Editor’s note: Retired Air Force Col. Lee Ellis was a Vietnam prisoner of war along with such American heroes as Sen. John McCain, Orson Swindle, and Vice Adm. James Stockdale, as well many others, for five years. He describes here his first gift from home.

I had been in captivity already for two and a half years by the time I received my first package from home at the Hanoi Hilton. The guards spread the already opened, thoroughly searched contents of the prescribed “six-pound package” before me on the table. I stared longingly at the food items, vitamins, warm socks and pictures of my family.