“They beat my good friend to death over the first month, on his wounds,” Gruters said. “He was only two cells away from me as he was beaten to death, screaming, many, many hours a day. It tore my heart out but also I just started food photography tutorial to get very angry.”
“I got on my knees heavy and after three months of heavy prayer, real heavy prayer, I’m talking hours a day, I could finally form just in my mind the words, ‘Lord, forgive them.’ But I didn’t mean it at all,” he said.
For anyone who broke under torture, fellow food photography tutorial prisoners signaled they were there to put you together again. Plumb and Ellis said they would tap secret messages such as a simple “hello” or “God bless you” through the prison walls.
“The quote I’ve seen that best summarizes food photography tutorial what I think courage is and what we had up there was a quote by a woman, food photography tutorial Dorothy Bernard, that I don’t even know who she is or whatever,” Gruters said, “but I saw the quote and I said that’s what it was. The quote was, ‘Courage is fear that has said its prayers.’”
“I’d bounded food photography tutorial up the stairs [of the plane to the U.S.], stopped at the top and everybody was cheering,” Plumb said. “All of Clark Air Force Base had come out to see us, and I couldn’t believe it — because, like Lee, we didn’t know what to expect.”
“When we buttoned that airplane up, and we took off and when the wheels lifted off, a pandemonium broke out — stomping the floor, cheering,” Ellis said. “It was like a high school basketball game in overtime. Everybody’s going crazy.”
Gruters, who seemed so subdued on the flight home, soared in a dance of joy at the sight of his little brother all grown up. During Gruters’ imprisonment, Peter, 13 years his junior, matured from a young boy of 11 into an 18-year-old football player.
“The amazing thing about hugging Peter was that the son-of-a-gun is stronger than I am I can’t believe it,” he said. “This kid that I beat up all my life is now strong and I can’t believe this. It was wonderful because Peter was always just such a wonderful, loving younger brother and it was just great.” food photography tutorial
Two months after the last of the POWs came home, there was a star-studded affair on the White House lawn with President Richard Nixon for 591 of the prisoners and their families. Stars such as Sammy Davis, Jr., Bob Hope and John Wayne were all there to the honor all Vietnam-era prisoners of war.
Last Thursday, 187 POWs and their families gathered at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum 40 years after that White House night to remember a time when brotherhood food photography tutorial was everything, a time before the sacrifice in Vietnam became a distant memory.
“A lot of us only had five or six friends they can really count on in a tough situation,” Gruters said. “We had 300 friends who we knew would take not just death for each other. Torture is much harder to take then death and we had 300 friends like that.”
With faces changed by time, they remembered that song called “The POW Prayer” that they sang at the first dinner so long ago. It was written by a fellow prisoner of war on a scrap of hidden toilet paper. Secretly, they learned it in prison as they dreamed of life, freedom and home.
City officials are preparing for a Retreat this week
Click to view our Community Calendar Have an event? Email production@wfjaradio.com Feb 26 Gymnastics, Lee County Parks and Recreation Mar 01 NC Symphony at the Civic Center Mar 03 Save the Date- Sanford Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Banquet Mar 03 Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Coffee Call Mar 03 Downtown Sanford, Inc. Monthly Board of Directors Meeting
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