Captain Charlie Plumb shares his POW story and the lessons he learned from it.
Transcript:
(Captain Charlie Plumb speaking) I flew the Skies of Vietnam thinking they didn’t have a missile big enough to shoot down Charlie Plumb. Five days before the end of my tour I was shot down. I was in shock. We drove in that jeep to the formal prison camp in downtown Hanoi, we called it the “Hanoi Hilton” just for a joke. Code of Conduct Article 2: “I will never surrender of my own free will”. I felt very guilty about that. I felt very ashamed.
When you’re alone in the dark, you need a baseline, you need to validate your sanity, you need somebody to tell you we’re alive. So I’m pacing along with this mindset of shame, and feeling sorry for myself. In the corner of my prison cell was a little piece of wire poked through a hole, and scratching on my concrete floor making this chirping noise. So I tugged on the wire, and the wire disappeared right back through. That rattle came back about an hour later with a note written on a dirty piece of toilet paper. It said “Memorize this code, then eat this note”. So I memorized the code, and I ate the note. That was to become our basic method of communication in the prison camp, and so it was that real simple validation of another human being was just absolutely vital in our survival.
(Dr. Richard Tedeschi speaking) The reason I became a psychologist was I wanted to know how people do well in life. The people who do particularly well in spite of the fact that they’ve got difficult life circumstances always intrigued me. It’s certainly a known experience and phenomenon in human living, but people hadn’t really named it. We hit upon “Posttraumatic Growth” and we thought that that would be a good name for it, and it stuck pretty well.
(BCF CEO Josh Goldberg speaking) In the simplest explanation, Posttraumatic Growth is the idea that what doesn’t kill us can make us wiser. Wiser about what it means to live a good life, wiser about ourselves, and wiser about the meaning and purpose of our existence.
(BCF Founder Ken Falke speaking) When I talked to Tedeschi I said to him “Do you think we could teach people how to achieve Posttraumatic Growth in their lives quicker?” and he said “You know, nobody’s ever asked me that, but I love the idea and I’m willing to help”. And that’s when Rich locked arms with us, and we started to create this program Warrior PATHH.
(Captain Charlie Plumb speaking) Even in the prison camp, when all was gone, our leadership said “We’re not victims here. We are warriors here. We will pursue this war to our last dying breath”. And it was that whole attitude that turned us from the Victim Mentality into the Victor Mentality.
(Ken Falke speaking) The traumatic experience, although none of us want it, if you can learn from it, can be the defining moment of your life.
(Captain Charlie Plumb speaking) POWs are living proof for what we call PTG – Posttraumatic Growth. I have made it through being a prisoner of war for nearly six years. What will challenge me more than that? \
(Dr. Richard Tedeschi speaking) We see a lot of the stories of people who have been damaged by their traumatic experiences, but it’s only part of the picture, and I think we have to tell the rest of the story.
(Captain Charlie Plumb speaking) Good day to fly. Every day is a good day to fly.
Your support powers life-changing programs offered at no charge to veterans, military, first responders, and their families. With your help, our Warriors won't just survive — they'll thrive.
We have received your email sign-up. Please tell us more about yourself.
