The Mike Christian Story

Over at the fracas blog, I’d said I was hard pressed to find a better Remembrance Day/Veteran’s Day salute than the Terry Kelly video, and so, like last year, I chose to share it with my readers.

And then… I was reading over at the LA Times, and found this:

Sen. John McCain: “Just about every day, but especially on Veterans Day, I think of a guy I was in prison with a long time ago. For a few years we were in Hanoi and prison camps in North Vietnam. They kept us in solitary confinement, two or three to a cell.

“They finally moved us into large cells, 20 or 25 prisoners in each cell. The guy that moved in with me was a guy named Mike Christian. Mike was from a small town near Selma, Alabama.

“Very poor family. Enlisted in the Navy at age 17. Later became an A6 bombardier/ navigator. Was shot down and captured.

“He loved this country. I moved in the same room with him. The uniform we wore in prison was blue, like, short-sleeved shirt, like, pajama trousers, and shoes — sandals that were cut out of automobile tires.

“I recommend them highly. One pair lasted me five and a half years.

(Laughter.)

“Part of this change in treatment, they let us have some packages from home in which were small items — some of us — like a handkerchief or a scarf. He took his blue shirt, fashioned himself a bamboo needle, got a piece of white cloth, piece of red cloth, and sewed the American flag on the inside of his shirt.

“Every evening before we would have our bowl of soup, we would put his flag — his shirt on the wall of the cell and pledge our allegiance to the country.

“It was an important part of our day.

“One day the Vietnamese came, searched the cell, found his shirt, removed it, came back that night — and I’m telling it fast — opened the door of the cell, called for him to come out, closed the door of the cell, and beat him very badly for a couple hours.

“Then they threw him back into the cell. The cell in which we slept had a concrete slab, light bulbs in all four corners, naked light bulbs. We cleaned Mike up as well as we could.

“I went over to lie down on the concrete and go to sleep. And I happened to look over in the corner of the cell, and underneath the lightbulb, with a piece of white cloth and a piece of red cloth and his bamboo needle, was Mike, with his eyes almost shut from the beating that he had received, sewing another American flag.

“He wasn’t doing that for us. He was doing it for his country. He wasn’t doing it for himself. He was doing it for his country and our ability to pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.

“I’ll never forget Mike Christian.”

I wanted to know more about Mike Christian, and it didn’t take long to find the story corroborated at this site (with permission) and also via this video (of McCain telling the story) at youtube. I also found Mike Christian’s biography over at P.O.W. NETWORK, learning that he died in 1983 in a house fire.

Name: Michael Durhan Christian
Rank/Branch: O2/US Navy
Unit: Attack Squadron 85, USS KITTY HAWK
Date of Birth: 07 October 1940
Home City of Record: Huntsville AL
Date of Loss: 24 April 1967
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 212400N 1061900E (XJ364667)
Status (in 1973): Released POW
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: A6A
Other Personnel in Incident: Lewis I. Williams, Jr. (released POW)

Williams and Christian were held in various locations in Hanoi, North Vietnam before they were released in March 1973.

Lt. Williams remained in the Navy and attained the rank of Captain. In 1989, his duty assignment was with the office of the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Lt. Christian was promoted during his captivity to the rank of Lt. Commander. He voluntarily retired on February 1, 1978 while at the Armed Forces Staff College. His resignation was as a protest to president-elect Jimmy Carter’s amnesty plan for draft dodgers. In protest, Christian threw his medals on the grave of a veteran. He had been awarded two Silver Stars, three Bronze Stars, four Air Medals, the Legion of Merit, and the Navy Commendation Medal.

In September 1983, Michael D. Christian died in a fire in his home in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Williams and Christian were among 591 lucky Americans who were released in 1973 from Vietnam prisoner of war camps. Unfortunately, nearly 2300 are still prisoner, missing and otherwise unaccounted for from the Vietnam war. As Williams must surely be aware, thousands of reports relating to these men have been received by the U.S. Government. The thought that some of their comrades are still alive is very disturbing to most returnees. They had a code among them that none of them could honorably return home unless they all came home. Today, many authorities who have reviewed the largely classified information relating to missing Americans in Southeast Asia have reluctantly concluded that hundreds of Americans remain alive today in captivity. It’s long past time our men were home.

More of Michael Christian’s biography here.

And so, while as a Canadian, I don’t  Pledge Allegiance to the same flag as Senator McCain or Michael Christian, I will never again stand before your flag without, like Senator McCain, taking a moment to remember Michael Christian and the ones sung about in Terry Kelly’s song, A Pittance of Time.

It takes courage to fight in your own war.
It takes courage to fight someone else’s war.
Our peacekeepers tell of their own living hell.
They bring hope to foreign lands that hate mongers can’t kill.

Take two minutes, would you mind?
It’s a pittance of time,
For the boys and the girls who go over.
In peacetime our best still don battle dress
And lay their lives on the line.
It’s a pittance of time…

Please take two minutes to go watch the video.