Two U.S. soldiers, both prisoners of war in the major conflicts of their generation, spoke Monday about their harrowing experiences behind enemy lines as part of the Crain Lecture Series.
Maj. Gen. Edward Mechenbier, a POW in Vietnam for more than 2,100 days, and Chief Warrant Officer David Williams, whose capture in Iraq received intense media coverage earlier this year, captivated the McCormick Tribune Center audience with both amusing and disturbing stories of their imprisonment.
Mechenbier, a former pilot, came under attack in South Vietnam in June 1967 by anti-aircraft fire — “just like those puff balls you see in the movies,” he said. As the airplane caught fire, Mechenbier had to eject upside down while the aircraft spiraled out of control at 700 miles per hour, he said.
Mechenbier said being imprisoned was even more demoralizing than just the beatings and the painfully meager diet. The transition from “being in control of (my) aircraft” to being told “when I can and cannot take a bowel movement” was humbling, but his fellow POWs eased his imprisonment.
Williams, deployed for his first mission in Iraq, was “taken by the local (Iraqi) militia.” After Baghdad fell, the militia moved him north to the Sunni Triangle, where he spent almost two weeks before marines rescued him April 13 this year.
“By the grace of God,” he said, “they come kicking the door in and we were rescued.”
Williams stressed that the experience of Mechenbier and his fellow POWs inspired his perseverance in Iraq.
“At first I thought, ‘There is no way I could be like those guys in Vietnam,'” he said. “But I could have gone a year easily, if not more” with the support of his fellow POWs.
The two men shared an appreciation for a “brotherhood” of the armed services, whose bond transcends both distance and time.
“When I was in Vietnam,” said Mechenbier, “my fellow POWs were my brothers. Now (Williams) is my brother.”
Mechenbier emphasized that his six years in Vietnam do not diminish Williams’ 22 days in captivity. When you’re a POW, Mechenbier said, “one day makes you a veteran.”
Both men engrossed the audience by explaining life in captivity.
At one point, Mechenbier stood up and paced in circles on the podium to show how he sometimes kept himself busy. Life in a concrete cell might seem like a strange blend of intense boredom and fear, but Mechenbier said he “was never bored” during his six years in Vietnam.
“It was a time to empty your brain and share,” he said. “Sometimes, we told movies that took three or four days to complete. I told some guys things about me that my wife of 40 years never knew and never will know.”
Both men agreed that coming back home almost provided more challenges than captivity. But the difficulties posed by liberation had unexpected benefits.
When Williams returned to face the U.S. media, he mentioned once that, living on a rice diet, he had missed steak in Iraq. In the coming weeks, packaged steaks flooded his mailbox.
“Now, I’m on chicken,” he said, laughing.
Claudia Mechenbier, Edward’s wife, said although she initially felt “scared to death that he would not appreciate” her years of pain and perseverance, the reunion was “wonderful.”
“Only two weeks until our first fight,” she told The Daily after the event. “Things really were perfectly normal.”
Samantha Beerman, a Medill freshman, called the presentation “a great perspective on war that you don’t always see in the papers.”
Reach Derek Thompson at [email protected].
