Carlsbad’s Neil Black, 50 years after Viet war, on how he survived 7½ years as POW

Retired Air Force Maj Neil Black demonstrates prisoner code hand jive Photo by Chris Stone Times of San Diego Neil Black was blindfolded his hands bound behind him and was forced to his knees In an out-of-body experience he could see himself while a man yielded a machete over his head and villagers cursed him Now I ve seen enough movies before that and I know what they do in that kind of a situation Black thought I didn t think I was going to get back up on my feet I thought I was a dead man That wasn t the end of his life but rather one of the worst ordeals during his days of captivity the longest held enlisted-man prisoner of war during Vietnam Instead of being beheaded he was pulled to his feet and dragged past villagers who threw punches at him along the gauntlet It was for propaganda purposes as were other torture episodes says Black an -year-old Carlsbad resident As the th anniversary of the fall of Saigon was commemorated this week Black reflected on being a survivor of years of captivity in the Hanoi Hilton complex of North Vietnamese prison camps He informed how he enlisted how he kept his sanity through his faith and companionship was promoted to the rank of major and the pride in his marriage children and grandchildren He now resides comfortably in a gated public Neil Black as an Air Force pararescueman before his capture Photo courtesy of Neil Black How did he psychologically endure the ordeal starting Sept I have to say it was terrifying announced the retired Air Force officer It caused my brain to start looking upward to the heavens and knowing that you know I may not have been the best believer in God but now I m working on it and getting better Black who is Jewish carved a Star of David into his cell wall and prayed daily That s part of the reason how I stayed out of PTSD and all that he communicated Times of San Diego last week Yeah and I communicated his confinement not invariably being solitary When in solitary he tried to keep his mind occupied Even something as simple as listening to the footsteps of fellow captives and wondering where they were going I constantly ascertained things to do he stated I tried to keep busy you know I thought about the past all the things that I had done good and bad I considered what my parents were going through And I figure they were having a harder time than me And he managed to socialize with men in adjacent cells I had my moments but mostly tried to keep busy I was an ant studier I got a Ph D in ants the Southern Californian explained Yeah it was mind-blowing watching these ants He studied the arthropods patterns He killed the lead ant to see their response The others will scatter a little bit and then they ll come back and somehow they ll promote another ant in the doing the lead Tears via Hanoi Hannah He was brought to tears on occasion but not from pain Vietnamese propagandist Hanoi Hannah s broadcasts were piped into their cells She daily declared American casualties One day in while listing GI deaths she mentioned William Pitsenbarger a renowned Air Force man killed by friendly fire Black s fellow pararescueman would posthumously receive a long-delayed Medal of Honor The war hero s story is reported in the movie The Last Full Measure Black fell to his knees at the record One of the meager times I ever cried and I picked myself up and I revealed Pitts this is for you and the idea that I m going to make it out of here So that helped a lot and I was in solitary confinement for quite a while at that point He revealed he never lost hope Illness in captivity was a bit scary Retired Air Force Maj Neil Black Photo courtesy of Neil Black Black received paramedic training early in his amenity So he understood complaint but not how to treat it without medication I had a fever that would come across me at least four or five times a year he commented adding that he never saw a nurse or medical professional He certainly received medicine from a medic toward the end of the war One time he just lay on the floor until his condition improved We had a couple people that truly died while they were there Black mentioned In the beginning for exercise the -year-old did push-ups and walked in circles in his -by- -foot cell Having been a high school wrestler he was in good condition when he entered the military Once weighing he shed pounds down to on his bleak diet of bug-infested bread and sewer greens He admits to having a rebellious troubled youth with run-ins with the law Black called his overview cards very colorful It wasn t anything that anybody at any college would accept I don t care how much money went their way It wasn t for a lack of intelligence he stated Rather he didn t care His father sent him to a New Jersey prep school and after taking a longer-than-allowed Christmas break he located himself kicked out Summoned by Uncle Sam Not waiting for his father to pick him up he ran down the street and past a post office Uncle Sam wants you the military poster read Somebody literally wants me he thought Penniless and hungry he went downstairs to the recruitment offices The Air Force office was the only one open and he offered to join then and there Why so fast The recruiter demanded Black announced he explained his situation and was hungry Following a meal he signed up at Doing well on his entrance exams Black reported the recruiter suggested he was officer material Instead he was chosen to be a pararescueman and was sent to Guam for further training There he mentioned his out-of-line behavior continued when he lied about losing his ID and then claimed he was a year older so he could drink in town when the ID was replaced He was caught and spent two weeks in a Marine brig As a rescueman in Vietnam he went on missions to retrieve downed servicemen but that task proved arduous Captured in North Vietnam Then his association was sent to rescue a pilot who was shot down So we took off and got over the site where the downed pilot was We unveiled him which was the first time We had never determined a guy before and I got pretty excited North Vietnamese troops were in the same area and began shooting at his helicopter After Black fired back with his M rifle the enemy blew up the engine and his HH- B Huskie chopper plunged to the ground Black tripped and fell after getting out of the copter The rifle now covered in mud was useless He handed the craft s radio to his pilot who also slipped in the muck The antenna snapped off With about two dozen enemy soldiers descending on them the Americans ran out of options he disclosed I had a pistol but had five shots in it declared the retired officer I m looking at guys pointing their weapon at me This isn t going to work he thought I mean I can shoot until I die but I d rather come back and fight another day He survived plenty of more days spending the rest of his time in Vietnam through February being moved around sections of the prison camp and to Cu-Loc prison The Zoo Solitary confinement and abuse punctuated his captivity They call it punishment It was torture Black declared Early in his captivity he made a decision I had a choice to either live or die right And if I had that choice I m going to live but I m going to live correctly as a prisoner That meant following the military Code of Conduct and stay-put orders One day he was pulled into an interrogation room and sought if he craved to go home I m not going home before the wounded and those that were captured before me he stated his captors He was punished for embarrassing the enemy officer But such brave behavior prompted U S officers in the prison to promote him to second lieutenant Failing on six escape tries Black came up with escape plans during his confinement I had six attempts over the years to try to get out he admitted And for good reason I failed on every one of them because I perhaps would have died gotten killed But he and his cellmate were part of one triumphant escape They had gotten word that two other prisoners planned to escape one night The missive came via a message attached to a rock thrown into his area The other prisoners requested that they knock out the light near their cell to aid the escape His cellmate threw his sandal and broke it The pair did get over the prison wall and walked downtown but were captured One of them a -foot- man who stood out in a population of shorter stature people was water-tortured and died during interrogation The other suffered a pretty damn good beating but lived to be circulated at the end of the war For their part in the escape scheme Black and his cellmate were stripped naked and beaten with rubber hoses Being a social person Black explained he did much better in captivity when he could communicate with other prisoners first through tapping on an adjoining wall Prisoners devised a tap code to spell out the alphabet to communicate This day more than a half-century since his release Black is still well-versed in the tapping code and hand signs which they called hand jive When American soldiers were placed in cells with about a dozen other prisoners they could help each other Retired Air Force Maj Neil Black lives in a Carlsbad gated neighborhood Photo by Chris Stone Times of San Diego We hit everybody up for whatever information we could get out of them he announced One cellmate an MIT graduate who d been on track to become an astronaut became a math tutor for Black Algebra a module he flunked in high school was a puzzle for him and his cellmate helped him understand it while writing equations on the floor with concrete He passed the tests his tutor devised Later the cellmate taught him calculus which he was pleased to get his head around He gave me examples of what he was talking about and I d think about it you know under my mosquito net in my head get a mental picture exactly how these things worked the veteran disclosed and he would test me at the end of one session and I d go through the calculus equations and they were right Met John McCain afterward Black never ran into John McCain a -year prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton H a L Prison but was aware of the future Arizona senator s presence Later Black worked in one of McCain s presidential campaigns I met him when we got home he explained I became his Pennsylvania state campaign chairman when he ran against George W Bush the first time and lost in the primary His release in followed the signing of the Paris Peace Accords Black was ready to business in his pajama-like prison clothing for a second-lieutenant s uniform Instead he was handed a tech sergeant s jacket That didn t sit well He had hoped to be made captain following his Vietnam amenity and took his circumstance to higher-ups His superiors had connections to the White House and President Richard Nixon ended up giving him and two fellow enlisted men direct commissions He was now a second lieutenant Rather than say goodbye to the military after captivity s mental and physical abuse Black decided to be a pilot after first having big plans to go to UCLA with the extra money he gained as a POW He had heard stories from other servicemen about their flight adventures and wished in on that Oh yeah I want to fly fighters Black declared I ve been around it enough hearing these guys talk you know going through their motions with their hands jumping out of airplanes was you know energetic Flying an airplane upside down would be great So that s what I required to do Black earned his wings and clocked in more than hours He went on to receive bachelor and master s degrees in political science and had a minor in Russian He had contemplated assignments for the Center Intelligence Agency but decided to forgo that After working as a military trainer and an operations officer with the U S military liaison mission to the Soviet forces in East Germany he joined Morris Black and Sons of Allentown Pennsylvania a building supply business started by his grandfather He has studied the Vietnam War which ended years ago Wednesday looking at the whys about how it ended that way I was disappointed that we lost he revealed I saw the reason why we got into it because the code back then was stopping the spread of communism the domino theory And unfortunately we didn t understand the whole situation we didn t know much about the history of that area and we didn t think about the French and how they lost that war up north and for practically the same reason that we had to withdraw But he also put a lot of blame on the media Black thought it was terrible hearing that returning utility members were spat on up there in San Francisco area and whatnot He retired in as a major with years of amenity His honors included the Air Force Cross the Defense Superior Facility Medal the Legion of Merit the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart In the meantime his personal life blossomed At he met his future wife Vicki who has been at his side for years They brought a twin boy and girl into the world Now he has grandchildren Impressed by Honor Flight Black returned Sunday from a San Diego Honor Flight trip to Washington D C to visit military monuments The spirit of the weekend and camaraderie of fellow soldiers impressed him along with the well-oiled organization During mail call on the flight over he read a letter from his wife She mentioned You know we ve had a terrific and it s going to years hope to have and and commented you ve been you know the best husband that could be there You ve been great for your kids and think about you every minute of every day Indeed when inquired what he was proudest of in his life he first mentioned his military achievements But in the next breath he noted I also take a lot of pride in having a fruitful marriage a achieving family His hardships and successes have given me the sensation that whatever I do whatever I get involved in I can do it and do it well How was he able to survive more than hours as a prisoner of war I think God gave me a chance he noted You know I think God has looked upon my past before that and I think that I m not going to say God put me there It s a matter of circumstance but I think that getting through it God revealed OK I ll give you another chance That s what I think