The photo above was taken at the Aomori prison camp near Yokohama, Japan. This is an American Navy-man who was captured by the Japanese during World War II. Soldiers that are captured by enemies and taken hostage are given the title of a “Prisoner of War”, otherwise known as a POW. POWs were captured usually for the purpose of to obtaining information from an enemy soldier. Another reason that soldiers are captured and held as POWs is to be used as a hostage. Hostages can be valuable to the enemy because they can use them as incintives. To get the information from the soldiers they were physically and mentally tortured. Methods of physical torture include: hanging people by their toes for days on end, hanging people by their tongues and many more painful tortures. The picture above specifically depicts this POW as being severely malnourished. Starvation is a common method of physical torture. According to Sarah Wildman, Jere Dyk set out to Afghanistan as a journalist to observe the going's on in the war in Afghanistan. Shortly after his arrival, Dyk was captured by the Taliban and became a prisoner of war. Dyk claimed that he was fed pretty well but they “barely saw the sky and barely breathed fresh air.”
Prisoners of war are also
tortured mentally. The Taliban's method of torture is usually more mental rather than physical. The Japanese, in WWII, used more physical methods of torture. The Taliban
posts videos of their American POWs as an incentive to draw information from the American government. Sargeant Bowe Bergdahl was captured in Aghanistan in 2009. The
Taliban released numerous videos of Bergdahl pleading his release. Bergdahl
pleades “Release me please, bring me home.
I'm begging you” in one video. American government obviously wants
to bring home its POWs, but the Taliban do not negotiate easily. A
common method of mental
torture is threatening loved ones. The captor
can implant thoughts into the prisoner's mind, and this method of
torture can be just as unbearable as the physical methods.
This is a picture of John McCain
as a POW in recovery. John McCain ejected himeslf out of his plane when it started going down. He landed in a lake and sank to the bottom.
McCain said that he pushed his way to the top to get a breath (2
times). All the while, his right leg and both of his arms were broken.
After engaging his inflatable life preserver, McCain floated to the
top where he was captured by two Vietnamese soldiers. Not only did the
Vietnamese induce extreme physical torture on McCain, but they also
tortured him mentally to the point of a suicide attempt. After 5
years of intense physical and mental torture, McCain agreed to sign a
confession. In order to be released McCain reluctantly
wrote
"I
am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate.
I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the
doctors." McCain also stated that “over there I learned that
every man has a breaking point, and I had reached mine”. This
'breaking point' is referring to when he mentally
gave
up. He had taken enough phyiscal and mental beatings after 5 years, and had reached his
breaking point.
Every
time a read a story about what a POW experiences I become sympathetic
for the soldiers that fight in our military. POW stories really help me
appreciate the risk that soldiers put themselves in, everyday, to maintain
peace and freedom for America. This topic is so relevant for
Veteran's day and is a subject that needs to be addressed when
discussing any topic about war. I think this terrible occurrence often gets over
looked because we don't hear about a lot of POWs being captured; however, since WWII there have been 73,000
MIA's
in the American military. I wanted to include this subject matter in
at least one of my blog posts because I have a high amount of respect
not only for anyone who serves in the military, but especially for
prisoners of war.
