A Needed Tonic for America

We have reaped the fruits of our faith and trust in our God, our Commander in Chief, our families and all the people of this wonderful, wonderful country. America, we love you. --Air Force Colonel Frederick Crow

Happiness is returning to the United States, where everybody's heart is full of gold the size of the Empire State Building. --Army Staff Sergeant

David Marker / would like to borrow three words from the late Douglas Mac Arthur to express my feelings on this, my greatest day: duty, honor, country. --Air Force Captain

Leroy Stutz

Our emotions at this time are indescribable. To be back on American soil has been our dream, our prayer for over seven years. You have reached across time and space and brought us home. Thank you, America. Thank you, Mr. President. May God bless you all. --Air Force Colonel

Ronald E. Byrne, Jr.

SUCH were the words of the returning P.O.W.s in a poignant scene repeated at airbases round the U.S. One after another, the P.O.W.s appeared in the doorway of a plane, saluted smartly, strode smilingly down the ramp, spoke a few words into the microphones and fell into the waiting arms of wives and families. A few kissed the ground. It was an event that will be long remembered by those who witnessed it in person or on television.

For many Americans it served as a reaffirmation of faith in a nation that had grown accustomed to self-reproach. After their long ordeal, the P.O.W.s had every reason to greet freedom ecstatically. But they had no need to offer profuse thanks to the country that had sent them to war. If they could so spontaneously pour out their love of country, then why should their fellow countrymen who had stayed home in safety and affluence be despairing? The return of the P.O.W.s was a tonic for America. "I just hope we can help America join closer together," says Air Force Colonel Lawrence Guarino. "When the whole story is out, I think it will do Americans justice, and they will be proud of the way their men stood up."

A few P.O.W.s commented on the war. Air Force Colonel James Kasler held the peace demonstrators responsible for "prolonging the war. Their hands are stained with the blood of American G.I.s." He said that he had been tortured in an unsuccessful effort to force him to meet with a group of U.S. war protesters who were visiting Hanoi. Air Force Major Hubert Flesher offered a minority opinion that the U.S. had lost a war it never should have entered. "It was a conflict between the Vietnamese people, and like it or not, it should have been theirs to decide."

Most P.O.W.s, however, were too concerned with their homecoming to dwell on the war that they had finally left behind:

AIR FORCE MAJOR ARTHUR BURER, 40, touched down at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, and wondered how his wife Nancy would react. As he told TIME Correspondent Jerry Hannifin: "I'd often thought of what I'd say to her when I first saw her again. But she solved it all when she came sprinting out and leaped into my arms. That assured me that everything would be all right and any problems could be solved because of our love." The couple decided to take their marriage vows over again--a reaffirmation of personal commitment--and go on a honeymoon. Many other returned P.O.W.s are also having symbolic second wedding ceremonies.

Equally gratifying was Burer's reunion with his four children. He stayed up into the night talking with his oldest son Bill, 17 1/2. "The biggest burden he carried was that somewhere he had a father, but a father he couldn't talk to," says Burer. "It's different when a family really loses a father. After a year or two, if he had believed that I was dead, he could have forgotten about me and gone on with life. But he lived his life knowing that he had a father he couldn't see."

Burer keenly feels the gap that has been created by his absence. "My ideas, my beliefs, my morals, everything had just stood flat still. I came back thinking in terms of 1966, and it's bizarre to be so far behind the times. I've done a lot of reading and talking to my family, but we still haven't scratched the surface."

AIR FORCE COMMANDER ROBERT SHUMAKER, 39, the second U.S. pilot captured in North Viet Nam, liked to joke when in prison: "I'm second, so I have to try harder." He claims credit for dubbing the prison the "Hanoi Hilton," though he hopes that the name will not give Americans the idea that it was a "luxury palace." For 2 1/2 years of his eight years' captivity he was kept in isolation. He kept his sanity during that period by mentally constructing a house for his family, brick by brick. When a letter arrived from his wife Lorraine saying that she had already bought a house, "I was really in a sweat. My mental project was ruined."

But he happily exchanged fantasy for reality when he reached La Jolla, Calif. He told TIME Correspondent Leo Janos that he found Lorraine "exactly as I remembered her. When she rushed to meet me at the airport, she looked like a High school cheerleader." His eight-year-old son Grant is the very image of his dad. But that did not make Shumaker more permissive. He spanked the boy for playing hooky from school. "Believe me, I felt more pain than he did," he said. He also ordered Grant's hair to be trimmed after someone remarked that his daughter must be glad to have him home. He was stunned by the sexual permissiveness of a movie that was not even X rated, and walked out of the theater. "And I'm no prude either," he insists.

AIR FORCE MAJOR GLENDON PERKINS, 38, returned to Orlando, Fla., to find the neighbors lining both sides of the street to welcome him. "Sometimes he's a little embarrassed," says his wife Kaye. He has taken the changes at home in stride. He is fascinated by the bright colors in men's clothes, and he quickly donned wide-legged, cuffed trousers and double-zipper boots. "The clothes are really having a therapeutic effect after all those years of wearing pajamas," says Kaye, who is surprised at his smooth adjustment. It is not at all what she had been led to expect by cautious psychiatrists. They warned her that her husband might be too shattered to be saddled with responsibilities like the family budget. The day after he returned, Perkins asked: "O.K., where's the budget?"

AIR FORCE COLONEL JAMES ROBINSON RISNER, 48, has scarcely paused to catch his breath since he arrived home in Oklahoma City. When he is not on the phone with well-wishers, he is answering mail or making speeches or following up an insurance claim or shopping for the home. "He is in such a mad hurry to accomplish so much," his wife Kathleen told TIME Correspondent Marguerite Michaels. "He never sits still except to eat, and he sprints from room to room. It's great to have him home, but it's a little shocking too."

Explains Risner: "I have to keep moving because I'm so far behind. I hate to see it get dark. I feel I haven't done enough in the daylight, and if I sleep, it's like wasting time. I'm starved for people. I used to die just to catch a glimpse of a leaf through the air vent in the wall of the cell. There's a great feeling of happiness just to go in and out of the door when I want to."

Risner has even talked his five children into supporting Nixon, though they favored McGovern for President. But some of Risner's military passion for orderliness subsided in prison. "I used to get so mad at Kathleen when she'd kick off her shoes in the middle of the floor and leave them there. But then I got to prison and I missed seeing them. I don't say a word any more."

The American P.O.W. who has spent the longest time in prison is not in Viet Nam. He is John Downey, 43, a CIA operative who was sentenced to life imprisonment after his plane was shot down over China in 1952. He was allegedly trying to drop supplies to U.S. agents in Manchuria during the Korean War. The Chinese have allowed his mother Mary to visit him three times. Last week, Mary Downey suffered a severe stroke, and President Nixon got in touch with Premier Chou Enlai. The President asked: Could Downey be released at once? He could, replied Chou in less than 48 hours. In fact, at his meeting last month with Henry Kissinger, the Premier indicated that Downey would be freed later this year for "exemplary" good behavior. The timetable was simply speeded up, and Downey is due home this week. Two other Americans will also be released. They are Air Force Major Philip Smith and Navy Lieut. Commander Robert Flynn, whose planes were downed after they strayed over the border from North Viet Nam. With them, the last American prisoners in China will be free.

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