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		17
 Bush has been shot." I asked when it happened, and they
 said two to three days ago, and he was shot by a revolu-
 tionary group. And then the other guy chimes in and
 says: "One of our revolutionary groups." I thought,
 "There's no way" At that time they also told me the
 ground war had started and that we had suffered 75,000
 casualties in the first battle. They said that the
 Russians didn't like what was going on, and they were
 going to force the U.S. to accept a peace plan...a nine-
 point peace plan or something The only news we got was
 propaganda, and that's probably all the people in Iraq
 got too. 

 Q: What part did religion play in sustaining you during all
 this?
 
 A: A lot. Besides walking a couple of miles around my block
 I said an awful lot of prayers. I'm sure there were a
 couple of miracles that took place...such as none of the 
 prisoners being bombed the night our prison was bombed.
 And really, for me, I was kind of religious before, but
 not a lot. I didn't consider myself very religious, but
 I think it's like the story of no atheists in foxholes.
 There are probably no atheists in prison camps either.
 Everyone I've talked to claims to have said an awful lot
 of prayers That's about the only person you can talk
 to; it played a large part in my captivity.

 Q: What about your Academy preparation for the ordeal. Do
 you think that in any way helped?

 A: Yes, I thought in a couple of ways. One, obviously was
 the survival training we go through after fourth class
 freshman year. It had been 15 years since I had gone
 through survival training until I was shot down. I felt
 that even though it had been that long, the preparation
 had been very accurate. I was surprised at how good they
 could make it, after my own experience as being a regular
 prisoner-of-war. Obviously there are some things they
 can't do when you go through survival training. You're
 only there for so many hours, whereas in a regular sit-
 uation you don't know how long you're going to be there.
 They can only physically do so much to you whereas, when
 you're a real prisoner.. you don't know what their limits
 are...or if they have any. I knew at the Academy that
 no matter how bad it got they weren't going to shoot me.
 I didn't know that when I was really a prisoner. I
 thought it was quite possible I was going to get shot.
 Those are some differences that I don't think you'll ever
 be able to take out. Other than that I found it was very
 good experience. I remember several instructors at the 
 Academy that had been prisoners-of-war, and they had to
 endure a lot more than I did. If nothing else, it kind

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