John Slattery & Mary McCormack Tell Carlyle Harris' Story

- Here to share the story of one of those former POWs, Air Force Pilot, Carlyle Smitty Harris and his wife Louise, are acclaimed actors John Slattery and Mary McCormack.

(gentle music) - I loved flying.

During the Korean War I enlisted in the Air Force and came back an instructor pilot.

You go out on a lot of dates as a young airman.

Then I met Louise.

I introduced her to some friends as Jane by mistake.

- I came right back and said, "Yeah Tarzan, you better get my name right."

I knew Smitty was committed to Air Force life and I knew what I'd signed up for.

By the time we were sent to Okinawa we had two beautiful girls and I was eight months pregnant.

- It was April of '65.

Our first big target was a bridge used by the North Vietnamese as part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

I fired my missiles right at the center of the bridge.

Perfect sight, perfect angle, perfect air speed.

But I didn't get very far.

One of the enemy gunners scored a hit on my engine.

The whole plane was burning, so I ejected.

I went from fire and noise and chaos into absolute silence.

I passed from the known into the unknown.

I landed in a large Vietnamese village and was captured immediately.

They stripped off all my gear down to my shorts and I was shoved onto the backseat of a truck with an armed guard next to me.

That was the last thing I saw before I was blindfolded.

- My phone rang about five o'clock in the morning.

It was my mother.

She said, "We've just heard Smitty's been shot down in Southeast Asia."

The next thing I knew the casualty office was knocking on my door.

They told me Smitty was considered missing in action.

I said to myself, "He's still alive because if he weren't, I would know it."

- The prison was called a Lò.

It meant hell hole.

Later our POWs called it the Hanoi Hilton.

(surreal music) The cell was seven by seven.

The stench took my breath away.

Every day and night there were interrogations.

I got knocked all over the place because I wouldn't answer their questions.

I remember the pain of iron shackles at the foot of the bunk.

Sometimes a heavy iron bar was added on top.

My hands were tied behind me.

I prayed for the pain to end.

The realization sank in that I wasn't going home to my family, not today, not tomorrow.

Maybe never.

- Smitty had been missing for 38 days when I went into labor.

I drove myself to the hospital in Okinawa.

45 minutes later, Carlyle Smith Harris Jr. was born.

My tears of joy were tinged with sadness that Smitty wasn't there to greet his son.

But I refused to go to dark places.

I thought, "If Smitty can do what he's doing I can handle this."

- After months in solitary, I was joined by four other POWs in this eight cell unit.

The guards would punish us if we talked.

I remembered our instructor back in Escape and Evasion School telling us how English POWs during World War II exchanged messages by tapping on a water pipe.

By chance, I knew the tap code alphabet and taught it to the others.

We tapped all the time, for connection and humor, to share about our families.

It saved our sanity and helped us resist.

Through the tap code, we developed a brotherhood.

Guys would come back from a torture session and the first thing they would hear is G-B-U on the cell wall: God bless you, to know they weren't alone.

I heard it myself.

I might be in the fetal position, but I heard it.

- I barely recognized Smitty when I finally saw his picture, the one taken the Hanoi March.

Seeing him alive was such a relief but it was also terrifying.

- They handcuffed us together in twos and marched us through the main square of Hanoi.

The crowd had been whipped up into a frenzy of hate.

They wanted blood.

We were beat up as we went down the narrow streets.

It went on and on for two miles.

Things in the camps got worse after that.

Summer of 1969 became known as the summer of horror.

- We were told not to say anything about Smitty's situation outside of immediate family or it might affect his treatment.

It was difficult, but I didn't want anything I said or did to reflect on what was happening to Smitty.

- When I was shot down, I weighed 165.

Dysentery dropped me to less than 90 pounds.

My tap code brothers passed the word onto our senior ranking officer.

Because all my fellow POWs stood up for me and threatened to revolt, I was given medicine.

Every man who demanded help for me knew he might be tortured, but they did it anyway.

- Over the eight years, Smitty was a POW, I had one prayer, "Let him come back home."

(hopeful music) The only place I could allow my grief and fear and sadness to spill out was alone in the bathroom.

I would stand up and wipe away my tears.

I had to be strong for our children.

- The last day at Hanoi Airport after the Paris Peace Agreements were announced, we marched out to the ramp in military formation.

Our captors hated that.

None of us knew what we might face at home.

When we landed there were 2,000 people cheering and waving American flags.

Our release was the only good news that had come out of Vietnam.

- The night before Smitty came home, I looked in the mirror and wondered, have I changed in the last eight years?

Deep down, I knew I wasn't the same.

I was tougher, stronger.

As I waited for Smitty to call, I prayed, "Please make him say something that lets me know he feels the way I do."

- It just popped out of me.

I said, "Hi, Jane.

This is Tarzan."

(audience laughs) - And it was perfect, just perfect.

- First time I met my eight year old son was at Maxwell Air Force Base.

Hugging him and my two girls, it was a taste of heaven.

- Not everyone was as lucky.

Other returning POWs found their wives had left them or they ended up divorced in the first year.

Too many of them didn't come back at all.

- Some died in captivity, some by suicide.

In my mind, they all died in action.

We've lost so many more in recent years.

People like Bud Day.

Last time Louise and I saw him, he was in hospice care.

He grabbed my hand and tapped on the back G-B-U.

I knew it was his way of saying we were brothers in arms and loved each other.

With these brothers I don't have to put it into words.

I don't have to try to explain or describe or decipher.

They were there.

- They gave their all to keep the things we believe in alive.

- [Both] God bless you.

(dramatic music) (audience applauds) - Thank you, John and Mary.

Colonel Harris and Louise had planned to be here but for health reasons were unable to travel.

They sent this message to share with everyone.

- Thank you so much for honoring us on this day and a special thanks for honoring all the men and women of our armed forces who fought and did not come home from Vietnam.

And you honor their families as well.

We wish we could be there with you but unfortunately we cannot, but we are with you there in spirit.

God bless you.

- And we do.

(audience applauds) (dramatic music)