Speaking of the book, Five Years to Freedom: The True Story of a Vietnam POW, I think will be my last post on the topic. It’s another thing that struck me as interesting on many levels.

As I have mentioned, I like the writing in this book. Horrifying or not, Rowe can tell a story and stories being Jupiter-ruled always expand a person.

Rowe is captured along with two other Americans. One of them is isolated from the other two right away which pretty much tells you from the outset that he’s got a separate destiny. Rowe and Dan are also separated at various times to various extents but nothing like this third man, Versace (Italian and Puerto Rican) who is immediately isolated and clearly on his own and independent path.

Rowe wants to escape before he even arrived at a camp. In this part of the book the men have only been in captivity a short time. Rowe, as I mentioned got sick with dysentery right away while the other man, Dan got skinny.

The men were fed roughly one bowl of rice and a mouthful of fish per day so you imagine the weight loss. Rowe and Dan are separated for some weeks but passing notes and seeing each other in passing. Rowe writes:

“In one of my last messages, I proposed an escape to Dan, only to learn that his strength was so depleted by ill health that he was unable to try. I had noticed that he was extremely skinny but had no idea the extent of his weakness.”

A few pages and a short time later, Dan is put in Rowe’s cage for a meeting and Rowe writes:

“I was shocked at Dan’s emaciated appearance. His pronounced cheekbones and deep-set eyes gave an idea what the rest of him must have looked like. On his bony wrists were series of infected cuts, running around the entire joint.”

snip

“Dan remarked how healthy I looked and I could see the difference in our arms. I had known that I was putting on weight, but didn’t realize the relative difference. I felt almost guilty.”

Now the fact here was Rowe was shitting and shitting and shitting and shitting as I have mentioned and he was fed very little. They did give him something to clog him up and it worked in that he was now shitting just 3 times a day while eating his rice his mouthful pieces of fish of course.

Right in the middle of his two encounters with Dan, he writes about how he feels much better and is now is putting on weight.

It was a little confusing. It was also heart-breaking (to me) that he sees his friend in worse condition then he is when he is so truly fucked but in the next chapter this is explained.

It turns out, Rowe has beriberi which causes the body to retain water and swell up.

Long story short, he is eventually given something to treat this (Strychnine and B1). He thinks it might kill him but what are you going to do? He gets the shot and writes:

“Within three hours I as experiencing the most intense pain in my legs, far beyond any of the rolling cramps associated with the diarrhea. It was fortunate that prior to Johnson’s arrival, we had been taken out of the leg irons because I began urinating shortly after dark and continued through the night passing roughly a gallon of fluid. As the swelling decreased, the sharp stinging ache built in my legs and before daylight I was barely able to hobble to the edge of the porch and relieve myself. It was like having muscle and flesh, from ankle to thigh, razor-slashed down to the bone and then alcohol poured into the wounds.”

The next day they give him another shot and he writes:

“I was using weight rapidly and bones were showing, clearly defined through the sinking flesh…”

He gets several more injections and wrote:

“The result was a second emaciated American. I stared at my skinny arms and legs in horror, the rapid transition making my physical condition even more evident…”

Can you imagine?

I had to set the book down here. I just didn’t see it coming and that… is storytelling.