For 2,176 days, Colonel John Clark was held captive in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" as a P.O.W. during the Vietnam War. He endured starvation, a deadly sickness, and mental and physical torture at the hands of the enemy. To his family, he was reported MIA, presumed dead. A Note from the Author: Although the subject of prisoner of war experiences in Vietnam is well covered, each story is different. They are individual stories told in different ways and of each man’s survival, mentally and physically, of personal reflections, tests of faith, personal stories of tortured minds and bodies, and their recoveries or deaths. All of them told by those who lived it, but they are not my story. My story is now to be told. Growing up and attending school in Columbia, Missouri, I spent summers in the hills of northern Missouri on my dad’s farm, learning life isn’t always good, but it’s always worth living. There is a drifting faith in God that becomes lost and is reborn in the quest for strength and survival. Stories, about which I could not speak for many years, are told in the detail they were lived. The reader will understand the value of overcoming hardship and challenges to life, see living as an American in a new context, and examine strength in faith in God and unity. All of this is told with a touch of self-deprecation, humor and a rollercoaster of moods and experiences. Younger audiences are intrigued by the covert aspects, the action and the shootdown. More mature audiences ponder the mental processes of survival under the stresses of torture and deprivation. Could “I have survived that?” they ask themselves, while the most mature of my audiences whose life experiences may themselves involve the times, pose questions about what they hear me say that confirms or contradicts that which was told to them or they experienced during their youthful, perhaps anti-war, life. My story is written for everyone, even vets, for there is no better audience for a war story than another veteran. There is no hero here, only an American warrior who survived and came home with honor. College of the Ozarks' unique Patriotic Education Travel Program sends Veterans and students back to the battlefields where the Veterans fought, which becomes a classroom like no other. All book proceeds go to support The Patriotic Education Travel Program.
