Three Who Came Through

After endless months of meager rations, disease, squatting through droning Viet Cong indoctrinations, and sleeping with their ankles locked in stocks, the three Special Forces sergeants were home. They had not been brainwashed. Daniel Lee Pitzer, 37, of Spring Lake, N.C., and James E. Jackson, 27, of Talcott, W. Va., plied their military escorts with questions about events since their capture--the Viet Nam buildup, hippies, the civil rights movement. "Is that the way America is?" asked one. The third released prisoner, Edward R. Johnson, 44, of Seaside, Calif., emaciated by disease, was dropped off in Washington for transfer to the Army's Walter Reed Hospital after the trip from New York's Kennedy International Airport. The other two were flown on to Fort Bragg, N.C., where Pitzer was joined by wife and brother, and Jackson met by a cheering group of Green Beret buddies.

Despite fatigue, spirits were high. Considering their daily fight to survive in the tiny prison compound in the pestiferous heart of the Mekong Delta, their condition was remarkable. "Coming back," said Pitzer, "is like being born again."

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