FOR weeks the returned P.O.W.s had been stepping from "freedom birds" onto the television screens—most of them saluting crisply, walking smartly, looking physically fit and acting mentally alert. As the nation's early apprehensions faded, a new idea set in: perhaps the P.O.W.s had been humanely treated after all. That illusion was shattered last week. With all the known surviving prisoners safely home from Viet Nam, the dam of restraints broke, and tales of mistreatment and torture poured forth. Navy Commander Richard Stratton, best known for his deep bows and seemingly drugged appearance in a 1967 news conference, summed up the reports of many prisoners when he said: "I have been tortured, I have been beaten, I have been placed in solitary confinement, I have been harassed, I have been humiliated." Navy Lieut. Commander Rodney Knutson struck the same harsh note. "Lenient and humane treatment?" he asked. "Not on your life!"
Prisoners detailed a mosaic of torture ranging from the brutally physical to the ingeniously psychological. They conceded that treatment had varied for each P.O.W., that conditions had improved remarkably by the fall of 1969, and that high-ranking officers had absorbed the worst of it. But mistreatment was clearly widespread, and often brought on by the prisoners' steadfast resistance. As Navy Captain Jeremiah Denton said, "We forced them to be brutal to us." Even those who considered their treatment comparatively mild, such as Air Force Captain Joseph Milligan, often suffered enormously. Provided totally inadequate medical attention, Milligan treated—and cured—a badly burned arm by letting maggots eat away the pus, then cleaning off the maggots with his own urine.
The favorite props of the North Vietnamese captors were lengths of rope, iron manacles that could be screwed down to the bone and fan belts for administering beatings. Prisoners claimed that they were tied up for interminable periods into positions that yogis could not assume. Ropes tied to a man's ankles, wrists and neck were tightened until he was bent over backward in a doughnut shape. Men were also bent forward into a position of a baby sucking its big toe. The ropes cut off circulation, and in several cases paralyzed limbs for months, even years.
Raw Flesh. Handcuffs on the wrists of one prisoner were tightened so much that blood came through the pores. Hands and feet often swelled to unimaginable proportions and turned black. Jaws, noses, ribs, teeth and limbs, the prisoners charged, were deliberately broken and left unset. The sick and wounded were left in their own excrement for days on end. Fan belts or lengths of rubber turned buttocks of beaten prisoners into raw flesh. Sergeant Don MacPhail said that he was hung from a tree over three fresh graves and beaten with sticks. He was told that he would be in the fourth grave.