Curious, anyone know what Vietnamese military served their prisoners?

[blm]

Really, this is just curiosity about the region and not a comparison of what McCain may have been given to eat in that region of the world when he had no choice compared to what Obama may have been given to eat when he was child in that region.

Anyone know?

[Ian David]

1. I had the same thought, but I wasn't gonna go there. :) n/t

[Zalatix]

2. Probably nothing that we can discuss on the DU without violating a few TOS

Hint: it probably had something to do with sexual assault.

[SidDithers]

6. WTF?...nt

Sid

[northoftheborder]

3. I do know that dog is commonly eaten in South Korea.

[RZM]

4. Probably mostly rice n/t

[Cleita]

5. Rice probably.

I had a Dutch Indonesian friend who had been put in a Japanese concentration camp with her mother and sister. She was four years old then. She said the Japanese gave them rice once a week. Other than that they scavenged what weeds and plants that were edible in the camp. The less squeamish killed rodents, birds and reptiles that wandered into the camp and ate them. Her sister didn't make it to liberation and died of malnutrition before then. I think the Vietcong held POWs might have been treated similarly.

[blm]

7. Thank you - pretty much what I expected. I've seen movies and docs, but,

probably didn't pay enough attention to recall the answer myself.

[FSogol]

8. See Werner Herzog's "Little Dieter Needs to Fly"

Great documentary on a captured US pilot.

They ate anything they could get their hands on. Insects, birds, rats, etc.

[blm]

17. thanks....will definitely find that documentary

.

[CBGLuthier]

9. If the jailers had any dog I doubt they shared

I despise McCain very much but really we should probably not attack him even if he asks for it, not in that particular area.

I do not like Republicans and am not even fond of the military but the time a man spends as a POW while his country ignores him and leaves him to rot should be off limits.

[Posteritatis]

10. I'm not gonna lightly dismiss *any* Vietnamese POW's experience. (nt)

[JVS]

11. rice

[Scuba]

12. Not much. Pumpkin soup.

[malaise]

13. Let's find out

Great thread

[grasswire]

14. did the Vietnamese treat POWs better than Japanese did in WW2?

As a recent student of WW2 POW experience in the Pacific, I'd like the answer to that too.

Accounts of POW experiences in the Philippines, in all the prison camps spread all over Asia detail the torture by starvation that was commonplace. The starvation led to diseases of deficiencies; beri beri, etc.

It was all inhumane, bitterly cruel, avoidable, and criminal.

My uncle was a prisoner of the Japanese when Corregidor fell. An army surgeon had to saw off his gangrenous leg. He was a POW for more than three years.

Never forget. That's all he said about it. Never forget.

The info is out there. Be prepared to be shaken, if you start reading the personal accounts.

[blm]

15. Thanks for the serious reply, grassfire

.

[cherokeeprogressive]

21. Nnnnnope.

It doesn't take more than a little reading to answer that question... I had an uncle who walked the Bataan Death March. He had his "number" tatooed on his wrist. Along the way, he had two men who were shackled to his ankle shot, and was forced to dig their graves. Had he broken down during that dig, he would have been shot, and the man behind HIM would have been forced to dig HIS grave.

Other Side of the Coin...

How Does the United States of America Treat Prisoners of War?

[Old Troop]

23. Completely off topic, but did your uncle ever mention a PFC Henry Twomey?

He was my uncle and remains unaccounted for since the fall of the islands in 1942.

[Zax2me]

16. Little to nothing, from the footage I've seen...

Prisoners looked little more than walking skeletons.

[grasswire]

18. here's a bit of one POW's account

http://vnafmamn.com/vietnam_POWstory.html

The camp was typical of the image many have. It was carved out of the jungle and built of bamboo. The camp was surrounded by a bamboo wall that was reminiscent of an old cavalry frontier fort in the American West. There was one wall concentrically within another, with a ditch dug between the two, almost moat-like. In the ditch were many punji stakes – pieces of bamboo, knife sharp, dipped in human waste and stuck in the ground. If you fell on these, you'd die of a wound to a vital organ, or bleed to death, or at least die of infection if you were not killed outright. Across this ditch was a log that one had to balance across to gain entry to the camp.

Inside the walls were many bamboo cages that housed the prisoner population. There were South Vietnamese military, there were indigenous mountain people referred to as Montagnards or Mountainyards who had allied with U.S. special forces, and there were two Americans, myself and another helicopter pilot captured a month earlier. At least a couple hundred prisoners altogether. Conditions in this camp were deplorable. We lived like animals. We were kept in cages, most of which were not tall enough to stand up in. That wasn't necessary anyway, because they kept our feet in wooden stocks. With my broken back, I could not lie back; so I slept sitting up. And every night rats scurried through the cages and nibbled on my ankle wounds, and I couldn't move my feet in the stocks, and couldn't keep them away, and I hate rats to this day.

The only time we got out of these cages was for a daily toilet call at the camp latrine. The time never seemed to be the same on any given day, and if a prisoner's internal schedule could not wait for the appointed time (many suffered dysentery) then he went all over himself in the cage. When they did let us out, it was a walk to the "facility" in one corner of the camp. On my first visit, I discovered that the latrine was a couple of holes in the ground that you squatted over to relieve yourself. Problem was that many of the sicker prisoners were not able to hold themselves until getting all the way to the holes, and left their waste in piles all around that area. Some of the very sickest prisoners, near death, were placed in hammocks right next to the latrine, and they would either lay there and soil themselves, time after time, or roll out of their hammock, if they could, and take a couple of steps and go there on the ground. The result was a substantial accumulation of human waste all around the holes that were the latrine. Those able to control themselves were forced to walk through that waste field and squat over the holes. On return to our cages, we had no way to clean ourselves.

I don't remember water being a problem. It was delivered in pieces of bamboo, and there seemed to be sufficient quantities. It was supposedly boiled, but I still came down with bloody dysentery. Food was a problem. Our diet was almost exclusively rice. We'd get one grapefruit sized ball mid-morning, and another mid-afternoon. Occasionally, we'd get the treat of a tuberous root called manioc. It is very much like (and may be the same as) yucca in Latin American countries. My weight went from around 190 pounds to something around 120 in just a few weeks. I was skin hanging on bone with beard that grew very long over time. I did not shave for over five months. And I received no medical attention at all. And no one fared any better. The South Vietnamese next to me in my cage had a severe chest wound that had been bandaged long ago, but I never saw the dressing changed, and the hole in his chest wall was never repaired. He was young and strong, but I'm certain he did not survive.

We lived like animals, and under these filthy, starvation conditions, without medical care, it seemed that someone died almost every day. The bodies would be carried out and buried on a hillside just outside the camp.

[sadbear]

19. If McCain were honest

He'd say how thankful he would have been to have ANY kind of meat, even dog, as a Vietnamese POW.

[blm]

22. good point - and if he runs true to himself, it's likely he'll regret his jibe.

.

[cherokeeprogressive]

20. Rat?