Quotes about POWs

Malcolm Nance

To help students steel themselves for captivity, SERE used a variety of 'stress and duress' techniques. The military's encyclopedic knowledge of these techniques was paid for in American blood because it was gleaned from former POWs tortured by totalitarian regimes. One technique, waterboarding, was a historically well-known torture.

Robert Rogers

If you are fortunate enough to take a prisoner, keep him separate so that he may be examined.

First American Military Manual. Roger’s Rangers of the French & Indian War were the first using unconventional warfare and invented the “deep raid” when they went in stealth all the way to Quebec and defeated the Abnaki Indians in their home village rather than defend against the Indians’ & French coordinated attacks on upper York State. Rogers was portrayed by Spencer Tracy in the film Northwest Passage depicting the raid.

Michael M. Honda

They Should Have Their Day In Court

Francis Lieber

Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers - such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.

Lieber was assigned by President Lincoln to study the then international laws of war and prepare a manual for the guidance of union troops in the Civil War. Lincoln then issued the document as a general order. This particular article is particularly relevant to the modern war on terrorism where there is criticism of the treatment of captured terrorists. There are some who argue that they should be treated as prisoners of war. However, under the principles of this article, they specifically ought not to be so treated. Incidentally, highway robbers and pirates at the time were hanged.

Charles B. Rangel

In the battle of Kunu-ri, more than 5,000 American soldiers were killed, wounded or taken as prisoners of war. Ninety percent of my unit was killed.

Janis Karpinski

There was a military police brigade with over 3,400 soldiers getting ready to go home because their mission - prisoner-of-war operations - was finished.

Bo Gritz

Still I was concerned that politics would get between us and our POWs.

Lester Tenny

If you fell down, you were dead.

The prisoners would be beaten and cut with swords. If they fell down, they would be bayoneted or beheaded as shown in the graphic—an actual photograph of the time.

Bo Gritz

The fact is that the Vietnamese held Americans after 1973.

Bo Gritz

I went overseas hoping to prove that all our POWs were home. I came back convinced that they were still alive.

Bret Stephens

Among the events of John McCain's five-and-a-half years of imprisonment and torture in North Vietnam, probably the most heroic, and surely the most celebrated, was his refusal to accept an early release from his captors.

Martin Scorsese

I remember the Korean War very well. And I remember the soldiers who were POWs who supposedly were "brainwashed," quote, unquote, who gave in, so to speak. And when they came back, they were treated like pariahs and traitors.

Vaughn R. Walker

The immeasurable bounty of life for themselves [the POWs] and their posterity in a free society services the debt.

It was a very controversial decision with which many disagreed. See .

Bo Gritz

The final effort came when our reconnaissance team reported contact with the POWs and their guards by radio near midnight at a pre-arranged crossing site.

POWs Quotes