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A Man Is Not Dead Until He Is Forgotten |
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For Americans captured in South
Vietnam, daily life could be expected to be brutally difficult.
Primarily, these men suffered from disease induced by an
unfamiliar and inadequate diet - dysentery, edema, skin fungus
and eczema. The inadequate diet coupled with inadequate medical
care led to the deaths of many. Besides dietary problems, these
POWs had other problems as well. They were moved regularly to
avoid being in areas that would be detected by U.S. troops, and
occasionally found themselves in the midst of U.S. bombing
strikes. Supply lines to the camps were frequently cut off, and
when they were, POWs and guards alike suffered. Unless they were
able to remain in one location long enough to grow vegetable
crops and tend small animals, their diet was limited to rice and
what they could gather from the jungle. From the camps in the South
came the group of American POWs ultimately charged with
collaboration with the enemy. These charges were later dropped,
but are indicative of the strong survival instinct inherent in
man, and the need for strong leadership. It is common knowledge
that nearly all POWs "violated" the Military Code of Conduct in
one way or another; some to greater degrees than others. Those
who resisted utterly, the record shows, were executed or killed
in more horrible ways. Americans tended to be moved from camp to
camp in groups. One of the groups in South Vietnam contained a
number of Americans whose fates are varied. Several American POWs were held
at a camp in Quang Nam Province numbered ST18, including William
Eisenbraun, Bobby Garwood, Edwin Grissett, Jose Agosto-Santos,
Luis Antonio Ortiz-Rivera, Robert C. Sherman, Floyd H. Kushner,
Francis G. Anton, Robert Lewis, James F. Pfister, Earl C.
Weatherman, Dennis W. Hammond and Joseph S. Zawtocki. A number of
other Americans were held with this group including David N.
Harker; James A. Daly; Richard R. Rehe; Willie A. Watkins;
Francis E. Cannon; Richard F. Williams; and James H. Strickland.
One detailed account of the captivity of these men can be found
in "The Survivors" by Zalen Grant. Another can be read in
"Conversations With The Enemy", written by Winston Groom and
Duncan Spencer. Homecoming II Project - 2408 Hull Rd. - Kinston
NC 28501 - also maintains synopsis accounts of these
men. Capt. William "Ike" Eisenbraun
was attached to the 17th Infantry regiment of the Seventh
Division ("Buffalos") when he fought in Korea. He was awarded a
Purple Heart for wounds received in Korea. In 1961, Capt.
Eisenbraun volunteered for duty in Vietnam because he believed in
what we were trying to accomplish there. He was one of the
earliest to go to Southeast Asia as an advisor to the Royal Lao
and South Vietnamese Armies. On his fourth tour of duty,
Eisenbraun served as Senior Advisor, Headquarters MACV, SQ5891,
U.S. Army Special Forces. He was at jungle outpost Ba Gia near
Quang Ngai in South Vietnam when the post was overrun by an
estimated 1000-1500 Viet Cong force. Newspapers described it as
"one of the bloodiest battles of the war to date". A survivor
told newsmen the Viet Cong attacked in "human waves and couldn't
be stopped." There were only 180 men defending the outpost.
Captain Eisenbraun was initially reported killed in
action. Later, two Vietnamese who had
been captured and escaped reported that Capt. Eisenbraun had been
captured, was being held prisoner, and was in good health.
Through the debriefings of returned POWs held with Eisenbraun, it
was learned that he died as a POW. One returned POW said that on
about 01 September 1967, Eisenbraun fell out of his hammock
(which was about five feet above a pile of logs) and landed on
his right side. For about 5 days after the fall, Eisenbraun
continued his daily activites, but complained of a severe pain in
his side. After that period he stayed in bed and at about 0100
hours on 08 September, LCpl. Grissett awakened PFC Ortiz-Rivera
and told him that Eisenbraun had stopped breathing. Another POW said Ike had died
as a result of torture after an escape attempt in 1967. Robert
Garwood added that Ike had provided leadership for the prisoners
at the camp, and was an obstacle to the Viet Cong in
interrogating the other prisoners. He also spoke fluent
Vietnamese, which made him a definite problem. Garwood and
Eisenbraun had been held alone together at one point in their
captivity, and Ike taught Bobby the secrets of survival he had
learned in SF training, and in his years in the jungle. Bobby
states that Ike knew and taught him which insects could be eaten
to fend off common jungle diseases, and that he and Ike jokingly
planned to write a cookbook called "100 ways to cook a rat".
Garwood said that Ike had been severely beaten following the
escape attempt, and that one night he was taken from his cage and
not returned. The next morning, Garwood was told that Ike had
fallen from his hammock and died. Ike Eisenbraun was buried at
the camp in Quang Nam Province along with other POWs who had died
of torture and starvation. His grave was marked with a rock
inscribed by Garwood. A map has been provided to the U.S. showing
the precise location of the little cemetery and grave, yet Ike's
remains have not been returned. Bobby Garwood had been captured
on 28 September 1965 as he was driving a jeep in Quang Nam
Province. Garwood made international headlines when he created an
international incident by smuggling a note out revealing his
existance. The note resulted in his release in March 1979, after
having been a prisoner of war for 14 years. The Marine Corps
immediately charged him with collaboration and assault on a
fellow POW, and he was ultimately charged and dishonorably
discharged. He is the only serviceman to be charged with these
crimes from the Vietnam War, and many feel he was singled out to
discredit the stories he has told regarding other Americans held
long after the war was over in Vietnam. Russ Grissett was on a search
mission for a missing USMC officer when he became separated from
his unit on January 22, 1966. He was with the elite 1st Force
Recon, and was captured by the Viet Cong in Quang Ngai Province.
Russ was several inches over 6' tall and carried a normal weight
of around 190 pounds. After 2 years in captivity, however, his
weight had dropped to around 125 pounds. Grissett suffered
particularly from dysentery and malaria, and in his weakened
condition begged his fellow POWs not to tell him any secrets. He
had already been accused of sabotaging an escape plan by Kushner.
He found it difficult to resist, and willingly made propaganda
tapes about "lenient treatment". When Ortiz-Rivera and
Agosto-Santos were released, he had "behaved" enough that he was
tremendously disappointed that he was not released with them.
During one period of near-starvation, in late November 1969,
Grissett caught and killed the camp's kitchen cat. It was a
dangerous move, and fellow POWs watched helplessly and innocently
as guards beat Grissett for the crime and he never recovered.
Grissett was buried in the camp's cemetery by his fellow POWs.
Harold Kushner stated that Grissett died on 02 December 1969.
David Harker, another returned POW, stated that he had died at
3:30 a.m. on 23 November 1968. On 23 June 1989, the U.S.
announced that the Vietnamese had "discovered" the remains of
Russ Grissett and returned them to the U.S. (Note: the "cat" incident
spawned the assault charges against Garwood. Garwood, enraged
that others had stood by while Grisset was mortally beaten,
back-handed one of the bystanders in the stomach and asked, "How
could you let them do this to Russ?" Some witnesses stated that
the blow was not a hard one intended to injure, but seemingly for
emphasis.) Agosto-Santos was captured when
his unit was overrun in Quang Nam Province on 12 May 1967. Cpl.
Carlos Ashlock had been killed in the same action, and he and
Agosto-Santos had been left for dead. Agosto-Santos had been
wounded in the stomach and back. For about a month, he had been
cared for in a cave by the Viet Cong. Jose felt he owed his life
to the Viet Cong. He was released in a propaganda move by the
Vietnamese on 23 January 1968. Ashlock was never seen
again. Ortiz-Rivera was a Puerto Rican
who barely spoke English. His Army unit was overrun in Binh Dinh
Province several miles north of the city of Phu Cat on 17
December 1966, and Ortiz-Rivera was captured. Ortiz-Rivera was
not a problem prisoner, according to other returnees. He was
released with Agosto-Santos 23 January 1968. Cpl. Bobby Sherman told fellow
POWs that he had been on picket duty with ARVNs on June 24, 1967
when he decided to go to a nearby village to "get laid". The
Vietnamese girl he met there led him to the Viet Cong instead.
Sherman had been on his second tour of Vietnam. During his first
tour, he had suffered psychological problems because of the
grisly job assigned to him of handling corpses of his comrades
killed in action. In the spring of 1968, Sherman, Hammond,
Weatherman, Daly, and Zawtocki, with the help of other POWs,
attempted to escape. Sherman beat a guard in the attempt and was
recaptured and punished. He was held in stocks for many days and
fellow POWs said he "got crazy and never recovered." They said he
spent months as a "zombie" and "never was there" after
that. According to Harold Kushner,
Bobby Sherman died on 23 November 1968. The POWs buried him in
the little cemetery with Ike Eisenbraun. In March 1985, the
remains of Bobby Sherman were returned during a period that
Eisenbraun's daughter was publicly asking the President to bring
her father home. A map had been published of the cemetery, and
many wondered if there was a connection. Capt. Harold Kushner had been
the sole survivor of the crash of his UH1D helicopter on a
mountainside in Quang Nam Province on November 30, 1967. Kushner
was a Army Medical Corps Flight Surgeon and had broken a tooth
and sustained a wound to his shoulder when the helicopter
crashed. He was subsequently captured by the Viet Cong. During
his captivity, his wife, Valerie, became active in the effort to
end the war, believing that was the only hope her husband had of
returning home. Kushner became ambivilent about the war himself,
and when held in North Vietnam, made propaganda tapes until
informed by the more organized prisoners captured and held in the
North that it was prohibited. Kushner was released 16 March 1973
from North Vietnam. W2 Francis Gene "Bones" Anton
was the pilot of a UH1C helicopter, code name "Firebird". On
January 5, 1968, his crewchief was SP4 Robert Lewis III, and door
gunner was PFC James F. Pfister. The crew, flying out of the 71st
Assault Helicopter Company, was shot down as they were trying to
assist C Company, under heavy mortar attack at Happy Valley in
Quang Nam Province. Their co-pilot had escaped capture. Anton is
one of the few POWs who believed that Garwood, although clearly a
collaborator, was still a loyal American, helpful to his fellow
POWs. Anton, according to other POWs was "always cussing the
Vietnamese". He was released from North
Vietnam on 16 March 1973. When Cannon, Williams, Harker and
McMillan were brought to the POW camp at Happy Valley, they found
Anton, Pfister and Lewis well fed and clean. Pfister later made
propaganda tapes at the Plantation in Hanoi in April 1971.
Garwood called him the "head snitch" in one of the camps along
the Rock River and White River in South Vietnam. Both Pfister and
Lewis were released on 05 March 1973. None of the three were
considered by superior officers to be among those who criminally
collaborated with the enemy. Dennis Wayne "Denny" Hammond
and Joseph S. Zawtocki were Marines who were part of a
pacification team when captured during the Tet offensive on 08
February 1968. Denny was a tall, lean, good-looking man thought
to be part American Indian. He attempted escape with the other
POWs in the spring of 1968 and was shot in the leg by Montagnards
in a nearby village Denny had beaten a guard to escape. Part of
the "duties" of those POWs healthy enough was to harvest oranges
in nearby Montagnard orchards. The POWs were happy to do this
because it meant badly needed exercise and the opportunity for
additional food. Daly was once accused by guards of stealing
oranges that Hammond had stolen. It was on one of these workdays
that the POWs effected their ill-fated escape. After the escape
attempt and recapture, Sherman remained relatively healthy for a
time, but in early March, 1970, died. He was buried near the camp
and his grave marked by a bamboo cross. (Hammond died on 7 or 8
of March, depending on the source.) Joe Zawtocki was a stocky,
powerful, fair-haired man of Polish descent. He and Garwood
formed a close friendship and exchanged rings. Each promised the
other that if released alone, they would contact the other's
family. Joe died on 24 December 1968 of starvation and was buried
near the POW camp. Davis, a returnee, says that Garwood lost
Joe's ring. Garwood states that, upon his return, he gave Joe's
ring to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Several years later, he
learned that DIA had never returned the ring to Joe's family. Joe
Zawtocki's remains were returned to the U.S. on August 15,
1985. Perhaps one of the strangest
cases involved in this group of POWs is that of Pvt. Earl Clyde
Weatherman. Weatherman was in the Marine brig at Da Nang where he
had been confined for slugging an officer in 1967. On November 8,
1967, he escaped the brig (which constitutes desertion).
Intelligence indicates that he paid a Vietnamese driver to take
him to his Vietnamese girlfriend's house, but the driver instead
delivered him to the Viet Cong. A tall, muscular young man of
about 20 years old with reddish-blond hair and blue eyes,
Weatherman was detained in the POW camps in Quang Nam Province,
and was party to the ill-fated escape attempt in the spring of
1968. Opinion was divided among the POWs regarding the political
loyalties of Earl Weatherman. Harker felt his alliance to the
Viet Cong was only an act. Weatherman had once said to him,
"Don't believe everything you hear about me." Others felt he was
clearly a turncoat. Perhaps Garwood stated it most accurately
when he said, "Weatherman's only crime was falling in love with
the wrong person - a communist." It was widely told that during
the April 1, 1968 escape attempt, Weatherman was killed. However,
Garwood states that he heard of and saw Weatherman after 1973
when other U.S. POWs were returned, and years after his supposed
death in South Vietnam. Intelligence indicates that Weatherman
continued to work for the communists, and lived with a Vietnamese
wife and family. One position said to have been held by his was
with the Vietnamese government's department of construction - the
Cong Tyxay Dung. Garwood last knew him to be at Bavi, living with
a Vietnamese woman. In 1986, several national news
articles revealed that intelligence documents showed at least 7
missing Americans had been seen alive in Vietnam in the last
dozen years, including Weatherman. Some accounts added that
Weatherman had smuggled a note out of Vietnam that he wished to
come home and bring with him his wife and children. Weatherman's
father was allegedly notified of this. The POW/MIA groups reverberated
with anticipation, knowing that if Weatherman came home, a new
source of information on those men still missing would be
available. Several activists questioned a Congressional aide
regarding Weatherman. They asked, "When will Weatherman be able
to come home? We understand the holdup is visas for his wife and
children." The aide, with a caring and sympathetic look on his
face, replied, "I don't know. I just don't know." Of this group of prisoners and
missing, only Weatherman, Hammond, Ashlock and Eisenbraun have
not returned home, alive or dead. Ashlock was left for dead on
the battlefield. Hammond and Eisenbraun are dead, but still in
enemy hands. Weatherman, for whatever reason, chose love of a
woman over love of his country and remained behind. Biographical and incident of
loss information was obtained from either POW/NET and/or
Task
Force Omega, Inc (unless otherwise noted). Additional
information may be found via remembrances at The
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund or The Virtual Wall
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  List | G01 | G02 | G03 | G04 | G05 | G06 | G07 | G08 | G09 | G10 | G11 | G12  |
Copyright Stacey N. Binning 1998 - 2007.