Prisoners of War

Driving to work the other morning, I was behind a vehicle with a specialized license plate which had the letters POW, followed by some numbers and the title “Former P.O.W.” at the bottom.

Never having been in the military, let alone a POW, I am wondering why he would want to advertise that he is a POW. With no disrespect, truly, is it something to be proud of? I mean, I imagine that being a POW is not the most pleasant of situations and that there would be a lot that one would not want to be reminded of from the time of captivity. I imagine that it is harsh and that the captors do everything in their power to break the spirit and mind of the captive.

Why, then, would someone want to continue to live that role every single day? Why would someone want to be continually reminded of that? I see that, in some ways, it can become a status symbol of sorts. Look! He was a POW and SURVIVED! Okay. I get that. But why does being a POW become the survivor’s whole life, their whole being. Why does it become who they are?

As I think about this, “captivity” has many different faces. It is more than being caught behind enemy lines and being thrown into prison in a foreign land for the sole purpose of being tortured and interrogated endlessly. Captivity can look like the newborn child being held in the arms of his meth-addicted mother who is so craving her next fix that she is unable to think rationally. Captivity can look like the woman who relies solely on the one man that beats her – physically, emotionally, verbally – to within inches of her death on an all too frequent basis. Captivity can look like the young man who lost his new wife and daughter to a fatal DUI accident. Captivity can look like that first hit of heroin.

These captives do not proudly display on their license plates or with stickers upon their bumpers information about which prison they have survived, or of which war they stumbled away from broken, but alive. There are no bumper stickers which declare to the world I survived meth-withdrawal at 3-days-old. They generally are quiet about their wars if they survive.

Generally, if these prisoners come out into the light, show their faces and reveal the shadowy truths of their traps, people do not throw parades in their honor. There are no yellow ribbons wrapped around the trees welcoming that frightened woman out of the hospital after her husband has been carted off to jail and she has no idea how she is going to feed her children. The innocent children of drug abusers are shunned merely for the fact that their parents are addicted to a really bad thing and assume that the child is as good as lost as anyway, so why bother. And that desperate young man whose life is so empty without his wife and child is only met with “There, there” and a pat on the back because, really, there is nothing that anyone can do to ease his pain.

These hostages of life deserve the Congressional Purple Heart of Valor as much as a proud, surviving POW, yet more often than not, they are swept aside and lost in the flotsam and jetsam swirling in the current of life. It seems they deserve to be assisted and at least thrown a tow rope so they can be pulled gently to shore, rather than the seemingly upstream battle they continue to fight.

These prisoners are your friends. Secretely, they are your mothers, your fathers, your brothers and sisters. They are your neighbors and your relatives. That woman standing in front of you with her shoulders weighted heavily… That boy with the heavily-tattooed skin and pierced ears who sat beside you, smelling like an ashtray… The woman with the wild eyes and the uncomfortable jaggedy twitch… The man with the red-rimmed eyes, sunken cheeks and sallow skin… The man in the wheelchair with the scruffy beard and filthy clothes who is missing his leg and holding a cardboard sign: Homeless Veteran… They are all just recently-released detainees. How will you receive them?

©Angie K. Millgate 4/6/08