Prisoners of War (POWs): In international law, term used to designate incarcerated members of the armed forces of an enemy, or noncombatants who render them direct service and who have been captured during wartime.1
This definition is a very loose interpretation of the meaning of Prisoners of War (POWs). POWs throughout history have received harsh and brutal treatment. Prisoners received everything from torture to execution. However, in recent times efforts have been made to reduce these treatments and to get humane treatment for POWs. These attempts include the Geneva Convention of 1949. Unfortunately, during the Vietnam Conflict, these “rules” of war were not always obeyed, as they are now.
The Geneva Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoner of War, signed August 12, 1949, provided restrictions and obligations that a country with captured enemy POWs must meet and abide by. These obligations consisted of feeding, clothing, medical treatment, mail, and delivery of parcels from prisoners.
The official tally of American POWs who were captured by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) during the Vietnam War totaled 766, and of these 114 died while in captivity2. Those that died were many times deprived of both medication and sufficient food or facilities, and were also ravaged by many diseases that affected the Americans.
The guards and cadre refused to accept the fact that adequate food was all that was necessary to reduce if not eliminate the malnutrition and disease among the POW’s. How many times I had heard, “the Front provides adequately for your livelihood.”3
The Vietnamese prison guards and higher ranking officers (cadre) sometimes did not understand why the American prisoners had trouble eating rice and developed “rice rejection” This was more of a mental instability than a physical disease. The prisoners also routinely developed dysentery, beri beri, and sometimes suffered from constant massive dehydration.
The food that the POWs had available was very little and almost always consisted of a large portion of rice because rice was the major staple crop for the Vietnamese. The American prisoners had a very tough time adjusting to this new diet though. Another of the main parts of any prisoner’s meal was nouc mam. This was a native Vietnamese dish that is...
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....s Tell Their Stories (New York: Norton, 1975) 138.
8 Grant, ix.
9 Rowe, p. 209-210.
10 Tom Philpott, Glory Denied: The Saga of Vietnam Veteran Jim Thompson, America’s Longest-Held Prisoner of War (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001) xix.
11 Rowe, 438.
12 Rowe, 441.
13 “Prisoners of War (POWs)”
A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces of the United States” as found in McConnell.
“Prisoners of War (POWs)”. Microsoft Encarta online encyclopedia. http://encarta.msn.com/.
“Summary of Vietnam Casualty Statistics”. VVA Chapter 172. http://www.vietnamwall.org/pdf/casualty.pdf.
Grant, Zalin. Survivors: Vietnam P.O.W.s Tell Their Stories. New York: Norton, 1975.
McConnell, Malcolm. Into the Mouth of the Cat. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1985.
Philpott, Tom. Glory Denied: The Saga of Vietnam Veteran Jim Thompson, America’s Longest-Held Prisoner of War. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.
Rowe, James N. Five Years to Freedom: The True Story of a Vietnam POW. The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1971.
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo, is an exceptional autobiography on a man's first-hand experiences during the Vietnam War. Philip Caputo is a Lieutenant during the Vietnam War and illustrates the harsh reality of what war really is. Caputo's in-depth details of his experience during the war are enough to make one cringe, and the eventual mental despair often experienced by soldiers (including Caputo) really makes you feel for participants taking part in this dreadful war atmosphere. Giving way to the parties and the common fun associated with college kids, Caputo failed out of college and realized what he really wanted to be was a Marine. He joined the Marines and went through a lot of officer training until he eventually reached what would be known as his final rank of Lieutenant. Introduced to the Vietnam War in 1965 as a Platoon leader, Caputo walked into the war a little scared but with a lot of determination. Caputo started the war with a lot of field work including jungle expeditions and shooting escapades, and eventually was sent to keep track of the everyday deaths occurring during the war and all the paperwork associated with such a job. Later he was put back in charge of a platoon which eventually lead to his downfall following an unethical order he gave his men that resulted in the killing of a couple Vietnamese pedestrians believed to be part of the Viet Cong. Caputo was acquitted of all charges and was given a letter of reprimand from the general. About ten years later he continued his Marine endeavors as he reported to Vietnam and witnessed the surrender of the Saigon Government to the Communist North Vietnamese. Caputo's war experience was plagued by...
Wallace Terry has collected a wide range of stories told by twenty black Vietnam veterans. The stories are varied based on each experience; from the horrific to the heart breaking and to the glorified image of Vietnam depicted by Hollywood. Wallace Terry does not insinuate his opinion into any of the stories so that the audience can feel as if they are having a conversation with the Vietnam Veteran himself. Terry introduces the purpose of the book by stating, “ Among the 20 men who portray their war and postwar experiences in this book. I sought a representative cross section of the black combat force.”(p. XV) Although the stories in this book were not told in any specific order, many themes became prominent throughout the novel such as religion, social, and health.
In 1942, groups of people were taken from all of the camps and sent to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway. In 1864 the Geneva Convention was formed internationally. The Convention laid down rules concerning the treatment and protection of prisoners during wartime. The Japanese did not follow this Convention as they continuously mistreated many prisoners, including Australian troops/soldiers and civilian prisoners. The Japanese saw the prisoners in camps as people who surrendered, therefore they were considered weak and cowardly because of a belief that the Japanese held that soldiers should die out respect for their emperor and country, known as the Bushido Code.
Neilson, Jim. Warring Fictions: American Literary Culture and the Vietnam War Narrative. Jackson: Mississippi UP, 1998
Even though Little Saigon provided Vietnamese American with economic benefit, political power, this landmark also witnessed many difficulties that Vietnamese experienced. Vietnamese American experienced many traumatic events prior to migration such as war, journey on boats, therefore many of them suffered posttraumatic stress disorder, stress, and depression. Significantly, Vietnamese refugees who went to the re-education camps sustained torture, humiliation, deprivation, brainwashing and several other punishments from Vietnamese Communist. Those refugees have higher rates of having mental disorder. Language barrier is another obstacle that...
The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick
In her story Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs presents what life was like living as a female slave during the 19th century. Born into slavery, she exhibits, to people living in the North who thought slaves were treated fairly and well, how living as a slave, especially as a female slave during that time, was a heinous and horrible experience. Perhaps even harder than it was if one had been a male slave, as female slaves had to deal with issues, such as unwanted sexual attention, sexual victimization and for some the suffering of being separated from their children. Harriet Jacobs shows that despite all of the hardship that she struggled with, having a cause to fight for, that is trying to get your children a better life
Throughout American history there have been many horrific tragedies and events that have impacted the country and its citizens but none can be compared to the evils of slavery. This “peculiar institution” was the fate of millions of African Americans who were subject to cruelty and contempt by their owners and society. They were treated as if they were animals whose only purpose in life was to please their white owners. It is shameful to know that it was condoned as a “necessary evil” and lasted for over two hundred years in North America. In the beginning, the public did not know the truth behind a slave’s life and the obstacles they endured and overcome to survive it. However, the reality is revealed in slave narratives of who lived during that time and wrote of their experiences. They tell the unheard truths of their masters’ cruelty and the extent it was given to all victims of slavery. In the slave narrative, Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, she focuses on the torment of being a female in slavery and why it was a much worse fate than being a male slave.
The Vietnam War brought more than fifty-eight thousand deaths and is to some one of the darkest battles in United States history. If not killed during the war, many believe any Vietnam veteran would return home great and proud. But this is not the case. Many Vietnam veterans have committed suicide before, during, and after the war.
Chinese labor camps were created in the 1950s by the Kuomintang as a way to get free labor out of Chinese civilians. When civilians were sent to prison, some would stay in prison and others would go to the labor camps. Prisoners were sent to the labor camps as a way to become reformed through a system they called, “re-education through labor.” In the 1950s, prisoners were sent to Chinese labor camps in order to get a “re-education through labor” and hopefully, come out of the system as better and more productive members of society; but after learning about the Laogai system more in depth, they have not become better and more productive members of society. There were approximately 350 Chinese labor camps . The Kuomintang would sentence Chinese civilians who had committed minor offenses and could be reformed to become a better person for the society. The camps that the prisoners had to live in were very unsanitary. Diseases spread like wildfire and their diets were horrendous. Although no one had spoken up and tried to stop the labor camps, the Laogai system violated The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Third Geneva Convention was signed on July 27, 1929 at Geneva, Switzerland. It was made to protect the human rights of Prisoners of War (POW). These laws apply from the moment a combatant is imprisoned until the POW is released. The main point of this Convention was to protect the Prisoners of Wars from physical and mental torture. Because of this law, torturing to prisoners was illegal and wrong on an international level. It states that prisoners should not be forced to reveal any other information related to their identity (i.e. military unit, home town, address, relatives).
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When somebody reflects the hardships of slavery, they typically think solely of the treatment towards African Americans. What most people are not aware of is how women were treated, whether they were of color or not. In Harriet Jacobs book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she explains “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own.” The cruel treatment towards female slaves and the struggles held by Southern women during the Civil war are disregarded by the majority of people today, even though it is a significant part of American history and still affects society. Slaveholders would often rape and impregnate their slave women, and then never let the women care for their mixed children. Actions like this contribute to prostitution today, yet people still do not consider prostitution a form of slavery. These truths are tangible today due to African American authors Susie King Taylor and Kate Stone. Thankfully, white abolitionist women such as Ida B. Wells and Mary Chesnut were around to stand up for slaves and women.
Effects of Far East Imprisonment in World War II.” Oxfordjournals.org. Oxford University Press, 14 Oct. 2008. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as