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 		 15
 said: "Thomas Edward Griffith." He said: "Major?" I
 said: "Yes." And be said: "Okay. You will be released
 today." And when he said it, I thought it was a trick.
 I thought they were going to interrogate me and thought
 that I was going to act stupid because they said they
 were letting me go. But about an hour later, another
 gentleman showed up and he said: "What's your name?"
 I told him, and he said I would be released today...he
 thought in about an hour. Sounded better! About half
 an hour later, they came in, took me out, along with the 
 guy in the other cell. They took us out into the court-
 yard of the prison and said we were going to be turned
 over to the Red Cross. When we went out into the court-
 yard, there were four prisoners I had never seen before,
 and then six other ones I knew because they had all been
 aviators. 

 Q: Were you on the Iraqi television?

 A: Yes, I was one of the guys who was on about the 25th of
 January. We'd been prisoners about two days, I guess,
 when they did that. They came in and transported us at
 night normally on the roads. We were always covered up
 with blankets because apparently they were afraid that 
 the Allies would find out where we were. So they came
 in, blindfolded us, handcuffed us, and put us in a car
 and drove us somewhere, downtown, I imagine. We went
 into the same bunker we'd been in before for interroga-
 tions, so I just thought it was a regular interrogation.
 They split us up, obviously, you're always by yourself.
 I went into a room, they took off the blindfold...and
 there was the video camera. And I thought: "No, this
 is not good, I don't want to do this." They said we want
 you to make a tape, and I said I really don't want to do
 this...it's against the Geneva Convention, etc. They
 weren't interested in that and there was about ten guys
 in the room...and they said this is how it's going to be.
 They told me the questions they were going to ask and I
 was supposed to run my answers by them. Fortunately for
 me, for whatever reason, the only questions they asked
 were stuff they already knew, like my name, my airplane.
 They asked me what our target was, and what shot me down.
 They never asked me to make any statements like: "The 
 war is wrong," or anything like that. On the one hand
 I didn't really like making the tape, I don't think
 anybody that did it liked it. Everybody did it under
 duress. On the other hand, things on the positive side
 were that this was the first the U.S. knew that I was a
 prisoner-of-war. This probably made the Iraqi government
 accountable for our whereabouts. I think that was one
 of the biggest worries, at least for me, not knowing if
 at some time they might sell us off to some terrorist
 group or whatever. But at least if the U.S. knew I was

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