Election 2008: Former POW vouches for McCain's courage

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Election 2008: Former POW vouches for McCain's courage
By CHELSI MOY of the Missoulian



Before delivering a speech to a packed room of Montana Republicans, Retired Navy Capt. Rod Knutson promised his wife that he wouldn't discuss the torture he suffered as a prisoner of war during Vietnam - an experience he shares with fellow former POW John McCain.

“People have passed out face-first in their plates and gotten sick,” said Knutson, who spoke during a luncheon on Friday at the state Republican Party convention at the Hilton Garden Inn. “They've cried and it's ruined the rest of their lunch.”

The 69-year-old Thompson Falls man isn't particularly political or partisan. He won't talk about the issues concerning the United States and typically keeps to himself. What Knutson had to offer, however, was perspective. He vouched for the bravery and heroism of the Arizona senator who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and left it up to the audience to decide whether someone with these character traits is someone that they want as commander-in-chief.

“I'm an expert at judging personalities of former POWs,” said Knutson, who told a compelling tale about his 88 months as a POW. “I'm talking about myself because I know my story better than John McCain's, but John McCain went through a similar circumstance.

“I feel I'm a better person because of it. I'm a stronger person because of it. I love my country more because of it. I'm more patriotic because of it. And if you ask John McCain that same question, I can't help but think he'd give you the same answers.”

In October 1965, the fighter jet Knutson was flying was shot three times. The aircraft erupted in flames and Knutson ejected above North Vietnam, fracturing his neck and back, and dislocating a knee upon landing.

He imagines it's much like getting hit by a freight train.

Shots rang out. He landed in a firefight. Knutson managed to kill two people before losing consciousness. When he awoke, he was in a prison camp.

For 7 1/2 years, Knutson “never kissed a girl,” he said. “I never had a glass of whiskey. I didn't have a dessert. I never rode a horse and I never saw a child.” For much of that time, Knutson's parents didn't know he was alive. The first six months, Knutson was in solitary confinement.

The audience's silence was deafening as he spoke.

“I was the first prisoner tortured during Vietnam,” he said. It was within an inch of his life.

By the time McCain was captured two years later, Knutson knew how things operated at the internment camps. He knew to keep a low profile and say little. As Knutson describes it, “I was nobody when I arrived in Vietnam.”

The same could not be said for McCain, the son of a four-star Navy admiral.

“They focused their attention on him,” he said.

The two POWs communicated somewhat and knew of each other. They were never in the same cell together, but were in adjacent ones, he said.

When everything was taken away - freedom, clothes, even their birth names - the POWs gravitated toward one another for strength. They become a society, a family.

“All prisoners of war become the same person,” he said. “We became very patriotic. I'm an American, and by God, I'm proud to be an American.”

There's nothing today that Knutson regrets about the Vietnam War, which makes it hard for him to understand the protests and criticisms of the war.

“I'm not going to address what's going on today in the world, but I understand that those of us who were a POW and impassioned with patriotism and so love our country and who promised our comrades that if we got out of this hole and we go back to the country we love, we'll work hard to keep it that way.”

He believes McCain will do just that.

Knutson was released on Feb. 12, 1973.

After his speech, Knutson was surrounded by well-wishers, people who thanked him for his sacrifices and those who wished he'd share his heroic story with others.
Missoulian: Election 2008: Former POW vouches for McCain's courage