The POW who took the fight to the enemy

This is adapted from a speech I delivered at this year's Veterans Day ceremony at Father Judge High School in Northeast Philadelphia at the invitation of my good friend and Marine shipmate, Principal Peter Chapla.

Thank you, Mr. Chapla. Good morning, gentlemen!

To prepare for this day, I did some research on St. Francis de Sales [The Oblates of St. Francis de Sales were entrusted with administration of the school at its founding in 1954].  He believed that ordinary lay people could be pious, a novel idea at the time. 

And, as you have all heard, he famously said, “Be yourself, and be that well.”

In that spirit, for Veterans Day I’m going to tell you the story of an ordinary enlisted sailor—not much older then than you are now--who did extraordinary things by being himself, with a twist. I heard this story when I was 17 years old from Navy Captain Richard Stratton, one of our senior POWs in the Vietnam War, and it has stayed with me ever since.

Doug Hegdahl was a 20-year-old petty officer from a small town in South Dakota, serving on USS Canberra in 1967. One night the ship was bombarding the coast of North Vietnam. As he was watching the show, the blast of a 5-inch gun blew him overboard. After staying afloat for two days he was pulled out of the sea by fishermen and delivered to North Vietnamese soldiers, who beat him and took him to the notorious prison known as the Hanoi Hilton.

This was a long time ago—half a century, in fact. How many of you have relatives who served in Vietnam? How many of you have heard of the conditions that our prisoners of war endured for years?

Food and clothing were minimal. Some individuals were tortured daily. Many were kept in solitary confinement so they knew nothing of what the others were going through. They had to communicate with each other by tapping in code on the walls of their cells.

Most of our prisoners at the Hanoi Hilton were aviators who had been shot down, so they were officers. Doug was a relatively junior enlisted man, so his presence was very unusual.

His North Vietnamese captors thought he must be a spy, so they tortured him for information. Doug decided that he had to play dumb—really dumb—to survive. His captors wanted him to write a statement condemning the United States war effort. He told them he’d be happy to—only he couldn’t read or write. So the North Vietnamese assigned him a tutor—he still never “learned.” Eventually they gave up, nicknamed him “the incredibly stupid one,” and gave him free run of the camp.

Doug played his role like a professional actor. He would walk around the camp like someone not in his right mind: singing to himself, occasionally glancing over his shoulder and stooping to pick up pebbles from the ground. 

Two years later the North Vietnamese decided to release a few prisoners for propaganda value. Doug was of zero use to them, so he was put on the list.

Only later did we learn how smart Doug really was--and that he had to be ordered to accept the early release.

Doug’s little song? To the tune of “Old McDonald” he memorized the names of 256 of his fellow prisoners. When he got home he sang the song and alerted our government, which had listed many of them as missing in action, not knowing that they had been captured.

And the pebbles? He put them in his pockets. Then, at night when no one was watching, he put them into the gas tanks of enemy trucks. He immobilized 5 of them that way.

Doug Hegdahl exemplified article 3 of the US Armed Forces Code of Conduct, which states in part: “if I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available.”

What can we learn from Doug?

You can’t always choose your challenges. Doug went on deck to get fresh air and watch explosions. He had no inkling of what was about to happen.

You can’t choose your challenges, but you can choose how you respond to them. Doug not only surmounted the challenge of survival under brutal conditions, but also took the fight to the enemy.

You all will face many challenges in your lives—hopefully, none as grave as the Hanoi Hilton. Most of you will not serve in the armed forces—and that’s ok. There are many other ways to serve your country and your community.

Whatever those challenges may be, it is up to you to apply the things you learn at home, at church, on the playing fields, and yes, even at school, to cultivate the right attitude and approach to surmount them.

Be yourself, and be that well. Happy Veterans Day, and best of luck to you all.