This article was forwarded to you from McCain Patriots with the comment "*Read straight talk yur-self!". This story is also available on our web site at http://www.McCainInteractive.com/Patriots/news/DisplayArticle.cfm?PassArtKey=143 McCain Patriots Comments: POW (and McCain 2000 Oregon State Veterans Chair) Ernie Brace writes about meeting John McCain. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Headline: On John McCain as a POW On John McCain as a POW On John McCain as a POW By Ernest C. Brace Under the glaring lights of a circus tent set up on the south lawn of the White House I met John Sidney McCain III face to face for the first time. President Richard Nixon had invited the returned POWs of the Vietnam War to dinner. It was May 24, 1973. Almost five years previously I had met John under much harsher circumstances. We had been confined as solitary POWs in adjacent cells at a camp the Prisoners of War had named "The Plantation" in Hanoi, North Vietnam. We talked to each other through a wall for over a year. We talked of family, loves, troubles we�d been through, and every Sunday we told each other a movie. John was in solitary confinement because he refused to cooperate with the North Vietnamese efforts to exploit his father�s position. His father, Admiral John Sidney McCain II, was Commander in Chief of Naval Forces Europe when John was captured. Since John�s capture in 1967 his father had been given Command of Naval Forces Pacific, (CINCPAC), a much more significant posting considering John�s captivity. John was considered a valuable prisoner by the Hanoi Government and they occasionally tried to use him to their propaganda advantage. John refused to cooperate. I was in solitary because I was a civilian pilot (ex-USMC) working under contract to the CIA when I had been captured in Laos. Since I had been captured by North Vietnamese troops in Laos in May, 1965 I was kept hidden from other prisoners, never listed as a prisoner, and never allowed to write home or receive mail or packages. The Vietnamese weren�t supposed to be in Laos in 1965. The USA was not supposed to be in Laos with military either. My first 3 years and 6 months of captivity had been spent in total solitary in a small bamboo cage in a valley near Dien Bien Phu in western Vietnam. The last 2 years and 6 months in stocks, irons, and ropes because of two escape attempts from the cage. When they took me into Hanoi in October 1968 I was in poor health and could walk only by leaning against a wall or some other support. I had not seen or heard an American since my capture. I had no idea of what had happened in the war or to what extent the Americans were now involved. During the trip in a Russian truck from the Dien Bien Phu area into Hanoi I observed road and bridge construction There was no air activity and I was under the impression the war was over. What I did not know was that President Johnson had gone to limited bombing in the Fall of 1968 in an attempt to get the "Peace Talks" in Paris moving again. John McCain brought me up to date on the war. At my new place I was taken into a room and given a short indoctrination lecture about the camp regulations. Strong warnings were issued against communicating along with dire warnings of severe punishment. I was then blindfolded and taken from the room by the guards, supporting me by my armpits as we moved down the steps and across a dirt yard. I heard doors being opened and then one of the guards picked me up. He moved forward and dropped me onto a concrete floor through some kind of opening. They reached in and jerked my blindfold off. It was a large square room with a high ceiling. There was no door, only a louvered set of shutters set in what had once been a window. Iron brackets had been installed to hold a bar that extended from one side of the shutters to the other. Against one wall was a bedboard placed on a pair of sawhorses. A mosquito net hung from some nails set in the wall. A black bucket in the corner opposite the bed completed the furniture in the room. A ricemat and a change of clothing was on the bed. A pair of rubber tire sandals was on the floor near the bed. A single bulb hung by its cord from the ceiling. It must have been about 25 watts at the most. The guards had not entered the room. They slammed the shutters closed and dropped the bar into place. I heard a padlock snap closed. Then a very oriental voice came through the louvers, "Sleep." I crawled over to the bedboard. Pulling myself up onto the bed I sat and looked around. It was the largest cell I had been in since my capture. I picked up the black pajama like shirt and trousers and saw that I had a set of underwear or shorts of the same black cotton cloth. The rice mat was new and I rolled it out onto the board. I let the mosquito net down around me and tried to get some sleep. It had been a full day and then some. I woke to someone opening my louvered window. It was the guard from the night before. He pointed at my bucket and grunted for me to set it outside. I hadn�t used the bucket yet and indicated so in broken Vietnamese and Thai. He scowled and slammed the shutters closed. I could hear a radio playing off in the distance and tried to make out what it was saying. It was some oriental woman speaking English and hard to follow. Then I heard what sounded like the Kingston Trio singing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" Strange place! The guard was at the shutters again and handed me a jug of hot water and half a bread roll. I made motions like eating with chopsticks and asked if he had some rice, I was hungry. He scowled and shut the louvers with a bang. I sat on the bed and ate what had been given to me. I could hear other cell doors being opened and closed and then it got quiet in the camp. I was sitting on the floor with my back against the inside wall when I heard a tapping on the wall behind me. It was the rhythm of "Shave and a haircut" but the "two bits" was missing. The officer had warned me about making noise in the room or tapping on walls. I sat there thinking, "That�s nice, there must be an American next door." The "Shave and a haircut" was tapped again. This time I replied with the "two bits" which seemed the natural thing to do. A rapid series of tapping in some kind of rhythm ensued and I scooted away from the wall thinking that I had been tricked by the guards. There was silence after the tapping stopped. A few minutes later the tapping started again. I did nothing. After some time a slow steady tapping started which had no rhythm. I started counting. The tapping stopped and I tried to convert the number of taps to a letter of the alphabet. The tapping resumed before I got my letter. I then realized I should be saying the alphabet rather than counting. I got "wal" on the last series of tapping. I didn�t know what to do. The tapping resumed after some time, and I said my alphabet, and got "out ear to wal." I figured it must mean "put ear to wall" and shuffled along to where the tapping was coming from. I tapped twice on the brick wall with my knuckle as I pressed my ear against the wall. A voice on the other side, obviously an American, said "If you hear me buddy tap twice?" I tapped twice in reply. He got excited then and said he had been trying to contact me all morning since morning was best while the guards were occupied with the buckets and morning water. He rattled off a couple questions and when I did nothing he slowed down and told me how to reply. One tap was NO---Two taps was YES or COPY---Three taps was I DON�T KNOW---and a rapid series of tapping was REPEAT. I tapped twice that I understood. He told me that his name was John McCain, he was a Navy Lieutenant Commander and had been shot down about a year prior in 1967. He told me he was talking by wrapping his shirt around his cup and pressing the bottom of the cup against the wall. I tapped twice. He asked me if I had a cup. I tapped once. A lot of questions followed, "Are you an American? Are you a Pilot? Are you Navy? Airforce? Army? Civilian?" He got excited again when I replied yes to Civilian. "CIA?" He asked. I tapped NO and he immediately apologized for asking. Had I been a prisoner long was the next question. I tapped slowly four times. Should have tapped three, but didn�t know how I could get the half in there. John explained that the "Shave and a haircut" rhythm was the call up signal for a tap code the prisoners were using. The "two bits" was the go ahead. Since he could use his cup on the wall there was no need to tap, but he would teach me the tap code anyway. A solid thump was a danger signal and meant get away from the wall. Even though we had voice communications I started practicing the "Tap Code." A couple days later I was given a cup and communications were wide open. John McCain brought me up to date on the war, what Johnson had done, and the fact Nixon was running for president again. That was the biggest surprise. John had a loud speaker in his room and heard The Voice of Vietnam with "Hanoi Hannah" every day. John�s politics were strong Republican views even back then. I was apolitical but willing to listen. After 4 years in solitary with no communications I was ready to listen to anything! John explained the values of the respective parties and the role of small versus big government. John was much more religious than me. He was the product of an Episcopalian High School education in Washington, D.C. He had really wanted to go to an Ivy League rather then the Naval Academy. Out of respect for his father and his grandfather he attended the Naval Academy. John initiated all communications because his cell looked out on the courtyard and he could keep track of the guards through a small nail hole in his door. The lights were out in the cells during the day and the guards eyes couldn�t adjust to the darkness from the bright outdoors when they threw open the peepholes to check into the cell. A thump on the wall out of nowhere meant that guards were coming into the cell so stay away from the wall. Occasionally John would get called up to the "Big House." That�s what the prisoners named the building where I was taken the night I arrived in the camp. Sometimes he had news that was not on the speakers in the camp. Sometimes he would disappear for a few days because he refused to cooperate in their propaganda effort. Those days he usually spent in a small room across the court yard the guards used for punishment. When he got back he would call me up on the wall and explain who he had refused to meet with this time. Usually it was some "Peace Group" that wanted to see the son of Admiral McCain. One time it was some Soviet Generals. The year 1969 passed quickly. John was certain we would be going home this year because first, they seemed to be bringing in the prisoners from the outlying camps, me at least; second, it was the year of the "Cock" on the Chinese calendar; and third, Richard Nixon had won the election and he wouldn�t let us sit there much longer. In December 1969 there was a big communications bust in the camp. The guards found out that everyone knew my name. I was taken up to the Big House and told I must confess my crimes. John had told me to deny, deny, deny, if I was ever caught communicating. To me it was a matter of survival to let the Vietnamese know that I was well known in the camp. They were angry and told me I was to be sent back to the jungle. Earlier I would have been beaten severally, but Ho Chi Minh had died in September, and since his death the treatment had improved. I was still in solitary 4 years and 6 months after my capture. As I was taken back to my cell I thought, "I�ll never know what is going on in the jungle." I told John what the officer said. He sympathized of course, but we had no control. Our talks turned inward to family and what the future might hold. I spent the next week waiting for something to happen. One night they threw open the door to my cell and told me to prepare to move. I rolled up my rice mat and bundled what clothes I had together. Someone coughed out a GBU, God Bless You, as I was picking up my bundles. I was blindfolded and lead into the courtyard on the other side of the warehouse. I was leaving friends and could hardly hold back tears as they dragged me across the courtyard. They pushed me up into a truck and told me to keep silent. I was up against another prisoner on the floor of the truck. I felt a hand hit my thigh and then it slowly tapped, "MCCAIN, who U." I smiled as I realized I wasn�t being sent back to the jungle after all. I tapped back, "EB GBU." I will vote for McCain in the primary election and again in the general election. I know his strengths and I know his weaknesses and I know he would make a great president. _______ To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe rangernet" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Eat the hay & spit out the sticks! - A#1's mule" RTKB&G4JC! http://rangernet.org Autoresponder: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
