The following is a copy of a speech given to the
Washington State Senate by then Sen. Leo Thorness.
A little background. Leo Thorsness was a POW in Vietnam and a Congressional
Medal of Honor Recipient. The rest speaks for its self.
I am deeply honored to have met this Leo on several occasions and able to pass
this strong message on. I would love to meet the Mike mentioned in this story.
Next time you see someone burning or defacing our Flag please remember this.
Chuck /Sarge
MIKE’s FLAG
by: Leo K. Thorsness
Only once have I exercised my personal privilege
in the Senate chambers to relate as incident from my confinement as a POW in
North Vietnam at the Hoa Lo prison camp. The treatment has been frequently brutal
at the “Hnaoi Hilton” as it became known. but after six years the
beatings and torture that were once routine became less and less frequent.
During the last year, we were allowed outside most
days for a couple of minutes to Bathe. We showered by drawing water from a concrete
tank with a homemade rubber bucket. One day as we all stood stripped of our
clothes by the tank, Mike, a younger naval aviator, found the remnants of an
old handkerchief in a gutter that ran under the prison wall.
Mike managed to sneak the grimy rag into our cell
and began fashioning it into a flag. Over times we all leant him a little soap
and he spent days cleaning it. Although it was just a grey and tattered piece
of cloth, we all stole bits and pieces of anything red and blue. At night, under
his mosquito net, Mike worked on the flag.
With thread from his one blanket and a homemade
bamboo needle, he sewed on stars. He made red and blue from ground up roof tiles,
medicine; anything we could scrounge or steal. With watery rice glue, he painted
them onto the cloth.
Early in the morning a few days later — when
the guards were not alert — he whispered loudly from the back of his cell.
“Hey gang, look here.” He proudly held up this tattered piece of cloth
waving it as if in a breeze. If you used a lot of imagination, you could kind
of tell it was supposed to be an American Flag. When he held up that grimy rag,
we automatically saluted as our chests puffed out and more than a few eyes had
tears.
About once a week the guards would strip our clothes,
run us outside and go through our clothing. During one of these shakedowns they
found Mike’s flag. We all knew what would happen. That night they came for Mike.
Night interrogations were always the worst. they opened the cell door, and pulled
him out. We could hear the beginning of the torture before they even had him
into the torture cell. They “bent” him most of the night. About daylight
they pushed what was left of him back through the cell door. He was badly broken,
even his voice was gone.
Within two weeks, Mike had scrounged another piece
of cloth and began making another flag — you see, Mike was that kind of American.
I related this story on the floor of the Senate to illustrate the power of a
symbol, the power of the U.S. Flag.
Some people believe we must be able to destroy
our flag to prove we are free. Mike believed we must protect our flag to prove
we are free.