Hanoi Hilton
By: Trevor Neel

After the door shuts and the footsteps die, it isn’t so bad. Eventually the pain subsides, then it isn’t so bad. Trying to move without bending my already broken ribs to get to my maggot infested cabbage soup and muddy water isn’t so bad. Trying to sleep but the fear, pain, and screams keep me awake, even then it isn’t so bad.

Even getting here isn’t so bad. The sudden jerk of the pilot’s seat after pulling the handle to eject isn’t so bad. The sudden rush of flames and metal sending me out isn’t so bad. When my main parachute failed, and I tried to stay calm as I pulled the reserve parachute chord. Floating slowly down above North Vietnamese territory with bad burns to my hand and legs, and the fear sets in, it isn’t so bad. Landing in a lake, struggling to get to the top, overwhelmed by so many Vietnamese children and men hitting me wherever and with whatever they could, it isn’t so bad. Eventually the army arrives and hit me with rifle butts and kicked me as they blindfolded me and drug me to a truck, it isn’t so bad. The occasional stop to be paraded through a village or down a street and made a fool of on camera, the whole time being beat by other Vietnamese people and soldiers alike, it isn’t so bad.

Eventually the truck stopped. Dragged off the truck, persuaded by the end of a rifle to move inside, it isn’t so bad. Pushed and shoved with fists, feet, rifles, my body bouncing off the cold, cement floor like a basketball on an old gym floor, it isn’t so bad.

“Name, GI?” a little man I knelt before repeated over and over.

“What you do here, GI?” the little man said after I gave him my name and serial number. Then a rifle butt to my ribs when I repeated my name, my rank, and my serial number.

“You are spy, GI?” the little man would say. Then almost like clockwork I could expect a sharp jab to my ribs or the back of my neck.

“You commit crimes against Vietnam, GI, sign paper and we take care of you.” The little man said in the same mono-tone broken English. Another rifle butt to the ribs when I didn’t sign the paper the little man pushed towards me. My lungs not wanting to take air in, the blood that came out of my mouth every time I coughed, the scream that became a gasp at the sheer pain of my chest pushing out. No, my friends, that isn’t so bad.

Eventually I make it back to my cell. Lay down slowly in a corner away from the urine on the floor. Trying not to lean against the walls because of the French glass that protrude, but also trying not to put pressure on my body due to the agonizing pain, no that isn’t so bad. A gong strike, Metal clanking, locks banging, the big iron door swings open. Another soldier comes in and rushes me to my feet. Not able to sit up on my own, let alone walk down the hallway with him. Drug to my feet, and a fist right into my stomach, I have nothing to do but try and scream in agony. That isn’t so bad. Another hit to the stomach for screaming. That isn’t so bad. Forced to walk down the hallway, when I fell, I was aided back up by a swift kick to my back or if I was lucky sometimes just drug up by my collar then pushed against the wall. No, that still isn’t that bad. When I’m knocked to my knees by the back hand of the Vietcong guard in front of that familiar wooden table, and that familiar little man, it isn’t so bad.

“GI, you will die, sign paper and you are free to go”, then the paper and pen are pushed towards me again. I shake my head no and then brace for it, but still not able to brace myself for the pain. A hard jab to the back of my ribs. I feel them break again, but try to hold back a scream that is inevitable. It isn’t so bad. The little man at the table waves his hand at one of the guards. I’m knocked to the ground and then picked straight up to my feet. The guard takes me and slams me against a wall and binds my hands. Pain tears through my body like a hot knife through butter. It isn’t so bad. The guard hoists me up onto the meat hook protruding from the ceiling by the rope that binds my hands. My arms bend backward behind my head. My ribs stretch and I try and bite my tongue but it doesn’t matter, I still can’t hold back the yells from the pain. I try pulling my arms up so there isn’t so much pressure on my body, but it’s no use, my shoulder blades popped out of place during the hoist up to the hook. The bruises and cuts all over my body, the broken bones. Pain, pain that is so unbearable that at times I’d rather die than go on feeling it. Honestly, I felt as if I would die. My lungs gasping to get a full breath in but unable to with my ribs threatening to poke through my lungs. The guard laughs as I whimper, and I hang like a shirt on a clothesline drying in the summer breeze. It isn’t so bad.

“GI, you sign paper, we take you down and give you bandages. You get better, you go home. You just sign GI” the guard repeats. That’s when it becomes bad. That moment, when through your mind flashes the thought “Just sign.” Blood, tears, maggots, rope burns, beating after beating, seclusion, the hate that seem to fill every crack and crevice in the place. None of it as bad as that moment, that split second when the soul hops outside of the body looks down on the guards, look at my own body just drooping there. My soul walks out the very door that keeps me locked in, takes a stroll over the hills and through the grassy hills that so many young men have died trying to claim. My soul eventually returns to America. It walks the streets of gold, right past the college protesters, right back home to suburbia. Without knocking, my soul walks through the front door and looks back on all the memories that brought me in and out of that very door so many times. A rifle butt to the back of neck brings my soul stampeding back to reality. The force of the hit sends my body like a tetherball spinning in circles. The guards stops me, but there is nothing he could do for the pain even if he wanted. He laughs again then says something to his friends, they join in the laughing. All of them, laughing at the defeated Yank criminal.

“I’ll sign!” I shouted.

“What you say, GI?” The little man said popping out of his seat like a prairie dog as the laughing halts.

“ I-I’ll sign, just get me down!” I gasped trying to get the breath to finish.

“Good GI, you smart,” the little man said as the other guards cut me down and help me down to the floor then back on my knees, like I was a slave kneeling before my master. That is when it becomes bad. I am a modern day Benedict Arnold, betraying a nation that entrusted me with what I was doing. A little wooden desk, black ink, a North Vietnamese paper.

“Can I ever wear an American uniform again?” That’s when it gets bad.

“Will I ever be able to look my family in the eyes again?” That’s when it gets bad.

“Will I even still have a family?” That’s when it’s the worse. I cracked, I gave in, if I ever was to call myself a man again. If I could ever work up the courage to call myself American again, it won’t matter. Others have come before and gave up everything including their lives, and I gave in over a few broken bones. That is beyond bad, it’s worse than death itself.

That is why today I sit here in my house in this old recliner. My wife took my only daughter and left a week ago because I haven’t said a word since I came back. Can’t she see that I’m too ashamed? No, she couldn’t possibly see, both her and my little girl know that I’m a coward, I can see it in their eyes. They hate me. They will never think of me the same way. I can’t even think of myself the same. I sit here with an empty bottle and this old Colt, the one my grandfather carried with him at Gettysburg, resting against the back of my mouth, a bullet in the chamber. Maybe it won’t be so bad.