RIP.

Via WaPo:

On Nov. 29, 1970, 43 U.S. servicemen gathered in the Hoa Lo prison compound, often called the “Hanoi Hilton,” and performed an act of retaliation— a church service.

Nine days earlier, after a failed attempt by U.S. Special Forces to liberate the prisoners, the North Vietnamese captors had removed them from their cells and incarcerated them in a single holding area. For several men, it was the first face-to-face encounter with friends they had made through tap-code communication.

The first Sunday after they were removed from their cells, they attempted to hold a church service but were threatened with severe punishment. Seeing the men’s disappointment, then-Lt. Cmdr. Edwin A. “Ned” Shuman — a naval aviator who would spend five years as a POW and who died Dec. 3 at age 82 — stepped forward. “I want to know — person by person— if you are really committed to holding church,” he said, asking each of the other 42 men for support until he achieved a unanimous commitment.

The following Sunday, they tried again. This time, Cmdr. Shuman, the highest-ranking officer in the group, began to lead the soldiers in the Lord’s Prayer. The guards quickly grabbed him and took him away to be tortured.

The remaining officers continued reciting the prayer in unison, drowning out the shouts of the North Vietnamese guards who were beating them with gun butts.

“Forty-two men in prison pajamas followed Ned’s lead,” recalled retired Col. Leo Thorsness in his memoir “Surviving Hell: A POW’s Journey.” “I know I will never see a better example of pure raw leadership.”

From then on — until the men were released with other long-serving POWs as part of Operation Homecoming in 1973 — they held a weekly church service.

“It was the first confrontation of the camp’s regulation,” said Everett Alvarez Jr., a naval aviator who was held as a POW for 8 1/2 years by North Vietnam and at one time served as deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration. “For those of us who were religious or spiritual, it was a very important part of our morale, optimism, and overall, it was a part of our survival.”

Keep reading…http://weaselzippers.us/2013/12/16/vietn...man-dies-at-82/