by: Marty Chrisman

A whimper slipped from Luke’s throat when he realized that the guards had come for him again. Rough hands reached out to grab him pulling him to his feet. Two guards grabbed his arms and drug him into the building. He was taken to a small room with a metal table sitting in the middle. The guards forced Luke to lie down on the table and then they strapped down his wrists and his ankles, with another strap around his waist, securing him to the table so that he couldn’t move. Luke lay there, staring at the ceiling, as he passively waited for whatever torture they had in mind for him this time. Like the other prisoners he was slowly becoming conditioned to accept whatever fate they had in store for him.

“You are nothing…” one of the guards hissed at Luke “You live because we let you live, you will die if we choose to kill you…we control your fate.”

Luke didn’t bother to respond. He knew that answering would only make them hurt him. The guards constantly told the prisoners the same thing. They were nothing, they lived only because the guards let them live. They could kill them at any time and not give it a second thought. To the guards they were less than human, animals and no longer men.

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by: Marty Chrisman

Days blended one into another until Luke lost of track of time. He could no longer remember how long he had been in the camp. Lack of food, poor hygiene, poor sanitation, a lack of adequate sleep, and continuing physical torture (usually in the form of the electric shocks) were starting to take their toll on Luke’s spirit and his mind. The only thing that kept him sane when things got too bad was his memories of home. He often found himself wondering if anyone at home even knew that he was still alive or if they thought that he’d been killed.

Pete, the only other prisoner he had gotten to know, had finally died of his injuries so now Luke was alone without anyone to talk to. The other prisoners kept to themselves, avoiding each other as much as possible. When the guards came for him again, Luke didn’t resist. He knew that it was no use. Resisting would only get him beaten to death. He’d already seen it happen to other prisoners who tried to resist and failed.

Luke stumbled down the long corridor that was so painfully familiar by now and into the room where they would find more ways to hurt him and try to make him say what they wanted to hear. But there was still a part of Luke that resisted bending to their will and giving up his own identity. He was born a Duke and he would die a Duke and he would not allow them to take that away from him.

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by: Marty Chrisman

Luke finished the slop in his bowl without gagging. Pete was right, it didn’t take long to get used to the foul taste. When you’re close to starving, you’ll eat just about anything. Luke had been in the camp for two days and he’d already seen four men in the cage with him die. The conditions were deplorable. There was no place to sleep except on the cold, hard ground and nothing to cover up with to ward off the chill of the night air. A corner of the cage had been designated as a waste area and that was where the prisoners were forced to relieve themselves. It was one of the areas the guards frequently sprayed down, sending rivers off liquid waste among the prisoners. Luke quickly learned to get out of the way as best he could to avoid getting any more of it on him than he had to.

The days were long and sweltering hot. So hot it was hard to breathe sometimes. And the insects were a torment all by themselves. Luke’s body was soon covered with bites and stings. And at night, other animals, like rats and snakes, would slip into the cages. More than once Luke had watched in horror as a rat tried to make a meal out of another prisoner’s leg or arm, especially if he had an open wound.

Three days after Luke arrived at the camp, a guard opened the cage door. Flanked by four other guards with guns, he came inside and grabbed Luke by the arm, jerking him to his feet. He pulled Luke outside of the cage and shut the door, locking it securely. While the other guards kept their guns aimed at Luke, the first guard securely tied his hands behind his back with a thick piece of rope and then slipped another piece of rope around Luke’s neck. Laughing, he stated walking towards a one story block building pulling Luke along behind him like a dog by jerking on the rope around his neck.

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by: Marty Chrisman

The men had been marching through the jungle for 2 days. Six marines all that were left alive from their squad. Caught in a surprise ambush by the Viet Cong, the marines who had survived the attack had been taken prisoner. Their capturers had tied them together in one long line, forcing them to march down a long secluded trail to the prison camp hidden deep in the jungle. None of the surviving men tried to escape. A couple of others had tried earlier and had been shot and killed, their bodies dumped along the trail.

Sergeant Luke Duke forced himself to keep walking even though he was exhausted. He was also terrified. He knew that as a prisoner of war he had no rights, not to the Viet Cong, and that they were notorious for their torture and mistreatment of their prisoners. Luke had been in numerous battles, had men die in his arms, seen things no man should ever have to see, but being captured by the enemy frightened him more than anything else ever had. He knew it was unlikely that he would survive the ordeal that lay ahead of him. When the time came, he silently prayed for the courage to die like a man with honor and with pride.

The worst part of all was that he had been scheduled to go home in two days, his tour of Nam would have been over and he would have been safe back in the States. Now instead, he would probably die in this god forsaken place thousands of miles away from his home and his family. The physical torment had already began none of the prisoners had been given anything to eat or drink for the past two days and they’d had very little rest. But they had to keep moving. They had no choice.

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by: Marty Chrisman

Jesse frowned as he watched Luke throwing the bales of straw off the truck. He was worried about him, he couldn’t deny that. It had been over a week since Lynn’s murder and Luke still refused to talk about it. Since she didn’t have any family, Jesse had arranged for a small simple service and a neighbor had donated a plot in the cemetery but Luke had refused to go. Jesse knew that he was holding everything inside which wasn’t healthy.

Of all of the kids, Luke had always been the most reserved. He seldom displayed his emotions and tended to keep things bottled up until he exploded. But Jesse knew that this was one time that he needed to open up and share his feelings with someone before they festered away inside of him and killed that part of him that could love again someday. He wouldn’t even talk to Bo about it and that was a bad sign. If nothing else, Luke had always been able to talk to Bo but now he was even shutting out Bo.

Jesse sighed and went into the house wondering what else he could do to help Luke get through this. Enos had stopped by that morning and told them that Roger Malone had been caught. He had confessed to shooting Lynn but even that didn’t seem to penetrate the wall that Luke had built around his emotions. Jesse knew that Luke had been sneaking into his shine at night so he had hidden it somewhere else to protect Luke from himself. Drinking would only mask the pain it wouldn’t make it go away and Luke needed to deal with the pain not run away and hide from it in a bottle.

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