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Remarks at the National POW Museum
April 9, 1998
Andersonville, Georgia- U.S. Senator John McCain(R-AZ) today delivered the following remarks at the Nation POW Museum:Thank you.
A survivor of Auschwitz, Victor Frankel wrote movingly of how man controls his own destiny even when captive to a great evil:
"Everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of human freedoms -- to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Today, we dedicate a museum, built on hallowed ground where 13,000 Americans gave their lives so that they might save a nation. By so doing, we commemorate the sacrifice of 800,000 Americans who served a cause greater than their self-interest, and whose loyalty obliged them to suffer extraordinary deprivation and cruelty.
Their story is the story of a struggle against daunting odds to choose their own way; to stay faithful to a shared cause; to remain human beings in a world where they were treated like animals. Their humanity, so ironic and gallant in its opposition to organized inhumanity, was their glory.
Those who came home sought no greater celebration of their glory than to quietly walk again among the free. Those whose struggle ended in shallow, unmarked graves rely on the living conscience of the great nation to which they gave their lives to remember their humanity, to tell the tale of their glory.
That is our purpose today, here where the horrors of Andersonville created its legend, to tell the tale of the glory of Andersonville and all the Andersonvilles in our history. It is the tale of man's glory; man, made in the image of God; man – starved, dirty, sick, injured, suffering, dying man – whose God-given dignity could not be destroyed by any human power, no matter how strong and malevolent.
When a spectral army, 32,000 strong, walked out through the gates of Andersonville, they appeared as emaciated figures resembling skeletons, lacking almost every physical attribute of the living. But their dignity – the only affirmation of their humanity that truly mattered – was more alive, more powerful for the afflictions they had endured than the dignity of those who had been the agents of their suffering. And the dignity of their 13,000 comrades buried in trenches, side by side, walked out with them, and humbled the watchful living.
Where did they go,-these ghostly figures when their day of liberation arrived? Did they return to towns and farms to take up again the ordinary tasks of free men, and then disappear into the mist of history? Have their spirits returned to haunt this sad place and cry a warning chorus of man's inhumanity to man?
I don't believe so. We don't need ghosts to tell us that evil lives among us always. We have evidence enough of that in our daily newspapers. What we need is an affirmation that good triumphs over evil; that faith is stronger than tyranny; that love is greater than hate. This is the living testament of the Andersonville prisoners, as it is of every person who sacrificed their liberty, or suffered terribly for a greater good. And this generous benefaction outlives the people who rendered it. It lives in our country for so long as she remains worthy of the sacrifices borne for her sake.
"I decline to accept the end of man," declared William Faulkner in his moving speech accepting the Nobel Prize.
"I believe man will not merely endure; he will prevail.
"He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
Those here today, who, in their country's service, have been deprived of their liberty, whose enemies attempted to commit them to the animal caste, will say amen to Faulkner's eloquent, hopeful gospel. And those who have not shared their experience, but to whom God has given wisdom, will see beyond the heartbreaking accounts of prisoners of war, who in their terrible suffering, may have lost their faith for a time. Let us all witness anew in this place, the courage of so many thousands whose spirit could not be vanquished.
Walk the long road up the Bataan peninsula to Camp O'Donnell, past the bodies of six to seven hundred Americans, and thousands more Filipinos, dead from injuries, fatigue, sickness and murder, and witness compassion and sacrifice and endurance. Witness the men who stopped to tend a dying comrade and took a bayonet for their kindness.
Stumble into the camp, Hell Hole Number One, with the starved, exhausted, ragged thousands, and witness compassion and sacrifice and endurance. Witness men raise a concrete cross to honor their dead, whose numbers increased by more than a hundred a day.
Stand with the frozen and starved in desolate North Korean camps, living on meager rations of cracked corn, and witness compassion and sacrifice and endurance. Witness men resist the enemies' daily regimen of brainwashing by silently memorizing the ever lengthening roll call of the dead, so that families may one day know the fate of their loved ones.
Witness these things, and know they prevailed; the dead as well as the living. Know they prevailed because they had compassion when it mattered most. Know they prevailed because God gave them an immortal soul that no cruelty, no evil could take from them.
Walk away from the horror and suffering, and back to the land of the free. You will know to the end of your days what it means to be free. You will know to the end of your days the beauty and responsibilities of liberty. Carry back to your country the message of prisoners in Hanoi, "one goes, we all go," so that it may be the watchword of a nation that is too often divided by petty differences; differences that should shame us amid so many blessings.
Take from this place all that is good about man, and leave hate and brutality behind in the ruins, with the fallen timbers, rusting wire, and broken concrete of prisons that could only cage the souls of the captors, and not the captive.
A long time ago, I lived for a time in the company of heroes; men who endured great hardships, but who refused to lose faith in their God, their country and their comrades. I am a witness to a thousand acts of compassion, sacrifice and endurance. But of all the men whose dignity humbles me, one name is revered among all others.
I never knew Lance Sijan, but I wish I had. I wish I would have had one moment to tell him how much I admired him; how indebted I was to him for showing me, for showing all of us, our duty; for showing us how to be free.
I lived alone once in a room next door to men who had once lived with Lance Sijan. He was gone before I heard of him, but the men who had lived with him told me his story.
Air Force Captain Lance Sijan was shot down near Vinh, North Vietnam on November 9,1967. For a day and a half, he lay semi-conscious on the ground, grievously injured with a compound fracture of his left leg, a brain concussion and a fractured skull. He made radio contact with rescue aircraft, but they were unable to locate him in the dense jungle. On November 11, they abandoned the search.
Crawling on the jungle floor at night, Lance fell into a sinkhole, injuring himself further. For six weeks, he evaded capture. On Christmas Day, starved, racked with pain, he passed out on a dirt road, where a few hours later the North Vietnamese found him.
The Code of Conduct for American prisoners of war requires every prisoner to evade capture, and when captured, to seize opportunities for escape. It instructs prisoners to resist giving the enemy any military information beyond name, rank and serial number. Lance Sijan obeyed the Code to the letter.
A short time after he was captured, he overpowered an armed guard and managed to escape. Re- captured several hours later, he was tortured for information, but refused to provide anything beyond what the Code allowed. By the time he reached prison in Hanoi, he was close to death.
Over six feet tall, he weighed less than 100 pounds when he was placed in a cell with two other Americans, Bob Craner and Guy Gruters. He lived there barely a month. In and out of consciousness, often delirious, he would push on the walls and scratch the floor searching vainly for a way out. When he was lucid, and not consumed with pain, he would quiz his cellmates about the camp's security, and talk with them about escaping again.
Interrogated repeatedly, he refused to say anything. He was savagely beaten for his silence, kicked repeatedly and struck with a bamboo club. His cellmates heard him scream profanities at his guards, and then, after hours of torture, they heard him say in a weak voice: "I'm not going to tell you anything. I can't talk to you. It's against the Code."
His cellmates tried to comfort him during his last hours. Working in shifts timed to the tolling of a nearby church bell, they cradled his head in their laps, talked quietly to him of his courage and faith, told him to hang on. Occasionally he would shake off his delirium, and joke with his friends about his circumstances.
Finally, near the end, the guards came for him. Lance knew that they were taking him away to die. As they placed him on a stretcher, he said to his friends, "it's over . .. it's over."
A few days later, the camp commander told Bob Craner what he knew already, that his friend was dead. And Bob, a good man and tough resistor himself, resolved to spread the legend of Lance Sijan throughout the prisons of Hanoi so that his fellow Americans could draw strength from the example of a man who not yield his humanity no matter how terrible the consequences. A few weeks later, when I was moved to the cell next to Bob's, he told me the story of Lance Sijan: a free man from a free country, who kept his dignity to the last moment of his life.
When you leave here today, think of Lance Sijan, and carry his dignity with you. Keep his memory alive, confident in your faith that almighty God blessed him, and gave him the strength to prevail over his enemies. Though they took his life, they could not take his dignity. Lance Sijan prevailed.
Thank you.
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