Honor

Our stellar guest lecture series continued yesterday, with a gentleman springing on to the stage with the vitality of a thirty-year-old to brag about his golf game, talk about how he circumvented general-officer flying rules, make fun of the navy and marines, and give us guidance for the future.

And also mention his six years in captivity at the Hanoi Hilton.

I've heard P.O.W.s speak before, and have been captivated, moved, inspired every time. But I recall one from my field training days as a junior ROTC cadet, sixteen years ago now, who was in a wheelchair, hooked up to oxygen. And here was retired 2-star general Ed Mechenbier, 64, who had just finished 18 holes of golf that morning, bounding around the stage telling us how they had taught their Vietnamese captors that the middle finger was a cool way to salute each other.
He recalled his time with grace and humor, thanking the north vietnamese for calling him a war criminal, because now he can check off forms here in America ("Have you ever been convicted of a felony?") that get him out of jury duty. But he spoke of living with spiders as big as your hand, rats twice as long as your foot, and showed sketches Navy Lt McGrath had drawn up after returning home that demonstrated their living quarters, communication techniques, and scenes of unbelievable torture. The General almost matter-of-factly said, "none of us can raise our arms too high ... my golf swing's kinda level, but it's good."
He was also disappointed that it took somebody three years to figure out that if you put your sandals on the edges of the "honey bucket" to go #2, it would be a little more comfortable on their skinny backsides.

Amazingly, his time in prison counted as "flight time", so when the Air Force told the General upon his return that he would have to transition into Command Post duty, he instead entered the Ohio National Guard ("so I could protect Ohio from attack from Kentucky and West Virginia") and then, when he figured he would retire as a Lt Colonel, a Four-Star General golfing buddy transferred him to the Reserves. In 2004, he made news once again:

Reserve Maj. Gen. Ed Mechenbier, the Air Force's last Vietnam-era former prisoner of war still serving, retired on 30 June, ending more than four decades of active-duty, Guard, and Reserve service. In June 1967, Mechenbier, flying an F-4C, was shot down over North Vietnam on his 113th combat mission. He would not return until 1973, enduring almost six years as a POW. When the Vietnam War ended, Mechenbier returned to the US on a C-141 StarLifter, affectionately named the Hanoi Taxi. On 29 May of this year, he flew that same aircraft back to Hanoi on his final flight, bringing home the remains of two service members listed as missing in action.

The general is featured in the documentary "Return with Honor" which I believe was nominated for an Academy Award recently.