If you can guess who has an interesting background and was captured for over seven years, you might know that this story is about a Navy pilot named Jeremiah Denton. Jeremiah Denton was flying over enemy territory when he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese, and was kept prisoner for seven years and seven months. Here is how it happened.
It was in mid-July when Jeremiah was flying over enemy territory and was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese and was brought to a cell the next day. Six months later he received his first torture in what the military called the “shackles.” (Shackles were used by the North Vietnamese to cuff their prisoners into a painful and uncomfortable position.) Soon afterward, he was locked up in a 46 in. x 46 in. metal box for two years only being able to lie down at night. A while later he was sent to be interviewed on TV by a Japanese news reporter. During the interview, he answered the reporter’s questions and was blinking torture in Morse code and then said the exact opposite thing that he was supposed to say. The North Vietnamese did not realize he had blinked torture but they were angry that he said the opposite of what they told him to say and so they beat him all that night. He was some years later and when he made it back to America he found that his dad had died. Soon afterward, he became a U.S. Senator for Alabama for one term (one term is six years in the U.S. Senate). Denton just died this past March 2014.
My next blog is going to be on the Metal of Honor winner Robby Miller who did not fight in the Vietnam War but who I think is very interesting. He won the Metal of Honor because he fought until he had no weapons at all. You will learn more about Miller in my next blog post.
