POW Larry Spencer tells his story of surviving the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2020
- Larry Spencer was born and raised in Earlham, Iowa. He joined the Navy in 1963 and became an F-4 Phantom backseater. He was over the Gulf of Tonkin on February 18, 1966 when his plane was shot down. Larry spent the next 7 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. This story explains how he endured the uncertainty of his situation by keeping a positive attitude and above all, his faith.
These men suffered more in 10 minutes, than most of us will in our lifetime. God Bless them all!!
Well said !
what about Vietnamese prisonsers kept by US in South Vietnam during the war? were they treated well!
Thank you Larry
The fact this man still seems incredibly well put-together and is even able to smile about aspects of his capture and captivity after enduring a hell we can't even imagine is remarkable.
If it had been me, after 10 seconds my sense of humor would be gone and I would never smile again. After 30 seconds my overall will to live would be history.
*You NEVER know exactly what you'll do.*
@@22lyric My thoughts exactly!
You might be surprised at how much you would fight to survive. One never knows. It was rare that our POW's 'just gave up'.
Thanks Larry, for your heroic service.
Welcome home Larry Spencer, what you went through in 7 years was a total nightmare. I came home in August of 1970 and nobody but my family was glad that I made it home.
Forgive me disputing what you said...many of those with less voice were anxious and relieved when you made it back. My dad was on the carrier's, we were thrilled they made it back to us. God bless you.
I am glad you made it home. I was almost old enough to get drafted so I was very aware of the war and our veterans and was very appreciative of their service for our country.
I had a walk around the Hanoi Hilton in 2003, The Vietnamese Guides were constantly saying how well the POW's were treated.
Cant even begin to imagine the Horror they went through.
I would have a hard time holding my tongue if I heard that rubbish.
@@barbiecrocker7420 Yeah, I know how you feel, I did say a few things to the really contentious statements, they didn't reply but I got the evil eye.
You were not lucky enough to go with brain-washed guides in the north. I'm a national guide stationed in south - Saigon as known.
Consider how well U S Armed forces treated Vietnamese,Next stop Taiwan South China Sea or Beijing
Well treat as a pow, when you are a prisoner, you cant expect to be treat like a normal people. Especially in the enemy territories where its civilian hate you more than the soldier.
Interrogation is a big part of intelligence, every country need it, the different is how far it is, how ethical it is. Do you think enemy will gently ask you for help? No. They will try different thing, first is a little violent to make weakling open their mouth, if its dont work, increase it a bit. If they decided its wont help to open your mouth by force, they will switch to psychological warfare, haunted your everyday though, or promise you the first ticket home etc.
At least they dont do violent for fun or vengeance, thats what well treat was. The daily diet of us pow worth more than the majority of vietnam peoples, dont expect more from a country with an economy crashed follow by a famine kill 20mils just 20s years ago, and gunfight was never stop from then.
The only part of the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ that’s still intact is the main entrance gate, the site is now a tower block of serviced apartments, I’ve forgotten the name but they’re very popular all over south east Asia.
I’ve only visited Hanoi a couple of times 2002 and 2016, on both visits I seen groups of US veterans some with wives/family’s and others just guys but always wearing some military memorabilia badges, caps, medals....
It always amazed me that they were treated with courtesy and respect by the Vietnamese.
I lived and worked in Viet nam for more than a decade and only one time was I verbally abused by an elderly Vietnamese man, he assumed I was American, I gave him a mouthful of my most colourful Russian bad language and he turned a complete 180° in shame.
i'm very happy that Larry survived to tell his interesting if not scary story.
The fact that many of them spent years in captivity then were fortunate to make it home and resume productive lives says much about the human spirit. I know that for some it wasn't easy but they did it.
I'm sure your families were glad to have you home. But I know the country was going through massive upheavals politically... What a terrible time in America. I am a veteran also, and I did not face what the Vietnam veterans did when they came home. God bless them all
You didn't belong in Vietnam, and neither did this guy. Whatever you guys faced coming home may have been misguided in some ways....but, it also rightfully came with the "territory". You weren't victims. I was a Vietnam/Draft resistor. I didn't care about you guys, I was busy doing what I was supposed to be doing...living life.
88 TX
Larry Spencer, the Iowan who served more time than any other Iowan as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 82.. May 2022.
I love this Histories.
THIS GUY IS A HERO
NO...he is NOT.
“He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren’t captured.”
-President Trump
God bless you.
Yes. God bless you for invading another country, bombing the crap out if them, indiscriminately killing people who did nothing but try to live, using chemical weapons against civilians even though the use of chemical weapons were banned after WW1. God bless you to hell!
Thanks for sharing best wishes
Dude, I would have never recovered from something like that.
We should never have been there. What would you expect? You were dropping bombs on their country. You murdered Vietnamese people, destroyed their land. The Vietnamese did not bomb America. Complaining about the food? Did you expect fillet mignon every night for dinner? Of course you were tortured. Americans tortured Iraqis at Abu Graab prison also. How much has the American taxpayer given to you? Your military training, salary, va medical, so many other benefits. You have fleeced us for several million dollars.
May our Lord bless you Sir
True American heroes
This man is a legend god bless America
Damn. It boggles the mind.
Thank You Larry.
May the lord bless you sir
God bless these people who had to endure this. Just shows our government will will give us up for their cause. We will take orders and follow through even when we know it’s wrong
Even calley
said I followed orders
Rather foolishly!
I'm a proud Vietnam/Draft resistor. You have no clue how absurd your comment is. That's not my problem...that's yours.
21nov70
Son tay launch ill never forget that early morning...
2 yrs later our POWs came home!
56th Special Operations Group
War is like a corporation, the CEO's / generals go around to the bases which get hurriedly swept before they arrive... just like a McDonalds franchise checkup, the grunts are the table cleaners, the middle management run the bases and order around the table cleaners... the systems humans create in life are absurd... half necessary but absurd.
Well, I prefer not to work for McDonald's or the military/industrial complex. Why? Because I actually have a brain and use it. I am a proud Vietnam/Draft resistor.
Oh everyone stop saying thankyou to me so I stopped 15 years later but let's bring it back this way thank you for video vietnam
AMERICANS have underestimated the will, strength of solidarity, and patriotism of the Vietnamese people, so even if they used B52 aircraft to bring North Vietnam back to the Stone Age, it would not be possible. subdued the will and determination of the Vietnamese people. That is the lesson of America, the Americans had to accept to negotiate and withdraw their troops from Vietnam and the Vietnamese side will return all captured prisoners of war, and I would also like to send my condolences to nearly 60,000 American soldiers. died in Vietnam.
As a person acquainted with torture, this video is hard to take.
Torture separates man from animal.
These men endured more extreme pain, abuse, mocking, humiliation and dehumanizing than most of us could EVER endure for ten minutes.
A pep rally. What an apt analogy.
Did you ever have an opportunity to identify your tortures and oppressors?
War is ugly.
Vietnam was a very unpopular war, but a draft was in place.
The soldiers were not to be blamed and POWs have rules for treatment while in custody.
Many screaming nightmares and broken bodies later I’m sure they didn’t receive it…
You ate Braver man than I Larry ...
I visited the prison recently. It’s now a museum. It was originally built by the French to house Vietnamese nationalists and then by the Viet Cong to house US servicemen. What was amazing was how the museum portrayed life for the nationalists as being truly awful but then when it came to housing US POWs it was supposedly like a holiday camp. The winners get to write history. In truth it was hell in earth for everyone there.
John McCain went to the same place.
He indeed had injuries from Vietnam the rest of his life. He did not come home unscathed.
I created ground horizonal missle with wings on each side on game and gave information about how to build it I built a the fig and the building myself I built power pack flight I built 3 different ones
Larry Spencer thank you for your service to the UNITED State's Air Force love ❤ from ISRAEL 🇮🇱
What kind of torture techniques were used?
Cold soup
Beatings with sticks. Shoulders pulled out of their sockets. Being kept in tiny cages and sat down in leg irons for days.
I had Just Barely Missed Going By being a 4F wen i was 17 & Wanted to Go... HOWEVER.... After Hearing The Stories of Wat these Poor Guys Had to Endure?? I Realize i Didnt miss out on anything! NOTHING can EVER Give these Brave Men BACK wat was taken from them. God Bless them & grant them peace.
14 or 16 gauge metal to build the flying saucer body I built o flying saucer you see flying around that's in its shell radation liquid and gold it don't take much gold
I did submarine missions
Dad was pow
Following orders can place oneself in precarious situations!
This is why I will never ever take a knee during the playing of our National Anthem. Yes there was civil unrest against black Americans and yes it was horrible but these men were fighting in the name of all Americans. Additionally
hundreds of thousands of black Americans died for our flag, from the first round of musket fire in 1776 to the last IED explosion in Afghanistan.
I'll never take a knee. Ever.
Stop killing people illegally in other people's countries.
If some country invaded your country you would complain.
Stop your bs industrial military complex like eiesenhowwr warned you. You have no international right to kill people eg Chile Iran Iraq etc
Your nation itself is imploding. F off and leave the world alone
Again the knee isn’t about this it’s injustice to ppl nothing about previous wars stop restarting what it stands for
@@lukeseven8155 FACTS!!!!
God bless you son.
You do know that it was a veteran that came up with the idea and told Colin to do it right? The soldiers fought for freedom, taking a knee is part of that freedom.
Give a balanced story....POW'S on both sides treated exactly the same , human rights did not exist....
‘N w00tt did you do with the candies & breads you were delivering to Uncle Ho?
what about Vietnamese prisonsers kept by US in South Vietnam during the war? were they treated well!
G-d Bless you Captain.. YOu are a hero and i pray for your health... thank you for your heroism
God
Only 70k views sad.
I created for you guys john did 20 years ago it's on youtube
The geneva convention should ban all wars
Only the dead see the end of war.
How about they started to call it conflict :D which is actually what happen nowadaya
It still amazes me that Donald Trump said John McCain wasn't a hero. Donald would of left his men behind to save himself.
And some people act like American war crimes are just as bad🙄
They ARE ☠ Japanese interment was no less brutal, and we used to pay money for people's scalps.
Love ya Brother. 🔥
This is a very mild account compared to things ive heard
You can tell he for whatever reason is making sure he doesn't say how bad it really was. He thinks before he says some things. I don't know why maybe it will make him emotional or he doesn't want ppl too think they suffered too much or this channel said not too get too gory details
J'ai trop aimé Hanoi, beaucoup d'ambiance. s'est vraimenté une ville agité!
Us iowa boys are cut from a different cloth 🌽🇺🇸
I did miltary missions afaganstan and iraq missions
Ông đã giết chết bao nhiêu người Afghanistan và người Iraq rồi .
Thank you for you service .bet this hotel is hunted .
The whole of Vietnam is haunted by the genocidal US
@@NoLefTurnUnStoned. even before us ..lol
@@darrinfry2251
Yup the French too
@@NoLefTurnUnStoned. good and still a sick place .10 4 ..lol
@@darrinfry2251
No one more sick than Sam
John nash wasn't mental ethier bud it was 3rd country after him
I got shot with bullet proof vest on in afaganstan in the back
No rape, no gangs? Sounds like paradise compared to the American justice system.
War is to man ,like maternity is to women
Quote by Benito Mussolini
My utmost respect to anyone who served. When Trump said awful lies about John McCain, and won, I knew America was lost.
Did Vietnam ever apologize for it's war crimes?
Winners don't apologize.
How these pows compared to pows in WW2? North Vietnamese were a lot more humane considering the amount of bombs that were dropped on them.
They still tortured the prisoner's
@@scallen3841 South Vietnam and the US tortured their prisoners too.
@@guidototh6091 I'm sure they did , nothing compared to the hanoi hilton .
@@scallen3841 North Vietnamese and NLF prisoners in South Vietnam were subject to execution, torture and abuse. This has been well documented. American POWs suffered from these things in North Vietnam as well. The Hanoi Hilton POWs, numbering about 500, has been very well documented in the US. The prisoners of the US and South Vietnam were many times higher in number and their suffering has been largely ignored in the US.
@@guidototh6091 are we refighting the war ?
His ak47 part I hate to point out is a lie. 1)allied countries creation. It ls name means model 1947 so no one weirded that in his face. God bless you sir but that simply ain't true
Mn.nn
The fact that the Vietnamese people didn’t just execute prisoners says that they followed the rules of war which is humane.
No they tortured the POWs against the Geneva Convention
He didn't say that the Vietnamese did not cross the Pacific Ocean to attack USA. He also did not say that it was the USA that came from 10000 miles away to bomb Vietnam to the Stone Age. So is it surprising that the Vietnamese hate the Americans. His flippancy is common in all Americans who have fought in the war, and in all the other wars. It is as if it is an addiction that needs to be satisfied.
I got shot 70 times in the back side and head combined
But Trump doesn't consider those captured as heroes. Unlike prep boys who partied at home.
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HIS FAITH? GOD DOESN'T EXIST. BELIEF IN FAIRYTALES AND GHOSTS... WHAT A STRONG MAN
THREW AWAY HIS PISTOL IN FEAR OF GETTING SHOT BY THE ENEMY. WHAT A GREAT SOLDIER... ABOUT A MILLION MEN LIKE HIM IS WHY WE LOST THAT WAR
Wow 😲 God certainly does exist 🙏 definitely not a fairy tale lol 😉 and the sarcasm about what a strong man he is😮 let me guess..u are so much stronger 💪 u could have won the war all by yourself huh😅 He had God on his side..we know u certainly wouldn't lol 😂 YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED FOR THAT WHOLE COMMENT... HOWEVER IM SURE YOU HAVE NO SHAME 😅 BE GONE 👿 NOT TODAY SATAN LOL ..U R DISGUSTING
The fruitcakes are suffering now!
USA should not have gone to vietnam like Afganistan only made things worse!--Brave men just told to go and fight?
.....never be upset, angry at the 30.000 man who evaded the draft by.....coming to Europe.....✌️💙✈️🦅🎩🔨🌲✒️
Just a note: I found out that the vietnam POW were the luckiest prisoners of all wars from past wars to the Vietnam War. Evident by the condition of the Pilot in the video. He does not seem to have any extreme mental illness expected to have if he was very badly treated. If he was a prisoner of the Chinese, Russia, Germans, or any other countries. He would have been dead or severely injured from horrific tortures. But the Viet Cong didn't do that. It proves that they were kinder to him than they were suppose to since the US planes dropped several hundred thousands tons of bombs in vietnam cities and killed so many innocent civilians that led to the unification of all the Vietnamese people of the North to take arms for revenge. Think of that! The fact that the Pilot still alive is a miracle for him because the Viet Cong didn't kill when they should have that right to for the sake of revenge for the innocent lives dead in the bombings of the cities in the North. By Geneva Convention, that was supposed to be an Act of Crime against humanity. But the US was never charged. So was the use of Agent Orange. So it wasn't fair to compare the Viet Cong's tortures at all when the French raped many women during their colonization, and the Americans did at the My Lai Massacres where they burned alive villagers, young and old.
The only way vietnam can win the war is by politic, not brute force. Ho Chi Minh was well aware of this from the first day when he established the revolution. So the violent against pow is never a good move, but to get information i think a little Interrogation is still happen, and of course there were time when the warder get out of control with their hate.
People keep question about the "well treat" statement of hanoi. But i dont think NVA leader will fuck up their only win condition. Dont expect to be treat like a guest when you are a prisoner.
Actually if its was really bad back then, the story of hanoi hilton will not that controversy or conflicted.
Just another communist loving bootlicker
You obviously don’t know how the German POWs were treated by the US and Canada during WW2. Check it out. Additionally these prisoners were bargaining chips for the Vietnam
The U.S.A. got what they deserved for sticking their noses in Vietnam's business
Flying saucer I creating out that
If he was a pilot, why was he flying backseat in the F4? I have a problem with POW stories. There were a LOT of traitors among our Vietnam POWs.
If you can, check out why F4 Phantoms were a 2 seater by researching it. F4 Phantoms were used in Vietnam as "Wild Weasels", that would hunt down SAMs (Surface to Air Missile) batteries, and use an anti radar missile to take out the radar, rendering the SAM useless, since most SAMs (Surface to Air Missile) used radar tracking during that time. F4s were also used as a 2 seater for using an air to air missile platform, with the RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) to shoot down MiGs, and it was not until later, when the Navy put a gatling gun on the aircraft, unlike the US Air Force. Some, or if not most of those Vietnam Veterans were treated poorly, and were forced to sign papers that would say things that were not true in order for their captors to stop torturing them. However, there was one person who freely gave the North Vietnamese information that was traitorous, and that person was John Mccain. He was treated like a king, because of the fact that his daddy was an Admiral in the Navy, and his daddy, I believe was part of Operation Northwoods. This is another thing that you should research. A lot of Vietnam Veterans didn't think very highly of John Mccain because he was a true traitor to the USA, and I believe that he was hiding something that he continually denied a committee to be formed into looking into the missing servicemen who weren't accounted for after the Vietnam War ended. That person who tried to get accountability was a relative of a missing serviceman. Her name was Delores Alfond, but John Mccain kept denying the formation of the committee up until her death. You really need to do some research before you make such a blanket statement like that. Sometimes, these videos are made by so called "interviewers" who do not know what they are talking about, and don't do research ahead of time, and they do an interview based on biases and lack of research into the material that they cover, just for the sake of time, and deadlines to meet. In other words, laziness in research and truthful information.
Like McCain?
It's always good to be objective especially with unverified stories.
I have no idea of he's being entirely truthful here, it wasn't unheard of for prisoners to rat on each other to save themselves, one gets tortured to death the other tells how they tried to save him.
There's just no way of verifying some stories completely
@@kennethgrantham5092 The vast majority of American POWs in Vietnam served honorably and were not traitors and no John McCain was not a traitor. He was tortured by the North Vietnamese when he refused their offer of letting him go home. Think about that....
@@guidototh6091 Curious about your comment. I agree that the majority of American POWs served honorably and were not traitors.How do you know McCain was not a traitor? Please don’t tell me you were a POW because I can’t begin to imagine how bad it was. I was drafted in August, 1972 and had orders to Vietnam. They were cancelled when the Paris Peace Talks were making great progress. I would’ve gladly gone and not defect to Canada or anywhere else.
Thank you very much for your service.
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If you don't like it, then don't invade other countries. It's really that simple.
But the Soviet supported them too tho
@@antonioa.jepkoko4588 had to get help from someone after getting invaded
@@arjunghanekar6140 they supported North Vietnam before the invasion could happen
@@antonioa.jepkoko4588 most people wanted communism under North Vietnamese governance but america tried to stop that
I helped and suffered for united States government I'm a democratic
I voted biden I got to vote for the first time I voted biden
Sounds like breeze compared to what happened to Vietnamese pow’s at the hands of the Americans!
GOD BLESS ALL VIETNAM VETERANS.
Or O my!? I. Gonna be a K.I.A.
Isis mission
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