to resemble Hobbes's State of Nature: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

So President Bush thinks these guys (so far they've all been guys; in current and future wars they might be gals, too) rate a Presidential Proclamation. So did several Presidents before him (POW/MIA Day is becoming an annual tradition).

Those of us that aren't President don't get to make Proclamations (well, not that anyone but our friends and family hear, perhaps). But perhaps we could each take a moment this day to reflect on the sufferings and privations that those in captivity, or who died alone and unknown, bore; and that whatever we now think of their cause, they did it for us and for liberty. And to reflect on those who might be in such a predicament in the days and years and centuries to come, and to say a prayer, each of us in his or her own faith.

I'd say that's the least we could do.

FMI: www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060406-8.html