By the time I met Stan, the Vietnam War had been over for almost 25 years. And yet there was a part of him that was still living through it – nightly in nightmares, if not daily in unwelcome daydreams he called flashbacks. A former pilot in the U.S. Air Force, he had been taken prisoner in the jungles of Southeast Asia. He managed to survive brutal treatment at the hands of his captors, he explained, through almost constant prayer and meditation.
When he and his fellow POWs were being fed adequately, the food and water gave him strength to endure beatings. Later, when the young men were being nearly starved to death, Stan would alternate between praying the rosary and reciting what fragments of Native American prayers he could remember from his half-Cherokee grandmother. By the time he was rescued, after 10 months in captivity, he had decided that God did not exist. Or that if He did, He was a monster.
Back in the U.S., the contempt with which he was met as a Vietnam veteran was so galling and so hurtful, he said, that his homecoming seemed worse in some ways than captivity. "What was I fighting for?" he wondered. The closest friends he had had before his deployment were now active in the peace movement. They were the long-haired hippies raging against him and men like him, many of whom had been drafted into service against their wills and had fought in a war they barely understood, much less believed in.
Slowly, he drifted into the peace movement himself. He grew his hair long. He told stories of his time in captivity, of his desperate days in a jungle cage being whipped and battered. He drank and fought, battling the difficult memories. He tried that old monster God again, petitioning him with prayers. He investigated his Native American heritage and briefly changed his last name to Attakulla, after a Cherokee chief who was once captured and held in captivity by members of an enemy tribe.
By the time I met Stan, the protest days were mostly over, too. It was the 1990s. He had married and divorced and married again. He had one son, one daughter and one stepson and one stepdaughter, the latter of whom was my close friend. He didn't work full-time, but he was active in several POW [POW = Prisoner of War] organizations. The family had POW license plates on both of their cars and a POW flag flew alongside the stars and stripes on a short post on the front porch.
Back in the U.S., the contempt with which he was met as a Vietnam veteran was so galling and so hurtful, he said, that his homecoming seemed worse in some ways than captivity. "What was I fighting for?" he wondered. The closest friends he had had before his deployment were now active in the peace movement. They were the long-haired hippies raging against him and men like him, many of whom had been drafted into service against their wills and had fought in a war they barely understood, much less believed in.
Slowly, he drifted into the peace movement himself. He grew his hair long. He told stories of his time in captivity, of his desperate days in a jungle cage being whipped and battered. He drank and fought, battling the difficult memories. He tried that old monster God again, petitioning him with prayers. He investigated his Native American heritage and briefly changed his last name to Attakulla, after a Cherokee chief who was once captured and held in captivity by members of an enemy tribe.
By the time I met Stan, the protest days were mostly over, too. It was the 1990s. He had married and divorced and married again. He had one son, one daughter and one stepson and one stepdaughter, the latter of whom was my close friend. He didn't work full-time, but he was active in several POW [POW = Prisoner of War] organizations. The family had POW license plates on both of their cars and a POW flag flew alongside the stars and stripes on a short post on the front porch.
I remember going to my friend's house — Stan's family's house — for dinner and seeing that dramatic rectangle. I had never seen anything like it: In the center of a field of black there was a white circle that showed a man's face in silhouetted profile, with a menacing guard tower and barbed wire fence behind him. Across the top it read, "POW - MIA" [MIA = Missing in Action]and at the bottom, in a curving arc, "You are not forgotten."
Stan was cheerful and crass. He and his wife Mary talked to us teenagers like we were equals. They seemed genuinely interested in the tiny dramas of our high school lives, and I guess that helped to spark in me some genuine interest in their experiences. Nowadays, Stan explained, he could speak freely about the things that had happened to him in the war. "For years, it was just too painful," he said. "I had fought for my life in Vietnam and then had to fight for it again in America." For at least one summer I was a regular at their dinner table, as eager to hear Stan's stories as he was to tell them. "This is history," I thought. "This is history as real life."
When Stan's daughter and I went to different colleges, it was the age before Facebook or any kind of social networking, so our friendship waned to occasional phone calls and e-mails. But when she got the news about Stan and decided to share it with me, she called and e-mailed. Specifically, she sent me a link and then called me immediately, so that she could be on the phone when I opened the message and saw the page where my browser had been redirected.
"Apologies and Clarifications," I read aloud into the phone. "What is this?"
"Just start reading," my friend said, her voice shaking. "You are not going to believe it."
I started reading. And I kept reading. And my stomach churned and my heart beat faster as comprehension and apprehension came over me in slow waves.
I would like to confess and express my sincere apologies...
I have told a number of lies...
I am sorry for what I have done to my family...
It was just a story I told that got out of hand...
What I was reading were dozens of apologies made by men who had spent years of their lives pretending to be POWs. I thought back to myself and my friend sitting at the dinner table, rapt by Stan's stories.
"Whoa," I said. "Whoa. Stan? Does this mean Stan --?"
"Just keep scrolling down," she said.
I realized her voice was shaking in anger rather than from weeping. I kept scrolling down and there it was, amid a crowd of similar terse regrets: An e-mail from Stan in which he admitted that he had never been a POW and, in fact, had never even served in Vietnam. His explanation for the lies was that he had simply been looking for a way to prove his life had meaning.
***
Needless to say, this revelation was a seismic shock for my friend's family. Ten years later, they are still working through the trauma of learning about these lies. For this post I have changed names and personal details out of respect for the family's privacy, but if you visit Phonies & Wannabes page on POWnetwork.org, you will see that real names are used throughout. If an individual writes an apology for perpetrating fraud, his or her listing will be moved to the Apologies & Clarifications page, but not removed from the site. The network offers the following rationale:
For those listed here — and still complaining that you are - you lied. This is the consequence of YOUR actions.
Stan was cheerful and crass. He and his wife Mary talked to us teenagers like we were equals. They seemed genuinely interested in the tiny dramas of our high school lives, and I guess that helped to spark in me some genuine interest in their experiences. Nowadays, Stan explained, he could speak freely about the things that had happened to him in the war. "For years, it was just too painful," he said. "I had fought for my life in Vietnam and then had to fight for it again in America." For at least one summer I was a regular at their dinner table, as eager to hear Stan's stories as he was to tell them. "This is history," I thought. "This is history as real life."
When Stan's daughter and I went to different colleges, it was the age before Facebook or any kind of social networking, so our friendship waned to occasional phone calls and e-mails. But when she got the news about Stan and decided to share it with me, she called and e-mailed. Specifically, she sent me a link and then called me immediately, so that she could be on the phone when I opened the message and saw the page where my browser had been redirected.
"Apologies and Clarifications," I read aloud into the phone. "What is this?"
"Just start reading," my friend said, her voice shaking. "You are not going to believe it."
I started reading. And I kept reading. And my stomach churned and my heart beat faster as comprehension and apprehension came over me in slow waves.
I would like to confess and express my sincere apologies...
I have told a number of lies...
I am sorry for what I have done to my family...
It was just a story I told that got out of hand...
What I was reading were dozens of apologies made by men who had spent years of their lives pretending to be POWs. I thought back to myself and my friend sitting at the dinner table, rapt by Stan's stories.
"Whoa," I said. "Whoa. Stan? Does this mean Stan --?"
"Just keep scrolling down," she said.
I realized her voice was shaking in anger rather than from weeping. I kept scrolling down and there it was, amid a crowd of similar terse regrets: An e-mail from Stan in which he admitted that he had never been a POW and, in fact, had never even served in Vietnam. His explanation for the lies was that he had simply been looking for a way to prove his life had meaning.
***
Needless to say, this revelation was a seismic shock for my friend's family. Ten years later, they are still working through the trauma of learning about these lies. For this post I have changed names and personal details out of respect for the family's privacy, but if you visit Phonies & Wannabes page on POWnetwork.org, you will see that real names are used throughout. If an individual writes an apology for perpetrating fraud, his or her listing will be moved to the Apologies & Clarifications page, but not removed from the site. The network offers the following rationale:
For those listed here — and still complaining that you are - you lied. This is the consequence of YOUR actions.
Many lie for DECADES — and some families only find out about the lies at their death. Grief and lies! What a legacy.
You can change that. ADMIT you lied. Be HUMAN instead of a fraud, liar, phony, wannabee.
LINKS FOR FURTHER READING
The P.O.W. Network
The National League of POW/MIA Families
The National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen
Glenny Brock
Birmingham, Alabama
The National League of POW/MIA Families
The National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen
Glenny Brock
Birmingham, Alabama
Image courtesy Glenny Brock. All rights reserved.
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