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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAl Meyer BBV Radio Transcription #2City of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: Al Meyer Interviewer: Tom Turbiville Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt Place: College Station, Texas Project: Veterans of the Valley 00:00: Tom Turbiville (TT): Yesterday we introduced you to Alton Meyer of the Brazos Valley. He counts himself lucky to live here, lucky to live at all. Shot down, spent six years as a P.O.W. in Vietnam, after the explosion in the air, does not remember ejecting or floating to Earth. The next thing he remembered was waking up, his leg fractured, on his back in a bamboo hut. The faces of the enemy looking back down at him. 00:26: Alton Meyer (AM): I saw a whole bunch of very vicious Vietnamese. And, they, they were asking me if, if I was Russian. And of course, I told them I was American. I probably should have told them I was Russian. But anyway, they, they became very vicious. They spit on me, they twisted my broken leg, I had a broken leg, I had, got some burns and bruises all over my body. And they had stripped all my clothes off which, that was probably a good thing that I was unconscious when they did that because some of the guys that were conscious when they took their clothes off. You know, the, the, the snaps and buckles and, and zippers and so on really baffled them, so they just took the clothes off with a machete so. And they say it was quite an ex-, a scary experience. TT: His captors took him to Hanoi, but the trip there was one he’ll never forget. It was just the start of his hell on Earth. 01:17: AM: Every time we went through a village they, they would stop in the village and they would roll up the side curtains on the, on the truck, and let the villagers come look at me and they would, would hit me with their hands and fists and twist my broken leg and things like that. And then the probably, the, the most vicious of these people were the, the ones that had the, the red lips and teeth from chewing beetle nuts. Those women were very vicious people. And you know, they, they were really mean you know as far as hitting and spitting and twisting my broken leg and so on. TT: Along the way, he was interrogated by a Swedish doctor. He won’t forget that. 01:55: AM: And he told me that he had connections to the International Red Cross. He could get a letter out for me and of course at that time I didn’t think I was gonna live anyway. So I really wasn’t that interested in getting a letter out. And then he wanted to talk about things like, what kind of an airplane did I fly and I wouldn’t tell him and he got mad at me. And I don’t know, I guess he was the one that supervised putting the cast on my leg, but they put a cast on my leg. And then when I came to again, they put me on, on that truck again and we started back toward Hanoi. And we stopped at all the villages, same routine as the day before. TT: I’m Tom Turbiville. This is Bravo Brazos Valley, brought to you by Mees and Associates. More with Al Meyer. P.O.W. Vietnam, right after this. [brief commercial] 03:05: TT: Alton Meyer of the Brazos Valley, six years a P.O.W. in Vietnam. Interesting note here, at the Hanoi Hilton, the ranking American P.O.W. officer was Admiral James Stockdale. Yeah, the fellow running mate of Ross Perot, who just passed away this past summer. 03:22: AM: Well I just remember the, the policies that he had sent out. You know, don’t give them anything without torture and no escaping unless you have outside help and. His wife was the one that organized all the, the wives, which they had the, the League of Families and they were ones that sold the, the P.O.W. bracelets to raise money for the campaign that was on. And they probably helped a whole lot with, with our treatment getting better in 1969. TT: Tomorrow we’ll finish the amazing story of bravery of Alton Meyer. Vietnam P.O.W. I’m Tom Turbiville, this is Bravo Brazos Valley.