Shot Down Over North Viet Nam

Shot Down Over North Viet Nam 

Howard Rutledge, a United States Air Force pilot, was
shot down over North Viet Nam during the early stages
of the war... 

He spent several miserable years in the hands of his
captors before being released at the war's conclusion.
In his book In the Presence of Mine Enemies he reflects
upon the resources from which he drew in those arduous
days when life seemed so intolerable:

"During those longer periods of enforced reflection it
became so much easier to separate the important from
the trivial, the worthwhile from the waste. For
example, in the past, I usually worked or played hard
on Sundays and had no time for church. For years
Phyllis [his wife] had encouraged me to join the family
at church. She never nagged or scolded--she just kept
hoping. But I was too busy, too preoccupied, to spend
one or two short hours a week thinking about the really
important things. Now the sights and sounds and smells
of death were all around me. My hunger for spiritual
food soon outdid my hunger for a steak. Now I wanted to
talk about God and Christ and the church. But in
Heartbreak [the name POWs gave their prison camp]
solitary confinement, there was no preacher, no
Sunday-School teacher, no Bible, no hymnbook, no
community of believers to guide and sustain me. I had
completely neglected the spiritual dimension of my
life. It took prison to show me how empty life is
without God."

  Gordon MacDonald. Cited on KneEmail,
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