The American Experience
Edited by Vance R. Skarstedt
Preface by John McCain
Military History Symposium Series of the USAF Academy, Vol. 8
Paper 1-879176-40-8 ($24.95)
2004; xii+149 pp., index
The most memorable and positive chapter of America's experience in Vietnam remains the successful return of those Americans held captive by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. Since the end of the Cold War, the treatment of our servicemen and women held captive by enemies, ranging from soldiers to terrorists, have again occupied national attention. American treatment of prisoners has also been the focus of international attention, and not all of it positive. However, the concern for American POWs began long before the Cold War and Vietnam. Since the American Revolution, the United States has wrestled with the issue. Paroles, incarceration, and other methods of accounting for and controlling POWs characterize some of the U.S. government's policies. Bravery, suffering, and in some instances corroboration characterize the conduct of our military members who endured enemy captivity. With the contributions of scholars and former POWs, the United States Air Force Academy's proceedings of the 19th Military History Symposium traces the odyssey of Americans who had to endure captivity, and those who decided our policies on this issue. These articles reveal that the questions and issues regarding our treatment of POWs, and our expectations of Americans held in captivity, have always been more complicated than the stories put forth by movies and television. The role of international agreements, exploitation of POWs in negotiations, cultural aspects of POW treatment, evolution of American policy and training are all discussed. This volume represents an important contribution to the study of this extremely important topic.
Contents:
Prologue / Vance R. Skarstedt and Grant T. Weller • Representing Captivity / Elliott Gruner • No Man's Land: Prisoners on the Eve of Modern War / William Marvel • "The Promptings of Humanity": The United States, Military Captivity, and the Laws of War, 1914–1919 / Richard B. Speed • Resistance in Japanese Prison Camps during World War II / Robert S. La Forte • "For You, the War Is Over": American Prisoners of the Reich / Philip D. Caine • Yanks in the Great Escape: Coalition Warfare at Its Best / Arthur A. Durand • The Treatment of Prisoners of War since World War II / Frederick Kiley • Evolution of the Code of Conduct / W. Hays Parks • Spouses and Families of Repatriated American Prisoners of War: A Study of Resiliency and Adaptation / Elizabeth A. Thompson and Hamilton I. McCubbin • Making Experience Count / Robert C. Doyle • The American POW Experience in Iraq, 1991 / Thomas E. Griffith, Jr. • Epilogue / Vance R. Skarstedt
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