For six-and-a-half years, Air Force Col. Thomas McNish did not know when his captivity in a North Vietnamese prison would end after his F-105 was shot down while on a bombing raid in 1966. For the former prisoner of war, waiting out the coronavirus pandemic is easy.
“I had no idea how long I was going to be there the day I was shot down,” McNish, 77, told the Washington Examiner by phone from his home in San Antonio, where like other local veterans, he is sheltering in place.
“Throughout that whole time, there was total uncertainty as when. I was always convinced that I was going to get home, so if didn’t enter the picture,” he added.
Riding out the coronavirus with his wife at home hasn’t changed his life much, the 30-year military veteran said. And he is certainly mentally prepared for the wait.
“Having been a prisoner of war, I think, makes me a lot more able to deal with the issue of the uncertainty of how long this is going to last,” he said. “It’s interesting seeing people so heavily affected by the uncertainty of exactly when the COVID issue is going to end. ‘I’ve got to know. I’ve got to know — when’s it going to be over?’”
He added: “I smile because it is unknowable, except we definitely know that it is going to be over.”
During four months of solitary confinement after he was first captured near Hanoi, McNish said all he had was his memories and his imagination.
“I had to be at ease with it when I was in prison, or I would never have survived the whole time,” he said.
McNish said the serenity prayer helped him get through days confined in a 10-by-10 cell or crowded with 50 other POWs once he was transferred to the “Hanoi Hilton” from 1970 until his release in 1974.
“‘The serenity to accept what you can’t change, the courage to change what you can, and the wisdom to know the difference’ fits so importantly into that situation and to this situation,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to defeat this virus, but you need some serenity to understand that it can’t be done instantaneously.”
After the Vietnam War, McNish went on to earn his master’s degree in public health from Emory University School of Medicine and rose to the rank of chief of field medicine for the Air Force surgeon general in 1988 and command surgeon for the Air Force Reserve from 1991 until his retirement in 1994.
The veteran said home isolation now doesn’t stress him out either.
He and his wife have weekly Zoom calls with their three adult children and seven grandchildren, and he still has “face-to-face” visits with the families of two of his children who live in town, waving and shouting from the driveway while they stand on the porch.
“In a prison cell, I had no books to read. All I had was my memory and my imagination,” he said. But now, he has “limitless movies and shows to watch every night with my wife, and fortunately, we love being together. So, in some ways, it isn’t really much of a punishment for us.”
McNish admits those without a companion are probably having a harder time, as are those who have lost income. He and his wife continue to pay a housemaid, even though she cannot make visits.
“I think there are a lot of good things that are going to come out of this, as long as we can successfully overcome the economic challenges that it’s created,” he said. Then, with characteristic optimism, he continued: “I’m confident that we will.”
McNish, who studied biostatistics, is especially proud of the Department of Defense’s domestic response, though he is concerned that its capability has been revealed to adversaries.
“It’s awesome,” said the 1964 U.S. Air Force Academy graduate. “It has really shown what we are capable of — I guess it’s a two-edged sword because now our enemy knows.”
This year, amid the coronavirus epidemic, President Trump signed a declaration making April 8, 2020, National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day.
The former Vietnam POW acknowledged the importance of POW and missing-in-action recognition efforts, not for those, such as himself, lucky enough to return, but as an assurance that the nation is still looking for those still considered MIA.
“What we’re doing is reinforcing in the mind of the people who are serving in uniform today that their country will never forget them,” he said. “One of the strongest things in addition to my faith in God was my faith in my country that helped me get through those six-and-a-half years.”
He added, “The people that are wearing a uniform and defending our country today need to have the same level of confidence that I had that their country will never forget them.”
