Former POW's Hometown Views 'Stolen Honor'

by Chad Groening
October 28, 2004

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(AgapePress) - A Vietnam War veteran who spent nearly eight years in a North Vietnamese POW camp says he was honored that so many people from his hometown attended a private screening of a documentary about how prisoners of war were affected by John Kerry's post-Vietnam activities.

The film Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal was presented Tuesday night (October 26) at a local hotel in Tupelo, Mississippi -- the town retired Air Force Colonel Smitty Harris calls home. While the former POW says it was touching that so many came to see it, he says the crowd was already predisposed against the Democratic presidential candidate.

"It was like preaching to the choir," Smitty offers. "I don't think the people who would have been affected or changed their mind about Mr. Kerry were here."

Regardless, Harris says he hopes many more Americans will see the video before the election. He and the former POWs who appear in the movie contend that Kerry's anti-war activities helped prolong their incarcerations in North Vietnam. "I have never in my memory and in my reading of history known of a candidate who I thought had less integrity and would be more damaging to the morals of this country," he says of Kerry.

Harris' wife Louise, who appeared with him in the documentary, says there are parallels between the Vietnam era and today's war on terror. "It is frightening to me, as Smitty's captivity was to me, that in many ways there's a lot graver danger in this day and time because the terrorists who are against us -- [as do some] people from within our own country -- do not honor God and country."

And Harris' daughter, Robin Waldrip, says she is disappointed that liberals have prevented more people from seeing her father's story. "They want freedom of speech as long as it benefits them," she says, "but the minute we try to voice our point of view, we are being denied that access at every point."

Local Republican Party officials had to rent space in the local hotel to show the documentary after the local library said it was too controversial to present there.