The Early Years
A complete biography of Ted Guy's early years is available at the hyperlink: http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/g/g065.htm. A summary from that document reads, "Theodore Wilson Guy was born on April 18, 1929 in Chicago, the son of Theopholus William and Edwina Lamont Guy. He graduated from Kemper Military College in 1949 and immediately entered the Air Force, becoming a pilot in September 1950. Except for senior service schools, his entire career was spent in air training command and tactical air command in the operations field. He amassed 5,700 hours flying time - all in fighter or fighter trainer aircraft."

       "As an officer in the Air Force, he was a highly decorated fighter pilot who served his country in both the Korean and Vietnam wars, flying the F-84 in the Korean theatre and the F-4 in Vietnam. On March 26, 1968 he went down in Laos and was the first military officer captured in Laos and eventually interned in North Vietnam. He was a prisoner of war for five years and one month in Laos and Vietnam, and was interned at several camps including the infamous Hanoi Hilton. He spent over four years in solitary confinement while a POW."

The Prisoner of War Years
       Col. Ted Guy was shot down over Laos in July 1968. He was imprisoned as a POW until his return with honor in March 1973. His post-release years were spent championing the POW/MIA cause in the United States. Guy spent most of his imprisonment as a POW at the Plantation complex in Hanoi. The North Vietnamese opened this third prison camp in the spring of 1967 - located on the outskirts of downtown Hanoi a few blocks south of the power plant (Dirty Bird) and virtually across the street from the Alcatraz compound at the Ministry of Defense…Situated on a tree-lined two acres, it had formerly been the home of the colonial mayor of Hanoi.

       Ted Guy's imprisonment at the Plantation coincided with a special period of the war which provides context for the atmosphere within which the prisoners were held there [1]. "The middle years 1967-69 were an ultimate testing time not only for the American prisoners of War but also for the U.S. commitment to rescue Southeast Asia from communism. Mounting body counts, increasing skepticism about the wisdom of United States military involvement in the Indochinese conflict, and consuming problems at home steadily eroded what had always been a thin base of domestic support for the U.S. action. Continuing sharp internal debate within the Johnson and then Nixon administration between those advocating more massive use of airpower and those urging a diplomatic solution produced a series of tentative on-again, off-again bombing campaigns that convinced the enemy - and many of the POWs - of Washington's lack of resolve. The psychological victory gained by the North Vietnamese through the Tet offensive during the first half of 1968 placed U.S. 'hawks' further on the defensive. In what had come down to a test of political will rather than military might, Hanoi was clearly prevailing, and the Communists wasted no opportunity to exploit both the demoralized POWs and a divided and defeatist-minded American public to cement their advantage."

       The first POW arrivals at the Plantation [2], in early June, were a group of eight who came over from Vegas [at the Hoa Lo prison complex]. After just a month or so, six of those would be transferred to Dirty Bird…the Plantation's population steadily increased as improvements were made…until it reached a peak strength of 52 or 53 inmates in January 1968 - most of them recent shootdowns and young fliers who did not yet show the permanent scars of sustained torture and had not yet been 'corrupted' by the resistance organization, and hence were prime candidates for propaganda display."

       "As one would expect in a 'show camp,' carrots predominated over sticks in the treatment of captives. There was little physical abuse, at least initially, rather mostly soft-sell efforts to modify attitudes through indoctrination quizzes, visits to historic sites or to view local bomb damage, and exposure to antiwar literature…by mid-July 1967 Dick Stratton and Doug Hegdahl [came to the Plantation from the Zoo]…"

       The 'Honor Bound' book [3] describes the conditions in which Dick Stratton assumed duties as the SRO (Senior Ranking Officer) at the Plantation. "Doubtlessly, the commissar and his psywar staff [of the prison system] counted on a low level of resistance from the POWs at the Plantation. After all, those ticketed to the propaganda factory had been hand-picked and carefully screened - chosen in most instances for their suspected pliability or vulnerability or simple youth and inexperience. The unconventional prison was looked upon by the captors, and by captives at other locations, as 'a patsy camp,' Stratton later allowed. Moreover, even if the Plantation's occupants were inclined to mount a strong resistance, there were numerous obstacles to any organized effort. The absence of high-ranking seniors or captivity-seasoned juniors created a conspicuous leadership vacuum. Networking and communications were hampered by the newcomers' unfamiliarity with POW policies and signaling techniques and by a sprawling physical layout that, as at the Zoo, segregated prisoners over several buildings. And there was no camp that had a more inherently divisive atmosphere, with easy opportunities for, and rampant speculation about, prisoner capitulation or outright collaboration, especially involving those men being considered for early release."

       "If for these reasons resistance did not exactly flourish at the show camp, it nonetheless was present…That it existed eventually on a large scale may be attributed to the determined efforts of an array of both ranking officers and subordinates to surmount the Plantation's organizational challenges and instill some semblance of unity and coordination among the inmates incarcerated there. Stratton, as the first senior [SRO] at the camp, deserves much credit for much of the spadework. Shrugging off any peer criticism that dogged him in the wake of the bowing [Manchurian Candidate] contretemps, he took advantage of Cat's ignoring him during the fall [of 1967] to provide crucial guidance to his younger comrades, imparting rules and regulations he had acquired at Hoa Lo and the Zoo…Stratton reminded them of their duty and obligations but, preaching what he practiced, counseled reasonableness and common sense in dealing with the captors. The consummate 'lone ranger,' who could be as arrogant toward shipmates as he was towards the enemy, became a steadying bellwether, unshirkingly embracing the leadership responsibility, perhaps as a chance for redemption. Winning the confidence of the men with his knowledge and savvy - admirers said, 'he had a gift for making  chicken salad out of chicken shit.' - he capably filled the void [as SRO]."

       "For a considerable period that Stratton functioned as the nominal SRO at Plantation, there was actually an officer senior to him, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, who was present but because of poor health and other circumstances had been prevented from taking command. Hervey Stockman entered the camp in September [1967] … Stockman…learned he was SRO in November [1967], yet deferred to the incumbent Stratton while he continued to recuperate…Stratton was still effectively exercising authority, and was still recognized by most of the men as the camp leader, into 1968."

       When Stockman [4] took over from Stratton [Note: The timing of this 'change of command' is not clear from the references. It is clear, however, that Stratton was still the de facto SRO from the fall of 1967 through the spring of 1968, during which time the entire prison POW communication system at the Plantation was 'linked up' and 'signs of' a stiffening camp-wide resistance was implemented. It may have been somewhere around May 1968 when Stockman assumed command as SRO. ] … [Stockman] was informed that he was SRO and that George Larson…was next in seniority.

       It was during this time of 'confusion' over who was SRO at the Plantation that the first batch of 'early release' of three POWs to an American anti-war delegation occurred on 16 February 1968. According to the book [5], 'Honor Bound,' "In the weeks following the [early release], Plantation's fractured leadership preoccupied itself not with their homeward-bound comrades' guilt or innocence but with damage-control measures to limit fallout. Whatever the moral or legal culpability of [the releasees], the seniors recognized that a dangerous precedent had been set, that an important line had been crossed for the first time in the North, and that once the agitation and rancor had subsided the potentially more serious outcome would be that others would take the bait. As Stockman wrote later, 'Once prisoners knew that the Vietnamese promises of amnesty were not completely empty, there remained for some the pervasive thought that somehow, by some slight adjustment in prisoner-captor relationships, though not by a sell-out to the enemy, they might be identified for release…The threat to senior authority, POW unity, and the whole culture of military discipline was manifest."

       "To keep wavering individuals focused, Stockman issued clearer orders instructing that early release was to be accepted 'only in order of shootdown with sick and wounded first.' To bolster morale he delineated roles and responsibilities down to the major and lieutenant commander ranks and made sure that all services were properly represented in the refined chain of command. Further, he overruled Stratton when [they disagreed on the matter of Hegdahl's early release]. Stratton, for his part, transmitted a steady patter of messages exhorting the captives to pull together and put the release episode behind them. Norman credits Stratton (although by now Stockman was firmly in command and by his own account originated the order) with getting through to a new group that had been moved into the show rooms and directing them, 'before they had been fully compromised,' to reject any 'deal' from the enemy."

       It was into this maelstrom of confusion that Col. Ted Guy, the third POW to assume the role of SRO, entered the Plantation. According to the book [6], 'Honor Bound,'  "…when Stockman returned to Vegas in May, three weeks went by before his second-in-command [at the Plantation], Swede Larson, was aware that he was now in charge. Larson managed to issue a few directives before the Vietnamese, as they had done to Stockman initially, stashed him in an isolated spot in the Gunshed. Then sometime in July 1968, with Larson still incommunicado [isolation], recent arrival Air Force Lt. Col. Ted Guy assumed the helm (as SRO)."

       "One of the POWs described [Guy] as 'a real tough nut,' lean and mean, 'sort of short, maybe five foot eight, thin, with a lantern jaw and brown hair neatly combed and parted.' (It would not stay that way, of course. He did not receive a comb until 1971; by then his hair was 'long and unkempt.') Guy believed that Larson was senior to him by about a month, but the issue became moot when the latter remained sequestered, 'jailed in a section of the camp where it became impossible to contact him for guidance.' Guy only slowly gained communication access himself, no easy feat with the Vietnamese keeping rooms vacant on his right and left. Operating under the code name, 'Fox,' he passed policies by tap and note that held the 44 men [including John McCain] (by the SRO's count) now at the Plantation to a somewhat more rigid standard of conduct than had his predecessors. As invariably happened, he would relax his stance over time to allow for the captives' unusual circumstances, but his stern demeanor contrasted sharply with the more laid-back style of Stockman and Stratton."

       According to the book [7], 'P.O.W,' "The combative Guy had been [shot down] in Laos on March 22, 1968 [Note: About the time that Bud Day and Norris Overly had left the Plantation and John McCain was left as the sole occupant of their 'room.']. [Guy] was captured after shooting it out with some North Vietnamese soldiers, killing at least two of them. After capture he had been subjected to all the tortures which by this time the Vietnamese were routinely inflicting on their American prisoners. He had spent the next thirty-seven months in solitary confinement -- first at the Plantation, then in Vegas, on to D-1, and back to the Plantation on November 25, 1970."

       According to the book [8], 'Honor Bound,' "The most troublesome problem Guy inherited was the 'early release' matter. Although Stratton, Hegdahl, McCain and a number of other prime prospects courted by the Vietnamese had summarily rejected the repatriation propositions and were either repulsing or stalling the enemy's solicitation, there were comrades - weaker of will or body, or simply insensitive to the principle involved - who were proving to be more susceptible to the offer. Their staged liberation, leaders on both sides knew, not only would give an immense boost to Hanoi's propaganda campaign but also would have a profoundly unsettling impact internally on prisoner morale and cohesion. Stratton had encouraged Hegdahl alone to accept early release, but he was concerned enough about the implications of the practice generally that he and his communication partners had made frantic attempts to contact the other parole candidates and get them to quit the bandwagon. The scramble to reach them was complicated by the fact that toward the end of 1967 the Vietnamese had soundproofed the show rooms with blobs of cement, and by the time Stratton, at great exertion and risk, made contact with one of the individuals in the bath stalls, his stabs at both persuading and ordering the man not to cave in fell on deaf ears."

       According to the book [9], 'Honor Bound,' "By the time Guy took over, the Plantation POWs were still trying to shake off the effects of the February [1968] releases as well as bounce back from Cat's springtime housecleaning that stripped the resistance of many of its strongest members [including Bud Day]. Guy had barely arrived at the camp when the North Vietnamese were in the process of staging a second release. Although evidently two of the three slated to be included in this group were 'rescued' by Stockman and Stratton's prodding, a third…ignored orders and was packing for home - along with a pair of replacements for the other two…The latest releases, although less stunning, triggered another wave of tension and malaise as word spread through the camps. Now at the Zoo, Bud Day heard the tapes on the radio and reacted with a mixture of disgust and sadness, ashamed that the three were all Air Force officers."

       "Guy remembered seeing Plantation inmates shuffling by his cell 'with heads hung low.' To stop the hemorrhaging of morale and discipline, Guy took Stockman's edict one step further: no one was to go home regardless of their condition (with the possible exception of McCain) or shootdown date. If they could not leave together and honorably, Guy felt, 'we would all stay if it took another twenty-five years.' The senior was fortunate to have a solid nucleus of resisters still around after the spring-summer purge - besides Stratton, there were [five named, plus John McCain, and others] who remained steadfast through all the tumult." [Very Important Note: It is clear to me that Ted Guy's post-release enmity toward John McCain did not stem from McCain's performance while under Guy's SRO tutelage at the Plantation. McCain, according to the record became one of the Plantation's most innovative resisters - primarily due to his communication efforts while there. Instead, it is clear that Guy's conclusions concerning John McCain's behavior and character stem from his actions as a U.S. senator regarding the POW/MIA situation after the war. More on this later on in this essay].

       "1969 started out calmly enough with the organization again jelling and communications humming. Guy recalled that 'as 1969 began we had made a good deal of progress.' A communications committee established new drop locations and assigned a new set of code names: McCain was 'Crip'; Hegdahl was 'Mug'; [Ernie] Brace 'Stol,' the acronym for the short-takeoff aircraft he had flown before going down in Laos. The POWs and their captors coexisted in sullen harmony,' … The prisoners 'were careful not to be too blatant (when tapping or signaling), and the guards no longer tried very hard to catch them.'"

       That was not to last, however [10]. "In May [1969] a dramatic escape attempt from the Zoo ignited a system-wide inquisition in which … 'every camp was shaken down, every cell inspected, almost every prisoner beaten or questioned,' and painstakingly built POW networks destroyed. Although the repercussions were less severe at the show camp than elsewhere, [two other POWs] and McCain were among those furiously worked over [for McCain, 'slaps and cuffs'] for communication information and escape plans…By summer, the senior's identity was out, and Guy himself was dragged into a punishment session, where he was flogged across the back with a rubber hose."

       "[Hegdahl] was quizzed and reprimanded but got off with only minor punishment. He had been trying Cat's patience for so long that the Vietnamese may well have finally given up on him as an early release candidate but for the perseverance of Stratton. The latter persuaded Guy to order him home, and this time Hegdahl…willingly consented. [Hegdahl was released to an American peace delegation and returned to the U.S. with precious information on the POWs' identity, condition, and the torture that they had endured.]."

       Soon after the Hegdahl release, the prisoners at the Plantation witnessed an appreciable improvement in their conditions [11]. "Myopically, they attributed the amelioration to the release, assuming that Hegdahl in particular had exposed their neglect to officials at home and that the ensuing media coverage, headlining their story, had compelled the Vietnamese to upgrade treatment…However, the Vietnamese had probably already recognized that their 'humane and lenient' protestations were engendering more skepticism than sympathy - why else the decision to release wounded men in this third group - and that it was time for a fundamental reassessment lest even their supporters became skittish over continuing reports of brutality. Moreover, in accounting for the transformation that took place after September 1969, not only at the Plantation but throughout the prison system, a far more salient event was the death of Ho Chi Minh [on 2 September 1969]…a development that made possible the institution of a new regime with fresh policies."

       The Plantation apparently became a casualty of that new regime. Whether its long-running show had lost its credibility or simply was becoming too familiar to be effective, in the fall of 1969 Hanoi's political department decided to close down operations there and move the propaganda activities, on a less grandiose scale, to the Zoo. (The Zoo was one of the more notorious facilities of the middle years. Its reincarnation as a show camp after 1970 was a bittersweet epilogue for those who had survived its excesses [the Cuban torture experiment, for example] in the mid-and-late 1960s). Brace, McCain, Guy, and Larson departed the Plantation in early December [1969], trucked over together to Vegas [at the Hoa Lo complex]." Consequently, this closed the association of SRO Ted Guy with fellow prisoner John McCain at the Plantation - from July 1968 when Guy entered the camp and McCain served under his leadership until December 1969 - 18 months all told. McCain, who entered the Plantation [before Guy] in mid-December 1967 had preceded Guy there by about 7 months."

       "Plantation officially closed in July 1970, its remaining occupants dispersed to the Zoo and elsewhere…The prison would reopen late in 1970 for an anticlimactic last act, under far different circumstances and with none of its earlier pretensions."

       "How successful was the Plantation program? Even granted its frequent clumsiness, mixed results, and abrupt termination, the propaganda pageant achieved much of what Hanoi had hoped to accomplish. The prisoners registered occasional victories and draws, but these were minor and fleeting compared to the substantial political gains Hanoi reaped from the weekly ushering of dignitaries and reporters through the camp, worldwide dissemination of Pilots in Pajamas and other film and photo 'documentaries,' and ballyhooed early releases."

       "The POWs themselves judged the enterprise a frustrating success. Ho 'applied his most creative energies to employing…American POWs to tell his story,' Sam Johnson later lamented in a general comment that had special relevance to the Plantation. 'He danced us across the stage of world opinion and presented the world with the best orchestrated propaganda show this century has beheld.' So disturbed were Navy and Air Force officials by the manipulation of U.S. POWs at the phony press conferences that in 1968 the services made curriculum changes at their survival training centers to give more attention to the hazards of such exhibitions. But as long as the peace emissaries, wittingly or not, collaborated in that manipulation there was little the prisoners could do. Even those less ideologically disposed than the Dellingers and Haydens accepted too literally what they were shown or what they heard. 'I found it almost impossible to believe that American peace envoys and antiwar activists could be so naïve,' Johnson said. 'Although history lay on the page in front of them and contradicted Hanoi's claims, they refused to see it…They returned home with reports of prisoners dressed in clean clothes, sitting at tables heavy with fresh fruit.' And, until Frishman and Hegdahl gave compelling testimony to the contrary, the peace travelers' whitewashes, and the equally impressionable observations of lavishly courted journalists, were the only versions of the captivity experience available to the public in firsthand accounts."

       "Contrasting the seemingly benign treatment of the American POWs at the Plantation with the destruction wrought by U.S. bombing, such 'eyewitness' accounts gave corroborative weight to Hanoi's assertion of moral superiority just as the antiwar movement was cresting in the United States and abroad. It was no accident that Plantation's prime coincided with the surging of war-related unrest in New York and Washington. Opponents of the U.S. involvement increasingly resorted to confrontation after 1967, with peaceful protests and rallies giving way to violent clashes between police and demonstrators, sabotage against military labs and induction centers, seizures of administration buildings on college campuses, and marches on the Pentagon. The North Vietnamese designed the Plantation's propaganda pitches to sway both the prisoners and their countrymen, but the show clearly played better back home. Even as indoctrination efforts were 'failing miserably' to convert the prisoners to the Communists' point of view, Johnson fumed, they were 'working splendidly' in America."

       "Except for the damaging fallout from the final one, the early releases especially proved an effective tool in the propaganda campaign. They demoralized the remaining prisoners, enhanced the political influence and stature of the pacifist intermediaries who secured the releasees' freedom, and polished the enemy's image in a series of high-profile mediagenic displays that assured maximum publicity. Like Plantation's other stagings, they were intended to exploit the deepening divisions over the war within both the American society and government, and to that end they were masterfully timed - the first occurring at a pivotal juncture in the progress of the war (during the Tet 1968 offensive) and the second and third at around the July 4 holiday and in the midst of deadlocked peace talks. To the extent that Hanoi could control the psywar, it could control the political and ultimately the military outcome of the contest as well. And, of course, that is exactly what happened, as in the aftermath of Tet the Communists essentially translated a military defeat into a psychological and political triumph that fundamentally altered the strategic calculus for the duration of the war."

       "Plantation's early releases also had the unfortunate effect of tarnishing the reputation of the men held there, and not just those who accepted the ticket home. Especially after a later batch of Plantation misconduct cases came to light, involving a completely different group of Army and Marine enlisted men captured during and after Tet and incarcerated there after 1970, by association all of the camp's occupants came to be perceived as somehow lacking guts or staying power and indeed assigned to the show camp in the first place because the Vietnamese presumed them to be exploitable. For a long time even after homecoming a certain stigma clung to them like tar, many of their comrades regarding them with barely veiled contempt and attributing Hanoi's propaganda successes at the camp to their weakness rather than in spite of their resistance."

       "In truth Plantation's POWs were no more all lambs than the 'Briarpatch gang' were all lions. As a group they may well have been more exploitable because the Vietnamese tended to send younger and earlier shootdowns there, but the likes of Stratton and Day were assigned there also despite the enemy being well aware of their cussedness from previous encounters. The camp had its share of callow and brittle members, but it also could claim numerous instances of individual heroics and an often resourceful resistance under adverse organizational circumstances. 'Some of our toughest, most gutsy people were in that camp,' Day remembered. Citing Van Loan, Plumb and Hegdahl in particular, Stratton noted that Plantation 'had its hardliners and its soft-liners and an over-all mix of personalities…just like the other prisons."

       "Similarly, Plantation was never the 'easy' or 'patsy' camp that some POWs at other, more unpleasant locations imagined. Confinement there may have been less threatening and less onerous than elsewhere, but it was not without its own deprivations and suffering; shivering or sweltering in dim, windowless compartments, even the show rooms lacking insulation against the fierce seasonal extremes of temperature; the chronic water shortage that sometimes meant a month between baths; a monotonous, insufficient diet that at one stretch had inmates eating only soup for 180 consecutive days; and always what John Hubbell called 'the Niagara of propaganda' that 'washed endlessly' over them."

       "For those jailed at Plantation, the nicknames 'Country Club' and 'Holiday Inn' were never intended to be anything but mocking sarcasms. The POWs there experienced their own captivity rites of passage, even if in most cases they were milder. If Stratton's conclusion that 'what was supposed to be a patsy camp ended up falling flat on its face' was overly self-congratulatory, it is also true that he and his mates had nothing to be ashamed of and that, on the whole, the performance of the prisoners at the show camp matched that of the men undergoing their own separate tests elsewhere in North Vietnam."

       Gradually through 1970, as a result of the several camp closings and the general trend toward consolidation, Hoa Lo reclaimed center stage in the captivity drama [12]. "The return…of the Alcatraz inmates in December 1969 coincided with the year-end shift of a dozen other POWs from the Zoo, Son Tay, and the Plantation to the main prison…Ernie Brace and John McCain, from the Plantation, were taken to the Golden Nugget [a building at the Vegas section of Hoa Lo]…Ted Guy [turned up with other seniors, who with the other seniors already there], virtually all the high-ranking officers in the POW organization were ensconced at Hoa Lo…"

       Trouble still lurked, however, at every turn. "For every good-natured Ichabod there was an unregenerate Bug or Big Ugh waiting for a misstep. Bug's roving patrols may have bean leashed but they were still capable of inflicting misery. Even as Cat's influence and vigor steadily declined…the commandant had a hard time letting go. During the first half of 1970 as many as half a dozen prominent targets, including Denton, Stockdale, McCain, and Lawrence, did time in Calcutta. McCain, Stockdale, Guy, and Dramesi were among those who were pressed to see delegations or tape political statements. Routine interrogations and attitude checks also continued…"

       "The overarching problem confronting the Hoa Lo prisoners at the start of 1970 was their own lack of organization. Despite the presence of so many seniors, the usual command channels were either blocked or blurred, a legacy of the successive purges of the Vegas leadership between 1967 and 1969 and then the crackdown following the Dramesi-Atterberry [escape] incident. Discipline and organization had never truly recovered after the transfer of Stockdale and his core group to Alcatraz in October 1967. Although Stockdale had been back for the better part of a year, banishments to the Mint and Calcutta… had kept him on the sidelines…Communication itself was so throttled that many of the long-term prisoners at the Hilton did not even know that Ho [Chi Minh] had died or that the torture policy had been scrapped and there was nothing terrible to fear anymore by refusing to cooperate with the Vietnamese… Toward the end of April [1970], Denton, sensing that their keepers had 'lost their teeth,' and 'can't bit us any more,' ordered a partial fast to protest the retention of Johnson, Doremus and [Ted] Guy in solitary…"

       Farnsworth and Skid Row [13], "…the two camps in the North that housed prisoners up from the South, remained somewhat outside the experience of the other Northern camps through 1970. Perhaps because the implementation of torture and terror had never been as orchestrated or as systematic here as at Hoa Lo or the Zoo, in the post-1969 improvements at these camps were less discernible, too."
       "Since its opening in August 1968, Farnsworth had been a strict and abusive place where officers and enlisted were kept mostly segregated but shared a miserable existence. By the time a group of 20 POWs arrived from Cambodia on Christmas Day 1969, bringing the number of Americans at the prison to 53, the harshest treatment had abated but the reprobate Cheese was still in charge and conditions remained abysmal. In small, windowless rooms painted black, the officers were forced to sit up in their beds all day, taking meager meals and seldom allowed to step outside except to visit the latrine. Ted Guy came over to Farnsworth [14] from Hoa Lo in the shuffle following the Vegas fast. His unusual captivity route, rotating between the 'Northern' and 'Southern' POW groups, may have resulted from his capture on the North Vietnam-Laos border and prison authorities identifying him with both clusters."

       When [Ted] Guy showed up [at Farnsworth] in June [1970], he found half the POWs still in solitary and interrogations and regulations still much in evidence. 'We were getting only two meals a day, roughly half the food I'd received in Hanoi, and were down to two cigarettes,' he recalled…"  [Rifts developed among the enlisted personnel - some resisters, others informants]. "The rifts would harden but conditions finally improved after Thanksgiving 1970, when the Son Tay raid caused the Vietnamese to close the camp and bus the entire group, officers and enlisted, into town to the [reopened] Plantation."

       Ted Guy was transferred to the reopened Plantation on 25 November 1970 [15]. "At the [reopened] Plantation, torture remained much in vogue [there, from the time that it reopened in 1970] through early 1972 [the year before the POWs returned home]. [Guy] remained isolated, but was now in a cell from which he was able to at least see other Americans. He did not always like what he saw. Among the fifty-odd prisoners were some of the most disgustingly obsequious Americans in Guy's knowledge, men who could not seem to snap to attention fast enough when a Vietnamese approached, who bowed and scraped to their captors in the most servile fashion. The feisty Guy was so sickened at this and, in his isolation, frustrated at being unable to provide the kind of leadership that might get it stopped."

       "The men with whom Guy was primarily concerned were a small group [of mostly enlisted men] who were showered with all sorts of favors and special treatment by the enemy. They were free from early morning until late at night to do much as they pleased in their corner of the yard. They visited at will with one another, played basketball, exercised in other ways, seemed free to bathe whenever they wished, and sunned themselves, eventually acquiring nice suntans. While the quantity and quality of the food most of the prisoners now were receiving was much improved over what they had been getting at D-1 [Farnsworth], it was poor fare compared to what these eight were to receive as time passed: thermos jugs full of steaming coffee, sugar, and condensed milk; ample supplies of eggs, beef, port, and fish; cigarettes, fruit, candy, and, occasionally, beer. These men gladly accepted this preferred treatment. Guy would later identify them as Robert Chenoweth, Alfonso Riate, Michael Branch, John A. Young, and Abel Larry Kavanaugh."

       "In April 1971, Guy got his first cellmate, Army Maj. Artice W. Elliot, a Green Beret officer who had been captured at Pleiku on April 25, 1970. Elliot had also observed these men and had come to the same conclusion as Guy. Other prisoners watched, too, and now referred to the five as the Ducks, for the way they would scamper to and follow Vietnamese bearing goodies."

       "During the first half of 1970 at the Plantation, it seemed to Ted Guy that prisoners were on the camp radio all the time, propagandizing for the enemy. Most spoke in strained voices and used Communist jargon - it was clear they had not written the stuff and were speaking under duress. But the propaganda material issuing from the Ducks was far from halfhearted. It was also heard over Hanoi's 'Voice of Vietnam' and the Viet Cong's clandestine 'Liberation Radio.' On July 8 1971 six more Americans were transferred from Hoa Lo to the Plantation…They were moved into cells adjacent to the one Ted Guy shared with Art Elliot."

       "What these men had in common with Guy was that all had been captured in Laos. Guy surmised that the Communists thought the war soon might come to an end and, at least at this point, had no intention of ever releasing any prisoners who had been captured in Laos. Throughout the war Hanoi had insisted that there were none of its military forces in Laos, and Guy believed that the Communists meant to hang onto all who could say otherwise. He points out that none who were captured in Laos ever were permitted to write any letters. In any case, 'the Laotians,' [or Lulus] as the group of prisoners came to be called, were gathered together in the Plantation that midsummer."

       "The Plantation soon was alive with communications. SRO Guy found that the bulk of the prisoner population was enlisted men and that they wanted nothing so much as strong leadership. He promulgated policies virtually identical to the BACK US policy Jim Stockdale had established at Hoa Lo years earlier, but urged a gradual buildup of the resistance campaign in order to soften the Vietnamese reaction."

       "The campaign began far from gradually. One July day [in 1971], seven Americans advised their captors that they had no intention of again bowing to any Vietnamese, nor would they write or tape-record anything more for them. SRO guy's fears proved to be well founded. The enemy launched a vicious round of beatings and torture. Guy watched through the gaps and holes in his cell door, full of angry pride, as defiant Americans were marched into torture chambers. Each man who went in would emerge days later, pale, drawn, barely able to walk. The effeminate Vietnamese officer, whom the prisoners called Cheese, was happily supervising the program."

       One day when Captain Leonard saw the Ducks passing within range of his voice, he "…put down his razor [while shaving] and, recognizing Kavanaugh, [one of the Ducks] addressed himself to him loud enough so all could hear: 'Kavanaugh, you and your men are to stop all forms of cooperation and collaboration with the enemy.' 'We'll do what we want,' Kavanaugh replied. 'F…. you, Captain Leonard,' shouted one of the others, whom Leonard would later identify as Alfonso Riate. Despite their response, Leonard felt that something important had been accomplished: he had issued a direct order, and the men to whom he had issued the order had indicated by their response that they knew him to be an officer and also that they had understood his order. There was nothing more that he could do but wait, and wonder what would happen to him. He watched the Ducks walk on."

       "Shortly, they passed Camp SRO Guy's cell. Guy had not heard the exchange, but he heard them laughing and joking about it with each other, and with a Vietnamese guard who was with them. He heard an American saying, '…told me to stop collaborating with the enemy. I asked him who the enemy was.' As quickly as Guy learned what had happened he ordered all other Plantation Americans to break off any contact that might have been established  with the Ducks. To the SRO it seemed clear that within the group were men who were at least as dangerous to the other captive Americans as the most dedicated of their Vietnamese enemy. At the same time, Guy directed that all other Americans observe the group as much as possible and report all pertinent information on them directly to himself. Foreseeing the possibility of future legal action against members of the group, he made it plain that he was interested only in firsthand knowledge, that no hearsay would be accepted."

       "Leonard did not have long to wait to learn what would happen to him. Within an hour of his confrontation with the Ducks, he was in solitary, locked in leg irons. He was to remain in solitary for the next eight months.

       "Guy's order did not reach some Plantation prisoners for many months. The Army doctor, Capt. Floyd Kushner, for example. Kushner and others who had been with him in camps in the South had reached the Plantation on April 1, 1971, after a two-month trek. By this time, Kushner was like a robot. After three years of the horror of the jungle camps, the will to resist had been squeezed out of him. He was compliant. His captors commanded, and he obeyed. On reaching the Plantation, he was interrogated by Cheese as to his views on the war, and told the sadistic runt what he correctly thought he wanted to hear, that he opposed the American involvement; by now, this was certainly true. Kushner hated the war because of what it had done to him, because it continued to threaten his survival, because of what he thought it was doing to America."

       "Soon Kushner and his companions from the southern camps found themselves in rooms adjacent to one occupied by the men with whom SRO Guy had ordered communications cut. As yet, Kushner and those with him knew nothing of Guy, nor of this group, which was now known to many other prisoners as 'the PCs' - Peace Committee. (The group had entitled itself the Peace Committee of Southeast Asia). At night the PCs shouted out the window of their room, engaging the Kushner group in conversation, advising of their antiwar activities in language so bitterly anti-American as to appall Kushner. Kushner shouted back to the PCs, warning them against the things they were saying and telling them to stop what they were doing. One of the enlisted men with Kushner also shouted, saying, 'You guys are still Americans, you know.'"

       "In late 1971, Guy's policies were finally passed to Kushner and his men by the 'Sergeants…and other senior noncommissioned officers. The Sergeants advised that mistakes of the past were to be forgotten, and that all were to band together behind Colonel Guy. Despite his antiwar views, Kushner was glad to comply, to become part of a team, united behind a strong leader. He told his captors that he was through making statements and reading over the camp radio."

       "While Kushner and others from the southern camps seemed to firm up behind Guy's leadership, some in other cells found the PCs' appeal persuasive. The PCs now became eight…According to some PCs, a number of other American prisoners confided to them that they shared their antiwar views, but would not join them for fear of postwar courts-martial, disgrace, possible imprisonment in the United States, and loss of substantial amounts of pay that were accumulating."

       "Ted Guy knew that the long period of brutal interrogations would end with him. He was taken to Cheese at 7 AM on January 22, 1972 [only 14 months before all of our POWs were returned home]. The torture chamber was filthy. For the first three days and nights Guy was allowed no sleep. He was stripped naked, locked in leg irons, and made to lie on his stomach. A guard stood on the backs of his legs, Cheese kept a foot on his neck, pinning his head to the floor, and another guard flogged him with a rubber hose. The beating lasted a long time. Guy lost control of his bodily function, he vomited, and when the pain became more than he could bear, he screamed. Rags were crammed into his mouth and the flogging continued."

       "In the long days and nights that followed, torture guards who enjoyed their work took turns inflicting long beatings with their fists; one of them had a habit of napping in a chair while the other indulged himself with the prisoner. When he was awakened to take his turn, he would approach his prey rubbing his hands together. During one stretch Guy was kept kneeling for approximately eighteen hours. His knees were swollen to the extent that he could not pull his trouser legs over them. When he refused to author a confession of crimes, he was made to kneel again, this time atop an iron bar. Cheese was ever on hand, directing activities, watching and often participating, sweating, salivating, and laughing. He was having a ball."

       "The torture ended for Guy when after ten days and nights, he produced an acceptable confession, an apology, and an agreement to do anything that was asked of him. Then he was asked to write a letter of 'solidarity' and encouragement to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. When he balked at this, he was ordered back onto his knees and offered another round of torture." Unable to tolerate the prospect, he yielded [16]. "Guy was to see the letters again. After release, he filed charges against eight other returnees. Pickets patrolled Homestead Air Force Base, where Guy was stationed, handing out copies of the letters as proof that he, too, had collaborated."

       Although Ted Guy did not receive the most brutal torture dished out by the North Vietnamese captors - such as that recorded at the Zoo by the Cubans - he withstood brutal torture for much longer than the average at one of the most brutal camps, such as the Briarpatch. According to the book [17], 'Honor Bound,' "All told it had taken a protracted three to four months for the Briarpatch authorities to pry loose the formulaic statements of confession and apology. The 'Briarpatch gang,' would become famous when tales of their extraordinary ordeal and remarkable valor would circulate among, and become an inspiration to, later captures. Although they surely deserved their exalted stature, it should be remembered, in the interest of perspective, that they had no monopoly on horror or heroism. The fact is that prisoners throughout the system faced much the same hardships during this period and generally performed at the same impressive level."

       As a footnote to this impressive record, the published account reveals that [18] "Shankel, who occupied a cell next door to the Blue Room [at the Briarpatch], overheard every torture session and attempted as best he could to tap news and encouragement to the victims when they were left alone. He estimated that on average the POWs lasted two to three days before breaking…" Given this record, Ted Guy's torture duration of ten days and nights of brutal torture puts him right up there with the best of the resister POW heroes in the Hanoi prison complex.

       It is worthy of note that Ted Guy was brutalized during early 1972 at the Plantation - about two years after the torture regime had essentially ended by 1970, after the death of Ho Chi Minh on 2 September 1969 and only about a year before all of the POWs returned home during March 1973.

The Post-Return Years
       It is abundantly clear from the public record that the enmity that Ted Guy expressed toward John McCain resulted not so much from McCain's behavior as a POW under Guy's supervision as SRO at the Plantation between July 1968 and December 1969, but as a result of their violent difference of opinion in the years after their release, regarding the Americans listed as missing in Laos and South Vietnam. Since Guy was shot down over Laos and was eventually imprisoned in the North, he was very sensitive to the idea that many of our missing warriors were, indeed, abandoned to their fate by the politics of the situation in which the U.S. government found itself at the time.

       The book [19], 'Honor Bound,' touches on this subject. "The unpublicized air campaign in Laos claimed scores of American fliers but produced few known POWs. On the one hand, a relatively high percentage of downed airmen were rescued on the ground in Laos; unlike in North Vietnam, Laos's sparse population and proximity to search and rescue teams operating out of airfields in South Vietnam and Thailand offered good odds on recovering fliers who survived their shootdowns. On the other hand, among those who were not rescued, most became MIA statistics, their fate remaining a mystery owing to the dearth of official or even third-party contacts with the Pathet Lao and the absence of any released prisoners from Laos (after 1962) who might have provided information on the living as well as the dead unaccounted. Only when Navy Lt. Dieter Dengler escaped in 1966 and Navy Seaman Douglas Hegdahl was freed by North Vietnam in 1969, the latter briefing U.S. authorities on the existence of transferred Laotian POW in Hanoi's prisons, was there confirmation of Communist capture of Americans in Laos, and then only a handful."

       And here, even 'Honor Bound' turns to pure speculation on the MIAs situation on the ground. "Most likely, the majority of missing aviators simply did not survive their parachute drops, perishing upon impact with the thick jungle canopy or sharp karst ridges or from resulting injuries. 'Even if you are healthy in the chute,' George Coker, a North Vietnamese-held POW familiar with Laos, testified after the war, 'when you finally land you've got to penetrate those trees…and then you've got to fight the karst…That stuff can be so sheer that…it will actually peel you like a grater.' Others who were in good condition on the ground but could not be located by rescue teams likely contracted disease or infections, which, left untreated and worsened by a scarcity of food and water, might have consumed them after a few days of wandering in the Laotian wilderness - unable to reach friend or even foe, who perhaps would have at least dispensed water or minimal first aid. 'The thing that gave you protection from the enemy,' Coker noted, 'is now the enemy itself, because now if we can't rescue you immediately, if we can't find you and get you out of there, you are stranded, isolated in the boondocks.' To be sure, there were the horror stories of atrocities committed by Laotian villagers and soldiers against downed American fliers: in one instance, an Air Force pilot had allegedly been mutilated by his captors, 'virtually skinned alive,' to convince a second captive to call for a rescue on his survival radio as the guerrillas waited in ambush for the search plane. Nonetheless, Coker argued persuasively, a Loation shootdown typically fell victim to the hostile environment rather than the enemy. 'Laos killed him,' Coker concluded; 'it just gobbled him up.'"

       "Despite a preponderance of such evidence to the effect that natural causes were sufficient to explain the disappearance of scores of U.S. airmen, and, for that matter, dozens of other service personnel and civilians in Laos, the resolution of the Laotian MIA question would remain one of the more controversial and enduring issues of the Indochina conflict. It seemed implausible, even to many who shared the view of Laos as a no-man's land, that only 9 out of over 300 U.S. personnel listed in 1973 as having been lost in Laos turned up on the capture rolls among those released by the Communists at homecoming. The large number of personnel that remained unaccounted for, along with the covert nature of U.S. operations in Laos, fueled speculation that American officials were withholding information on the status of the Laotian casualties, either to cover CIA tracks or to protect the continuing national security interests in the country. Charges ranged from a conspiracy of silence to outright obstruction and deceit, with some critics accusing the government of betraying and abandoning men whom officials knew to be at one time alive in captivity."

       "In fact, Defense Department spokesmen themselves raised concerns as early as 1966 about the credibility and release of casualty data from Laos. 'We are faced with a serious problem in connection with reporting U.S. casualties suffered in operations in and over Laos,' a worried Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Arthur Sylvester wrote Secretary McNamara in July. He stated, "What is at stake now is the credibility of the Department of Defense and of the Administration as a whole. We have been accused recently of not telling the whole story with respect to all our Southeast Asia combat casualties, and we cannot truthfully deny such accusations. To date, no one of note has questioned this matter but we cannot hope to stay clear of the problem indefinitely. I have discussed this matter at length with the key members of my office and we are all agreed that we must face up to it now or be subjected to great censure if some enterprising journalist or politician digs into it.'"

       "Regarding possible prisoners of war, a memo circulated within DoD's Office of International Security Affairs early in 1968 urging that more pressure be put on the Pathet Lao, through the Soviet Union or some other intermediary, to identify and release any America held captive in Laos. Toward that end, Navy Capt. John Thornton recommended 'a change in our past policy of seeking to maintain the image of Laotian neutrality and protecting the credibility' of claims of limited intervention. 'The plight of American POWs in Laos,' declared the clearly frustrated officer, 'can no longer be relegated to an obscure position. Though the number may be small the principle is large…More definitive steps must be taken to help them."

       "Although the Johnson administration opted to dig in its heels on the sensitive matter of public disclosure, there is no evidence - Thornton's restlessness notwithstanding - to indicate that it was not trying actively and earnestly to ascertain the status of the MIAs or to cover those who might still be alive and in Pathet Lao custody. Thornton's impatience reflected growing anxiety through the mid-60s over the fate of U.S. POWs generally, including those in North and South Vietnam. POW numbers were difficult to validate everywhere, but, whereas in Vietnam investigators at least had concrete leads supplied by conventional intelligence channels, freed prisoners, and the enemy's own prolific propaganda, in Laos they had mostly conjecture, rumor, and the sketchiest of details to go on."

       "The presumption among informed sources, even before the Hegdahl revelations, was that some of the Laos MIAs had indeed been captured. Dengler brought out word of Duane Martin's and Eugene DeBruin's imprisonment, though Martin died on the trail during the Dengler escape and DeBruin, who was thought to have been recaptured during the same incident, was never heard from again. A photo of Air Force Capt. David Hrdlicka, who bailed out over Laos in May 1965, appeared in the Hanoi press about a year later with an accompanying statement indicating he was still alive, yet at no time afterwards did the Communists concede he was being held prisoner…" Other such cases appear in the public record.

       "As with everything else about Laos, the captivity experience there must be reconstructed from spotty information and limited sources. Although many men were assumed to be prisoners…others known to be prisoners…never returned to convey their experiences, more than a dozen military and civilian POWs in Laos did survive to relate their stories. Five of these…were released in August 1962. Dengler escaped to freedom in July 1966; Navy pilot Charles Klusmann, in August 1964. Although there were no returnees between Dengler and the nine, mostly post-1968, captures repatriated at homecoming there were still others, such as Jim Thompson, who were counted on Vietnam casualty lists but who spent considerable time in Laos as well and thus could speak authoritatively on life in the Laotian camps."

       "What then from this patchy record can one conclude about captivity conditions in Laos? To a man, those who were held in both Laos and Vietnam judged Loatian internment to be both physically and psychologically the equal of the worst-case situations in Vietnam. The same karst ridges, steep-sided valleys, and roadless wilderness that victimized shootdowns on the run in Laos also plagued captured POWs, who were hauled along mountain trails in poor shape and with typically scarcer edible food and potable water than was available in even the remotest reaches of Vietnam. So primitive were Laotian sanitation standards and so severe the water problem in particular that, to those transferred to North Vietnam, Hanoi's jails seemed like hotels by comparison…Toward the end of Dengler's confinement in the summer of 1966, drought, disease, and shortages of food claimed five Lao guards and had the POWs foraging for rats and insects in their quarters."

       "Of the Pathet Lao's reputation for savage handling of prisoners, doubtlessly the atrocity tales were exaggerated, though summary executions of men dangling from trees in their parachutes or too weak to travel with the guerrillas is not difficult to imagine given the brutish environment. Coker challenged the notion of wholesale executions by the Laotioans but acknowledged that 'this idea of being shot upon capture in Laos seemed to more prevalent than it was in North Vietnam.' It was probably not mere coincidence that the nine Laos captures who returned at homecoming had either been seized by North Vietnamese or come under their control soon afterwards and thus spent little or no time at the mercy of the less disciplined and unpredictable Lao."

       "Prison accommodations in Laos resembled those in South Vietnam's Delta and hinterlands, in both countries the Communists stashing their charges in makeshift huts, cages, or cave cells between frequent moves. As in th south, American POWs in Laos were so few and so scattered that they often had to endure their ordeal alone, without comradeship. Significantly, even the group transferred in the later years to Hanoi - the so-called 'Lulus' (Legendary Union of Laotian Unfortunates) - were kept sequestered in an isolated corner of the POW compound, denied mail privileges and visits with other prisoners at a time when conditions in the North were improving for their compatriots. The Lulus had good reason to suspect that the North Vietnamese were holding them as bargaining or propaganda chips, possibly to embarrass the American government in any final accounting. Because they had knowledge of North Vietnamese activity in Laos and thus could implicate North Vietnam itself in violations of Laotian neutrality, their worst fear was that they might not be released at all, Hanoi refusing to admit that they were even in custody."

       "The secrecy on both sides that surrounded their status made a harrowing captivity all the more anxious. If the American prisoners in Vietnam were in a legal limbo because the United States had not formally declared war against the North, the POWs in Laos were in even greater jeopardy since Washington denied even authorizing their activities. The Laotians could maintain with more cogency than the North Vietnamese that their captives were mercenaries or intruders who had no claim to POW protections under international law. Moreover, the clandestine cloak that U.S. officials placed over the air war in Laos, with servicemen sometimes flying out of uniform or assigned to embassy slots in Vientiane for cover purposes, reinforced the Pathet Lao contention that they were intelligence agents or political operatives rather than professional military. 'Like the North Vietnamese, we weren't supposed to be here,' one prisoner described their predicament. The lack of public disclosure and official recognition increased their vulnerability and sense of isolation."

       This thinking occupied Ted Guy both in his latter days in captivity in Hanoi as well as his post-release days after March 1973. According to an oral statement after his return to the U.S., Guy stated that [20] "The night after the Sontay raid, all POWs from Camp Farnsworth were transferred back to Hanoi and the camp known as 'The Plantation.' I was returned to the same cell - still in solitary - that I had occupied from April 1968 to December 1969. The widely reported change in treatment towards POWs that occurred after Ho Chi Minh's death in 1969 did not occur in our camp, e.g. starvation diet, isolation, and beatings remained in effect until the summer of 1972. Tolerable conditions prevailed after the resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam and the mining of Hyphong Harbor. In July 1971 six others captured in Laos were transferred from 'The Hilton' to the 'Plantation,' among them Ernie Brace. They were amazed at our treatment and informed me that it was much better in other camps."

       "It appeared to me that the Vietnamese were systematically grouping their POWs. All those captured in the North were at the 'Hilton' while those captured in Laos and South Vietnam were at the 'Plantation.' There were no departures from the 'Plantation' to other camps, only incoming Laos and South Vietnam POWs. Because the North Vietnamese continually denied any association with Laos or South Vietnam, other than providing support, I came to the conclusion that we were not going to be released at the end of hostilities. The word was passed to my command that we were to prepare for the long haul, which I felt could be as long as 20 years. The majority of the POWs accepted this with a fighting spirit which made me extremely proud."

       "In December 1972, on the third day of the B-52 raids, all of us were transferred to the 'Hilton' and housed in the area known as 'Little Las Vegas.' The ten other Lao captives were kept separate from myself, who by this time was considered a regular South Vietnam captive. We managed to establish contact with the 4^th Allied POW Wing. All names were passed, and I passed my fears to the 4^th commander, John Flynn, that I felt we might not be released. All of us were released, although considerable wheeling and dealing was necessary to gain the release of the ten remaining Laos captives."

       After his release and return home, Ted Guy gradually became aware of the POW/MIA problem [21]. "I retired from the Air force in 1975. From the time of my release until mid-1991, the thought that any POWs were left behind never crossed my mind. In fact I spoke to hundreds of MIA families and tens of thousands of people about my POW experiences. My message was always the same. All the POWs are home. There are no MIAs as they are all dead. All that wanted to come home are home. I told the families to forget their sons, fathers, uncles, etc. and to get on with their lives. After I explained that all the POWs that were captured ended up in Hanoi, and that all the names were known, the majority of the families accepted their fate."

       "At a POW Dining In at Randolph AFB in March 1991, I had a long discussion with Brig. Gen. Robinson Risner (POW Sept. 1966 to Feb. 1973) and Lt. Gen. John P. Flynn (POW Oct. 1967 to Mar. 1973). General Flynn was the commander of the 4^th Allied POW Wing. Both were members of the Tighe Commission headed by Lt. Gen. Eugene Tighe. Both Robbie and John firmly believed that American POWs were left behind and that there was a good possibility that some were still alive. They based their beliefs that our country left men behind on information learned from their involvement with the Tighe Commission. I could not believe that the US would knowingly abandon any of her fighting men. The very thought of this was repulsive and unacceptable."

       "In June 1991 I was called by [a person from the] Casualty Affairs, MPC, Randolph AFB, Texas. [He] asked me if I would come out to Randolph and talk to a young lady whose brother was shot down in Laos in 1967. [He] was well aware of the fact that I felt very strongly that all POWs were home that were coming home. The next morning I spent several hours with the MIA sister. At lunch I repeated all my theories about the missing POWs and MIAs. The sister agreed that it was time to get on with her life and put her brother behind. However, she did request that I review her brother's folder prior to returning home. I did and I was shocked."

       "The brother was a back seat navigator on a B-57 bombing sortie in northern Laos in the fall of 1967. His aircraft did not return and he was listed as MIA. One year later his status was changed to PFOD with no objections from his wife. The Air Force never notified the blood family members, assuming the wife would take care of the matter. Because of great family difficulties, this never happened. After hearing nothing from the sister-in-law for years, the sister contacted Randolph about her brother."

       "The folder contained many references to the brother. There were refugee sighting reports and several identifications by Lao and Vietnamese refugees who had gotten out of Vietnam and Laos. I took the folder to the head of the Casualty Affairs Branch. My comments were: 'How can this type of information be in his folder? He was shot down in 1967 and declared KIA a year later. Either he is dead or he isn't. Why would information continue to flow to the folder if the man was dead? Someone has to be either very stupid and thought no one would notice, or this man is alive and no one gives a damn!' Some of the sightings were in the late 1970s and mid-1980s! I concluded by saying, 'No wonder families do not believe what they are told.'"

       "After the meeting with Robbie and John and this meeting at the Casualty Affairs branch, doubts began to creep into my mind. I started reading and contacting as many MIA/POW families as I could. I corresponded with other activists and talked to many Vietnam veterans. There was no hesitation from the people I talked to, men were left behind and worse, there had been little to no attempt to account for anyone that disappeared in Laos. The deeper I dug, the more convinced I became that men were abandoned and that there was a good possibility that some were still alive. Watching the Select Committee on television and reading the Select Committee Report on POW/MIA Affairs further convinced me that much was being hidden and withheld about the POW issue."

       "Anyone that can add, subtract, and figure percentages should be shocked by the great dissimilarity between the number missing and the number returned that were captured in Laos vs. those captured in North Vietnam. I am certain that many can argue with my figures, but they were extracted form official listings. For simplicities sake, I will deal just with Laos and North Vietnam from the time of our OFFICIAL involvement - the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (4 August 1964) until the completion of Operation Homecoming. Rather than analyze the various categories (1 through 5), I looked at the total number that have been listed as missing in Laos and the total number listed as missing in North Vietnam. The first American missing in Laos was Charles J. Duffy, and his incident was 13 January 1961. The first American missing in North Vietnam was Everett Alvarez and date of his incident was 5 August 1965. Between 4 August 1964 and the completion of Operation Homecoming, my records indicate that a total of 587 were listed as mission in Laos and 1281 were listed as missing in North Vietnam. If one looks at the number returning during operation Homecoming, it must raise the question, why the difference?

                  Total missing in Laos:  587
                  Total returned during Operation Homecoming:  11
                  (Does not include Capt. Robert White, who was released 1 April  1973. The 11 includes one Canadian. The 11
                  also includes myself, listed as released by the NFL. 21 were listed missing in Laos prior to 4 August 1964).

                  Percentage of missing vs. returned [from Laos]:  1.9 percent.


                  Total missing in North Vietnam:  1,281
                  Total returned during Operation Homecoming:  472

                   Percentage missing vs. returned [from North Vietnam]:  36.8 percent.

"Based on the above information, I have concluded the following: All 11 of us that were captured in Laos have one thing in common. We were all captured by regular North Vietnamese troops. Initially, I believed that because we were captured by North Vietnamese was the sole reason we were released. However, I now feel this had little bearing our release. Based on the large number of NVA regulars I observed in Laos, I submit that many, many more were captured by Vietnamese forces. Many people do not think the Vietnamese are very knowledgeable. I personally believe the ones that had control over the POWs were brilliant. I also believe they foresaw possibility - the possibility that we would prove that their forces were dominant in Laos. We (the 11) were the tokens that were in their long range plans to be released if pressured. OR THEY MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!"

       Ted Guy also differed on whether or not Americans could survive in the wilderness of Laos. "It has often been stated, both unofficially and officially, that even if there were men abandoned and left behind after the Vietnam war, they could not survive very long under the harsh conditions. I disagree. I am convinced that with high morale and determination, the American fighting man can survive indefinitely; even under the most austere atmosphere…It is possible to survive for long periods of time under the most severe conditions."

       "On April 14, 1975, the New York Times reported that hundreds of Vietnamese, who were employed by the CIA and the military were captured and imprisoned in the mid 1960s. The US government wrote them off, however, in the late 1980s the survivors were released. Sixty four have applied for refugee status under the Orderly Departure Program. The INS denied admission. Are not the survivors living proof that man can survive [in such harsh conditions]? I am convinced that the majority of my command [as POWs in North Vietnam] could still be alive today if we had not been released."

       "Ted Guy retired from the USAF as a Colonel in 1975. His awards and decorations include - Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Silver Star with one Oak Leaf Cluster, Bronze Star with 3 OLC, Distinguished Flying Cross with 5 OLC, Purple Heart with 3 OLC, Air Medal with 13 OLC, the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm…Col. Guy has been called to testify before the House and Senate Committees and he continued to speak on behalf of those Live POW/MIAs left behind. He headed an awareness program called 'Operation Just Cause' on the Internet."

       Ted Guy died on 23 April 1999. His funeral and interment at Arlington National Cemetery included a eulegy by Colonel Gordon Larson, a former Vietnam War POW. The Program for his funeral service included the statement, "He was a frequent guest speaker at local schools, colleges and universities throughout the United States. His main theme was always centered around America and what a great country we Americans live in. He was also active, every day until his death, in efforts to account for all the POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War who never made it home. Ted Guy, nicknamed 'the Hawk,' was a true patriot and a genuine American hero." A poem, composed by fellow POW Gerald (Jerry) Coffee, Captain, USN (Ret.), was read at his memorial service entitled 'One More Roll.'

                                     We toast our faithful comrades
                                            Now fallen from the sky
                                     And gently caught by God's own hand
                                            To be with Him on high.

                                     To dwell among the soaring clouds
                                            They knew so well before
                                      From dawn patrol and victory roll
                                            At heaven's very door

                                      And as we fly among them there
                                            We're sure to hear their plea
                                      'Take care, my friend, watch your six
                                            And do one more roll . . . just for me.'

       It is clear that Ted Guy's battles for the POW/MIAs included violent verbal contests with Senator John McCain, whose record in forcing a lid on further investigations in the 1990s aggravated not only Guy, but POW/MIA activists - many of whom fought on the ground in Laos and South Vietnam -- across the country. Over twenty thousand of these stalwarts drive their motorcycles to Washington, D.C. each year on a national holiday to celebrate the lives of those who did not return.

       A public example of their frustrations during that long battle is a published article (see copy below) in the Niles Daily Star by Paul E. Rifenberg of Niles, Michigan on February 25, 1998.
____________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
1)  Rochester, Stuart I. and Kiley, Frederick, "Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia 1961-1973,"
pp. 340, Naval Institute Press, 1999.
2) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 341.
3) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 355.
4) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 358.
5) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 369.
6)  Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 365.
7)  Hubbelll, John G., "P.O.W.," pp. 568-569. Reader's Digest Press, 1976.
8)  Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 365.
9)  Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 369.
10) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 372-373.
11) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 375-379.
12) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 509.
13) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 516-517.
14) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 517, footnote.
15) Ibid, "P.O.W.," pp. 566-574.
16) Ibid, "P.O.W.," pp. 575, footnote.
17) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 217.
18) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 216, footnote.
19) Ibid, "Honor Bound," pp. 278-283.
20) Oral Statement by Col. Ted Guy, http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/g/g065.htm, pp. 7 of 12.
21) Ibid, pp. 8 of 12.