BRUDNO, EDWARD ALAN
Deceased

Name: Edward Alan Brudno
Branch/Rank: United States Air Force/O2
Unit: 68 TFS
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: QUINCY MA
Date of Loss: 18 October 1965
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 180500 North 1054800 East
Status (in 1973): Returnee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F4C
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident: Thomas Collins, pilot, returnee
Refno: 0173

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File.

REMARKS: 730212 RELEASED BY DRV

DECEASED

Newsweek June 1, 1998

MY TURN
BY ROBERT J. BRUDNO

Unfinished Business

I think it's time for anti-Vietnam War
Americans to recognize the pain they caused

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, OUR POW'S CAME HOME FROM North Vietnam. They
looked better than anyone could have imagined, after what they had
endured. Only months later, Air Force Capt. E. Alan Brudno committed
suicide; he was the first to die. It was national news. How could
anyone give up just when he had won his freedom after more than seven
years of unspeakable torture? As his brother, one who feels the pain of
his loss as deeply today as when it happened, perhaps I can provide some
of the answers. Suicide never has simple causes, but his story reveals
some unfinished business from the Vietnam War.

This young American flier had nothing to be ashamed about.
Posthumously, he received the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts and other
medals. He took the worst the North Vietnamese dished out, His fellow
prisoners said he was "hard-core, tough ... he often mocked his captors
and kept his honor ... he was one of us." He was one of the POWs who
were paraded through Hanoi, called war criminals and subjected to
incredible physical abuse. For his first 2 1/2 years of captivity, he
was allowed to send no letters. His family did not know whether he was
even alive. Later, he courageously slipped into one of his letters (we
received fewer than 20 in 7 1/2 years) that the "problem with fags
(burning cigarettes) on his skin" had cleared up a bit, thus providing
the first evidence that our POWs were being tortured, That treatment was
mild. On many occasions he was beaten senseless or hung from the
ceiling by ropes tied to his arms, which were trussed together behind
his back until his shoulder blades touched, leaving his arms paralyzed
long thereafter. The pain is impossible for us to imagine, yet he held
out hope for his return with honor.

He went to Vietnam in September 1965 because he was told to. He did not
go bomb churches and hospitals, or because he hated the North
Vietnamese, or because he was a killer. He went because his country
asked him to, as it would have against a Hitler or a Saddam Hussein. He
was not some hot-shot, macho Top Gun. He actually joined the Air Force
to become an astronaut. Thirty days after he arrived in Southeast Asia,
he was shot down. He survived until his release in 1973, because of his
love of country, love of his wife and family and his belief that he
sacrificed so much for something. But a warning of what awaited him
came before he even set foot on U.S. soil. Someone close to him said to
me, "He has to know that the war was wrong."

After the euphoria of his release wore off, he realized that a lot of
the propaganda that had accompanied his torture sessions was true. His
own countrymen went beyond being against the war; many supported those
he understandably viewed to be the "enemy."This was not some
philosophical or political concept for him. The enemy were the people
who had beaten some of his comrades to death. His idealized image of
what would follow his return began to crumble. I begged the person who
set out to tell him that he "needed" to know the "truth" about the war
to not do so, or at least to give him some time. I said he had to
believe what he endured was worth it somehow. Despair, then selfdoubt,
then a feeling of failure set in. Then disaster struck.

He became a victim not just of the North Vietnamese, but of the
inability of so many in his own country, during that horrible war, to
separate the war from the warriors.

Many returning soldiers before him were spat upon and branded as
murderers, often just after surviving their own harrowing experiences.
No wonder there was a "Vietnam Syndrome." Like my brother, few wanted to
go to war, yet Americans on the left did not respect their sacrifice,
be- cause it somehow conflicted with their passionate antiwar beliefs.
Draped in the freedom of speech this country provides, self-righteous
and designating themselves as true patriots, they waved the Viet Cong
flag and justified their silence over the treatment of the POWs by
saying that all that has to be done to help the POWs is end the war.
Unfortunately, that took a while. Today, many antiwar protesters
proudly claim that they were right about the war, in part as a result of
Robert McNamara's belated admission that he was wrong. Whether the war
was right or wrong, these were our boys. They deserved our support
whatever the cause, whatever the result.

The antiwar movement has yet to recognize the pain and heartache that it
caused. My brother had no say in the politics that sent him to war.
The lack of appreciation for what he had done, combined with the
rationale of those who gave aid and comfort to the enemy, helped destroy
the will to live that had kept him alive for all those years.

All that was needed then was for the most vocal American antiwar
spokespersons, the ones Hanoi was clearly listening to, to say that
while they believed the war was wrong, our POWs must be treated
according to the Geneva Convention. History has now documented Hanoi's
great sensitivity to the swings of American public opinion. For years,
my family and I begged these leaders of the left to do this, but to no
avail. To do so would have been "pro-war" somehow. As a result, the
North Vietnamese had years of free rein to torture and kill our men.
When the POWs' families were finally able to get attention in 1971 and
1972, the treatment dramatically improved. For many of the POWs,
unfortunately, the damage was done. This is the unfinished business of
that war. Few Americans who were silent then have acknowledged much
responsibility for the consequences of their actions on the home front.
Whether the war was right or wrong, then or now, is irrelevant.

Years ago, I tried to get my brother's name added to the Vietnam
Memorial wall. I was told that I could not, because the wall was for
servicemen who were killed in Vietnam or died later from wounds received
there. Technically, I guess, Alan Brudno was mortally wounded back
here.

BRUDNO is a management consultant in Washington, D.C.

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