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Tap Code “By tapping covertly on our cell walls using an alphabet code we maintained our unity. We encouraged and cared for each other. We passed information, learned poetry, even learned new languages. I got to know my fellow prisoners like brothers, though I’d never even seen them.”
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Dear Meeting Planner, Let Me Tell You Why I Speak
I never decided to. It evolved naturally as people began asking me to tell about my experience of seven years as a prisoner of war in the communist prisons of North Vietnam. As I did, I soon began to realize that the sharing of the insights I had gained was far more valuable than the recounting of the experience itself. The lessons I learned the hard way -which ultimately enabled me to survive- are timeless. They are the same ones which enabled any of us to meet the physical, emotional, and ethical challenges of our personal and professional lives. While in many ways the POW issue is obsolete, the specific lessons gained from it are not. The question which invariably arises in the listener's mind is, "How would I have done it?" The answer I leave with them is that they, too, could have survived -and gone beyond survival- by drawing from the same sources of strength I and others did. Because of the credibility derived from surviving such an experience, it soon became apparent that in sharing these insights I was actually influencing the way people think about themselves, their relationships, their country, and their God. The feedback I received indicated that I was not just inspiring others but actually empowering them to change their lives. I was thereby turning an otherwise tragic and devastating personal experience into a result more positive that I ever could have foreseen. Now I was going beyond survival -and helping others to do the same. My mission is to inspire and to empower. That is the responsibility which I embrace and the reason I speak. It would be my privilege to share my message with your group and to work with you in addressing your specific concerns
Captain Gerald L. Coffee U.S. Navy (Ret.)
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