Word: kasler
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...TIME's Donald Neff, then a Saigon correspondent, interviewed Air Force Ace Major James Kasler-one of the legendary figures of the Viet Nam War-just after his 72nd mission. The story that went to press that week dubbed Kasler a "one-man Air Force" and perhaps the "hottest" pilot in Southeast Asia. Five days later, Kasler buckled into the cockpit of his F-105 Thunderchief for his 73rd-and last-mission. His plane was hit by ground fire, and he was forced to eject. He was held prisoner until a month ago. Last week Neff again interviewed Kasler...
...soon as I was out, I knew I was hurt," says Kasler. "My right thigh was broken, and a piece of bone about eight inches long had split off and jammed into my groin. I landed near some paddies 50 miles south of Hanoi. About 15 villagers jumped me and tore off all my clothes except my shorts. Then they saw my leg. In about five minutes a medic came, gave me a shot and made a splint out of a banana tree. They put me in a fish net and started carrying me-when the planes came...
Word that he had been shot down had touched off a massive rescue effort by nearly 50 U.S. planes. But for Kasler the Viet Nam War was all over, and he wished that they would go away. He was in intense pain and very thirsty, but because of the presence of U.S. planes overhead his captors laid him in a ditch and hid him under banana leaves...
Once the planes had left, Kasler was lashed to a board and driven north in the back of a pickup truck. At each village, he says, "people would hit me and throw rocks and mud at me, and the guards would hit me in the mouth-I guess to show how tough they were. In one village, they gave a little girl a bayonet and took pictures of her holding it to my throat. Big heroine! When we reached Hoa Lo prison camp [the so-called Hanoi Hilton] they put me on a cement floor, and interrogators told me that...
...Kasler's right thighbone had been set with an iron clamp when he reached Hanoi, but the leg continued to swell under his full body cast. The cast was finally removed and the leg lanced, but the infection spread and the leg puffed up to twice its normal size. For most of that first winter, he lay in fever, alternately freezing and roasting. His roommate, Air Force Captain John Brodak of St. Louis, gave up his own blanket to keep Kasler warm in the 40° nights. "I'm probably here because of his care," says Kasler. (Brodak...