The Prisoner

The events that occurred and the situations that the Prisoners of War were put through during the Vietnam war were tremendous. The stories that have been told from some of the soldiers significantly help us understand just what went on and why exactly they were captured in the first place. Researchers to this day are still uncovering more and more information about what happened in the detention camps and looking at how it affected the soldiers. Going from 1964 all the way to 1973, there was…

Fenran dropped to his knees and blubbered incoherently. His heart was thumping. His ears were ringing. Prisoner gasped quick shallow breaths, blood seeping from her wound. He was scared to touch her. As if touching her would provoke death. He closed his eyes hard. Nauseated. He didn't want to see Prisoner like this. Not like this. "Look at me," he placed his palm on her cheek, weeping, "Prisoner. Please," he coaxed her. Slowly, her eyes moved to his. Lifeless. He saw no recognition in Prisoner's…

Arthur Train, author of The Prisoner At The Bar, wrote about how the police court whom is the first step to justice. In 1905 the magistrates were the one that held rulings on misdemeanors and petty crimes, whether there rulings were justified or not could be held up to question. Someone who breaks the laws and before being convicted is considered a criminal; after he has been sentenced he is considered a convict; but during the proceedings he is considered to be a “prisoner at the bar”. When…

The solution was to build, and use training camps and transform them into prisoner of war camps or POW camps. In both the Union and the Confederacy there were multiple POW camps built during the Civil War. Some were small some were large, and Illinois possessed two large POW camps. These POW camps were camp Douglass in Chicago…

Thorsness and his fellow POWs began to expand their capabilities as prisoners through exemplifying patriotism, continuing cultural traditions, and keeping a positive and hopeful mindset. In the book Surviving Hell by Leo Thorsness, he and other POWs thrive off of miniscule enterprises through keeping an optimistic outlook despite being prisoners in Vietnam. Since a majority of a POW’s time was spent sitting in a large jail cell, the prisoners had a lot of time to talk to each other. Many POWs…

This photograph was also taken to show what the Prisoner of War was like. The harsh living environment can be seen through the three individuals presented within this image. Their uncleaned clothing and thin skeleton structure implies that they suffer from malnutrition and live in an unhygienic area. Hence, this image demonstrates the harsh conditions the individuals suffered in the Prisoners of War. The intended…

such as Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Auschwitz remained open, packed instead with German captives.Moreover, Martin Brech, an American prison guard during the time wrote a memoir in 1990 detailing what he saw in the German Prisoner of War (POW) camps. Brech describes that prisoners threw "grass and weeds into a tin can containing a thin soup...to help ease their hunger pains." He explains, "We had ample food and supplies, but did nothing to help them, including no medical assistance." Brech claims…

forceful liberation would produce even more so. The prisoner is not aware that his liberation is a positive event that will cause drastic and wonderful changes to his life. He knows only of the darkness he was born in, raised in, and, through our eyes, tortured in. He will be dragged out kicking and screaming, and he will resent the light and the strange world it is kept in, one of the last emotions he will feel is “sorry” for his former prisoners. Even so, the “sorry” he feels may be a…

"There were more than 140,000 American, European, and Australian prisoners in Japanese Prisoner Of War camps" (HistoryOnTheNet). Of these, one in three died from starvation, work, punishments, or from diseases. Louis Zamperini was a survivor of these dreadful camps. Throughout his life, Zamperini exemplifies what it means to have moral courage. Louis Zamperini was born on January 26th, 1917, in Olean, New York. He grew up in Torrance, California where he smoke, drank, and stole on a regular…

right? Wrong. The movie Unbroken shows that no matter the situation, or ethnic backgrounds there is always a fighting chance. The main character, Louis Zamperini, was a famous Olympian who was drafted into World War II and taken as Japanese war prisoner. Zamperini was forced through several brutal trials that help him fight stereotypes, discover his religious identity, and survive the harshness of ethnocentrism. Starting from a young age, Louis Zamperini was faced with cultural differences. His…