June 5, 2000
Documentary traces faith of POWs
___By James Dotson
___SBC North American Mission Board
___FORT WORTH (BP)--After surviving ejection from a fighter jet at 550 mph, Roger Invalson prayed in a dried-out rice paddy more than 30 years ago for Christ to "take over" his life.
___Today, he credits that relationship with carrying him and many of his fellow prisoners of war in North Vietnam through the torture and isolation that was to follow.
RETURNING PRISONERS OF WAR are greeted by family and media at Clark Air Force based in the Philippines on Feb. 12, 1973. Many of the pilots featured in a new television documentary titled "Prisoners of Hope" were among this group.
___"I had the wonderful psychological feeling that I was really pulling one over on the Vietnamese," Invalson said, describing one extended period of solitary confinement. "They thought I was in there and really suffering by being alone. (But) I had a cellmate ... the entire time I was there. And that was the Lord Jesus Christ."
___Invalson's story is one of 10 portrayed in "Prisoners of Hope," a new television documentary produced by the North American Mission Board's broadcast communications group that will air on NBC stations beginning June 21. Each man shares a similar tale, from the graphic horrors of torture and mistreatment to the strength that each found through faith in Christ.
___Bernie Hargis, producer of the documentary, said the concept grew out of another military-themed television special on Medal of Honor recipients last year titled "Valor." One of the recipients, Col. Leo Thorsness, also had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
EUGENE "RED" McDANIEL greets his wife and daughter upon his arrival at Clark Air Force base.
___"When I did his interview and he started to tell about that, I saw right away we needed to do an hour on prisoners of war," Hargis said.
___The special is one of two produced each year by NAMB for broadcast by network affiliates of ABC and NBC, which determine when to air them.
___Hargis found 10 prisoners of war--including several high-ranking officers who since have become widely known political figures--who welcomed the opportunity to openly share Christ's role in their ordeal.
___"One of the things they told me is, 'We've told this story thousands of times, and yet every time it's on television they cut out the part where we tell about God's role in it,'" Hargis said.
___The former prisoners profiled include Invalson, of Chattanooga, Tenn.; Thorsness, of Alexandria, Va.; Norm McDaniel of Fort Washington, Md.; Jeremiah Denton of Mobile, Ala.; Robinson Risner of Austin; Red McDaniel of Mount Vernon, Va.; James Mulligan of Virginia Beach, Va.; Porter Halyburton of Newport, R.I.; Fred Cherry of Washington, D.C.; and Sam Johnson of Plano.
___Hargis admitted the documentary is "a little graphic. They talk about the gruesome and unpleasant things they went through. But over and over they bring it back to the way the Lord sustained them and brought them through it. And every man told how they are a better man, a better Christian, or a better husband and father because of what they went through."
ONE OF THE POW BRACELETS Capt. James Mulligan has collected from friends and relatives who wore them as a reminder of his captivity and date of capture. (BP photos)
___Often, even small symbols of faith were enough to sustain the men.
___Halyburton told how one small ray of sunshine made its way through a crack in the wall of his cell, shining on the opposite wall for about 10 minutes each day. He fashioned a small cross out of toilet paper and glued it to the wall with glue made from rice.
___"Every day I would wait in great anticipation for this event where the sun would come through and shine on that cross," he said. "That's when I had ... my major devotional period of the day."
___Although they often were not allowed to talk, communication in the prison became a detailed system of codes, whether by tapping on the walls or by various coughs and cleared throats, according to the documentary.
___Worship and prayer also were conducted covertly. Johnson told how prisoners signaled to each other the start of Sunday morning worship by someone stomping on the floor.
___"We'd all kneel down together--even though we were by ourselves--and pray," he said. "And the strength of prayer with a group, as you know, is much stronger than just by yourselves."
___Risner, who retired as a brigadier general, echoed the statements of many of the men in describing how the experience had affected him.
___"For seven and a half years I never wondered one moment what I was doing there," he said. "The Lord was getting my attention, ... changed my life completely, and I won't ever, ever disappoint him again--not within the realms of my ability. I belong to him."
___
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