Got this email from a military buddy of mine, served in Operation Desert Storm. Thought I would pass it on here at the forum for comments. It's talking about what we call torture today, making someone stand for 4 hours as an example, versus REAL torture, what happened to this poor man back in the Vietnam war. Thought it would be quite appropriate with 4th Of July tomorrow.
I am going to try posting a picture of the author. Hope it works....below is the email.
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The prelude to the "response" below, from Colonel Bud Day, Medal of Honor recipient - prisoner of war survivor - reads "I didn't expect to be reminded of my treatment some 36 years ago on this holiday weekend but our politicians find it worthy to ignore what some have tried to recount to them, who have actually been there."



I got shot down over N Vietnam in 1967...a sq commander.

After I returned in 1973... I published 2 books that dealt a lot with "real torture" in Hanoi. Our make believe president is branding our country as a bunch of torturers when he has no idea what torture is.

As for me. Put thru a mock execution because I would not respond...pistol whipped on the head...same event... Couple of days later...hung by my feet all day. I escaped and got recaptured a couple of weeks later... I got shot and recaptured. Shot was OK...what happened after was not.

They marched me to Vinh... put me in the rope trick, trick. Almost pulled my arms out of the sockets. Beat me on the head with a little wooden rod until my eyes were swelled shut, and my unshot, unbroken hand a pulp.

Next day hung me by the arms...rebroke my right wrist...wiped out the nerves in my arms that control the hands. Rolled my fingers up into a ball. Only left the slightest movement of my L forefinger. So I started answering with some incredible lies.

Sent me to Hanoi strapped to a barrel of gas in the back of a truck.

Hanoi...on my knees. Rope trick again. Beaten by a big fool.

Into leg irons on a bed in Heartbreak Hotel.

Much kneeling--hands up at Zoo.

Really bad beating for refusing to condemn Lyndon Johnson.

Several more kneeling events. I could see my knee bone thru kneeling holes.

There was an escape from the annex to the Zoo. I was the Senior Officer of a large building because of escape. They started a mass torture of all commanders.

I think it was July 7, 1969...they started beating me with a car fan belt. In first 2 days I took over 300 strokes. Then stopped counting because I never thought I would live thru it.

They continued day-nite torture to get me to confess to a non-existent part in the escape. This went on for at least 3 days. On my knees. Fan belting... cut open my scrotum with fan belt stroke. Opened up both knee holes again. My fanny looked like hamburger. I could not lie on my back.

They tortured me into admitting that I was in on the escape and that my 2 room-mates knew about it.

The next day I denied the lie.

They commenced torturing me again with 3- 6- or 9 strokes of the fan belt every day from about July 11 or 12rh...to 14 October 1969. I continued to refuse to lie about my roommates again.

Now, the point of this is that our make-believe president has declared to the world that we (U.S.) are a bunch of torturers... Thus it will be OK to torture us next time when they catch us....because that is what the U.S. does.

Our make-believe president is a know nothing fool who thinks that pouring a little water on some one's face, or hanging a pair of womens pants over an Arabs head is TORTURE. He is a meathead.

I just talked to MOH holder Leo Thorsness who was also in my sq in jail.... as was John McCain ... and we agree that McCain does not speak for the POW group when he claims that Al Gharib was torture... or that "water boarding" is torture.

Our president and those fools around him who keep bad mouthing our great country are a disgrace to the United States. Please pass this info on to Sean Hannity. He is free to use it to point out the stupidity of the claims that water boarding ...which has no after effect... is torture. If it got the Arab to cough up the story about how he planned the attack on the twin towers in NYC ... hurrah for the guy who poured the water.

BUD DAY, MOH

(07-04-2009 03:50 AM)Larry Wrote:  If it got the Arab to cough up the story about how he planned the attack on the twin towers in NYC ... hurrah for the guy who poured the water.

And when fan belt beatings got this soldier to confess to his non-existent part in an escape, I'm sure the inquisitors said 'hurrah' also.

We can't deny that this man went through something horrendous. No human being should ever be treated this way. But our country crossed a line in it's treatment of detainees that, whether you want to call it torture or not, has destroyed our image around the world. We can no longer claim to hold some moral high ground.

Yes, we obtained some valuable information from pretend drownings, sleep deprivation and forced positions over long periods. We could have obtained even more if we'd gouged out their eyes or cut off testicles. Everyone has a breaking point I would think. But where do we draw the limits? Where is the dividing line where inhumane treatment is finally considered torture? And we as Americans should never have allowed ourselves to be put into a position where we even need to debate this. This is not what America SHOULD stand for. We should be above this.

Torture works - whether a little or a lot. But that is hardly a sterling recommendation for its use. What degrades the detainee actually degrades the abuser even worse. We have given carte blanche for our captured soldiers to be treated any way his captors want to. That, Larry, is the real result of our interrogation methods.

This is another email from that military friend of mine. What "guts" this guy in the story had! PS, don't worry admin, I won't post anymore emails about war again. I just couldn't get over the bravery this guy in the story by the name of Ed Freeman had. Here is the story:

You're a 19-year-old kid. You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam.
Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter and you look up to see an unarmed Huey, but it doesn't seem real because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.

He's coming anyway.

And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out, through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses.

And he kept coming back, 13 more times, and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.


Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died on Wednesday, June 25th, 2009, at the age of 80, in Boise , ID. May God rest his soul.

These gentlemen listed above are TRUE Americans! Thank you for telling us about them. I only wished we had men like this today....it's so sad.