2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 112,220
- 52,455
Colonel Leo Thorsness passed away.....he was a real hero...
Leo Thorsness, RIP
I found it almost unbelievable that the heroics he displayed on his Medal of Honor mission were followed by further displays of heroism approximating the valor he displayed on the mission. When he was shot down by an air to air missile in late April 1967, he ejected from his exploding fighter doing 690 miles per hour, injuring both knees and sustaining multiple fractures of his back. Like John McCain, he was “tied up” for the next six years. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton and several other North Vietnamese hellholes, including the one known as Camp Punishment, reserved for especially “difficult” cases.
His Medal of Honor was kept a secret so that the North Vietnamese would not use the citation against him and aggravate the conditions of his captivity. As it was, he was tortured unmercifully for the first three years.
Upon his capture, he was tortured in interrogation for 19 days and 18 nights, without sleep. “It took them 18 days to break me,” he told me when I first met him in the summer of 2008. Eighteen days! As I sat listening to him, I thought someone has to write up this story.
Fortunately, someone did. Colonel Thorsness himself did so. His memoir Surviving Hell: A POW’s Journey was published in late 2008 by Encounter Books. After I raved about it on Power Line, Encounter Books publisher Roger Kimball invited me to write the introduction for the paperback edition.
At 127 pages, the book is brief and understated. In its own modest way, though, it is a great book. “For the past 35 years,” Thorsness wrote, “my mind has worked to process what happened.” Through the book he meant to make his experience of use to others: “With the benefit of perspective, I wanted to write a book that would be helpful to people going through tough times.”
Regarding the torture he endured upon his capture, Leo wrote: “I would say that my 18 days and nights of interrogations were unendurable if I hadn’t endured.” He observed that “[t]here was nothing particularly imaginative about the North Vietnamese techniques. They hadn’t improved much on the devices of the Spanish Inquisition.”
He was distraught when he was broken on day 19 of his initial captivity. “I tried to cry. But I was past tears.” Upon his return to his cell, however, he was reassured that everyone who is subject to such an interrogation “has one of two things happen: either they broke or died — some did both.”
Leo Thorsness, RIP
I found it almost unbelievable that the heroics he displayed on his Medal of Honor mission were followed by further displays of heroism approximating the valor he displayed on the mission. When he was shot down by an air to air missile in late April 1967, he ejected from his exploding fighter doing 690 miles per hour, injuring both knees and sustaining multiple fractures of his back. Like John McCain, he was “tied up” for the next six years. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton and several other North Vietnamese hellholes, including the one known as Camp Punishment, reserved for especially “difficult” cases.
His Medal of Honor was kept a secret so that the North Vietnamese would not use the citation against him and aggravate the conditions of his captivity. As it was, he was tortured unmercifully for the first three years.
Upon his capture, he was tortured in interrogation for 19 days and 18 nights, without sleep. “It took them 18 days to break me,” he told me when I first met him in the summer of 2008. Eighteen days! As I sat listening to him, I thought someone has to write up this story.
Fortunately, someone did. Colonel Thorsness himself did so. His memoir Surviving Hell: A POW’s Journey was published in late 2008 by Encounter Books. After I raved about it on Power Line, Encounter Books publisher Roger Kimball invited me to write the introduction for the paperback edition.
At 127 pages, the book is brief and understated. In its own modest way, though, it is a great book. “For the past 35 years,” Thorsness wrote, “my mind has worked to process what happened.” Through the book he meant to make his experience of use to others: “With the benefit of perspective, I wanted to write a book that would be helpful to people going through tough times.”
Regarding the torture he endured upon his capture, Leo wrote: “I would say that my 18 days and nights of interrogations were unendurable if I hadn’t endured.” He observed that “[t]here was nothing particularly imaginative about the North Vietnamese techniques. They hadn’t improved much on the devices of the Spanish Inquisition.”
He was distraught when he was broken on day 19 of his initial captivity. “I tried to cry. But I was past tears.” Upon his return to his cell, however, he was reassured that everyone who is subject to such an interrogation “has one of two things happen: either they broke or died — some did both.”
