John McCain's flag vs. Leo K. Thorsness's flag

Senator John McCain III is the all-but-official nominee of the GOP for President in 2008.

Lieutenant Colonel Leo K. Thorsness was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic conduct while flying a combat mission over Vietnam in 1967.

Both of these men were POWs in North Vietnam for over five years.

Both of these men describe an incident during their captivity concerning a fellow prisoner named Michael Christian who was severely beaten by his captors for making a U.S. flag. However, these two descriptions contradict each other.

Unfortunately, Michael Christian died in a fire at his home in September 1983, but did not (as far as I can determine) leave behind an account, in his own words, concerning the flag episode. That means we'll have to choose between the versions of two very different men:

A United States Senator seeking to become our next President

versus

A retired U.S. Air Force Congressional Medal of Honor winner.

John McCain's version

This is quoted from pages 335-6 of McCain's bestseller Faith of my Fathers ©1999:

QUOTE:

What packages we were allowed to receive from our families often contained handkerchiefs, scarves, and other clothing items. For some time, Mike had been taking little scraps of red and white cloth, and with a needle he had fashioned from a piece of bamboo he laboriously sewed an American flag onto the inside of his blue prisoner's shirt.

Every afternoon, before we ate our soup, we would hang Mike's flag on the wall of our cell and together recite the Pledge of Allegiance. No other event of the day had as much meaning to us.

The guards discovered Mike's flag one afternoon during a routine inspection and confiscated it. They returned that evening and took Mike outside. For our benefit as much as Mike's, they beat him severely, just outside our cell, puncturing his eardrum and breaking several of his ribs. When they had finished, they dragged him bleeding and nearly senseless back into our cell, and we helped him crawl to his place on the sleeping platform.

After things quieted down, we all lay down to go to sleep. Before drifting off, I happened to look toward a corner of the room, where one of the four naked lightbulbs that were always illuminated in our cell cast a dim light on Mike Christian. He had crawled there quietly when he thought the rest of us were sleeping. With his eyes nearly swollen shut from the beating, he had quietly picked up his needle and thread and begun sewing a new flag.

:UNQUOTE.

Leo K. Thorsness's version

This quote, from an on-line journal called The Army Chaplaincy (Winter, 1998), is at http://www.usachcs.army.mil/TACarchive/ACWIN98I/Rankin.htm

QUOTE:

I recently came across an article in Soldiers magazine, the June 1997 issue, that I'd like to share with you.  It is told by Leo K. Thorsness who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam from 1967-1973. His story takes place in a North Vietnamese Prison.

One day as we all stood by the (water) tank, stripped of our clothes, a young Navy pilot named Mike Christian found the remnants of a handkerchief in a gutter that ran under the prison wall. Mike managed to sneak the grimy rag into our cell and began fashioning it into a flag.  Over time we all loaned him a little soap, and he spent days cleaning the material.  We helped by scrounging and stealing bits and pieces of anything he could use.

At night, under his mosquito net, Mike worked on the flag.  He made red and blue from ground-up roof tiles and tiny amounts of ink, and painted the colors onto the cloth with watery rice glue.  Using thread from his own blanket and a homemade bamboo needle, he sewed on stars.

Early in the morning a few days later, when the guards were not alert, he whispered loudly from the back of our cell, "Hey gang, look here."  He proudly held up this tattered piece of cloth, waving it as if in a breeze.  If you used your imagination, you could tell it was supposed to be an American flag.

When he raised that smudgy fabric, we automatically stood straight and saluted, our chests puffing out, and more than a few eyes had tears.

About once a week the guards would strip us, run us outside and go through our clothing. During one of those shakedowns, they found Mike's flag.  We all knew what would happen.

That night they came for him.  They opened the cell door and pulled Mike out.  We could hear the beginning of the torture before they even had him in the torture cell.  They beat him most of the night. About daylight they pushed what was left of him back through the cell door.  He was badly broken.  Even his voice was gone.

Within two weeks, despite the danger, Mike scrounged another piece of cloth and began another flag.  The Stars and Stripes, our national symbol, was worth the sacrifice to him.

:UNQUOTE.

Contradictions

Thorsness describes a flag made out of a grimy, discarded handkerchief which was cleaned up and transformed into a "tattered piece of cloth...[which] was supposed to be an American flag."

McCain speaks of "little scraps of red and white cloth...[which Christian had used to sew] an American flag onto the inside of his blue prisoner's shirt." Apparently, this shirt was the source of the blue part of the American flag, and thus was inseparable from it. However, Thorsness describes how Christian got his blue coloring from "ground-up roof tiles and tiny amounts of ink [which] he painted onto the cloth."

Thorsness describes how "we could hear the beginning of the torture before they even had him in the torture cell." McCain says, "they beat him severely, just outside our cell....When they had finished, they dragged him bleeding and nearly senseless back into our cell." No mention of a "torture cell" in McCain's account.

McCain somehow knew (how?) that the beating caused a "puncturing [of] his eardrum and breaking several of his ribs."

Thorsness says, "Within two weeks, despite the danger, Mike scrounged another piece of cloth and began another flag." John McCain says that Christian started sewing a new flag that same day he was returned to his cell after being beaten. I suppose there's no real contradiction here, since "that same day" is definitely "within two weeks" but - the wording does make me wonder.

Thorsness mentions "at night, under his mosquito net" - whoa, wait a minute. The POWs had mosquito nets? Based on the horrendous treatment which McCain describes elsewhere in Faith of my Fathers, I find it difficult to believe mosquito nets would have been provided. Also, elsewhere in his book, McCain complains about the mosquitos.

Of course, I can't say for sure because I wasn't there. But I am sure of one thing: The commander of that POW camp wouldn't have been so keen to provide such a luxury to prisoners whom he was trying to break, while being aware of the hardships faced by his own troops in the jungle fighting the Americans. His fellow soldiers didn't have mosquito nets, so why should US POWs be provided with them?

Thorsness describes how Christian was beaten "most of the night. About daylight [my emphasis] they pushed what was left of him back through the cell door."

However, McCain doesn't talk about Mike being beaten most of the night and returned at daylight. McCain does say "we all lay down to go to sleep" after Christian had been returned to his cell. I guess this means that Mike's fellow POWs had been kept up all night by his screams while being beaten. Only when Mike came back could they finally go to sleep - in the morning.

It's amazing to me that someone could be beaten "most of the night" (according to Thorsness) and yet be capable (according to McCain)  of starting to make a new flag immediately after such a beating, while (also according to McCain) Mike's fellow POWs were sleeping after being kept up all night by Mike's screams. In fact, I'll come right out and say it: "It's unbelievable."

About that second flag:

Did Michael Christian ever finish that second flag? After ferociously beating him for creating the first flag (an obvious inspiration to the POWs), wouldn't the guards have been more thorough in their inspections of prisoners' quarters? Did they in fact find that second flag and then beat Christian again - twice as hard?

What to make of these contradictory accounts?

I ran these questions by a Vietnamese friend of mine, who listened patiently as I voiced my concerns. He said, "Steve, when the war was over, the United States really didn't feel very good about itself. So perhaps the exploits of your POWs were somewhat (er) exaggerated."

Perhaps so. Or perhaps there are mitigating reasons to explain these contradictions. However, I remember an old saying I'd heard in my youth: "Truth is always the first casualty of war." Perhaps it's also the last.

Steven Searle for US President in 2008

"I will offer here, applicable to the preceding essay, one of the most profound questions asked by Buddhist seekers of the Way: Where do the metaphors end and the reality begins?" - Steve.

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