Saluting the POW

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As I mentioned in the discussion about Camp Sumter, the Andersonville National Historic Site is also home to the National Prisoner of War Museum. It’s a most fitting location, given the field just outside of its walls. When I went to Camp Abernathy, outside of Edinburgh, Indiana, I saw the scant remains of a POW camp for captured Italian and German soldiers during World War II. There it was shown that the US abided by the Geneva Convention for the humane treatment of prisoners of war. A chapel that the Italian soldiers built for worship services still stands. Not every government is that happy to comply with “the rules of war,” and the POW Museum shows that in sometimes graphic detail. The museum opens its self-guided exhibit with a question: “what is a prisoner of war?” That would seem to be an easily-answered question; however, the opening of the museum points out how “murky” the answer can be. It used examples of Union generals who considered Confederate soldiers “traitors” and not “soldiers,” which caused many to be executed. Similarly, “freed blacks” (or, for that matter, blacks who were never slaves in the South) were not treated as “soldiers,” despite the fact that they were in Union uniforms. From there, the museum goes through the wars, not chronologically but by “theme” such as being captured by the enemy, the process of becoming an official POW, living conditions, etc. And, truthfully, it’s not pretty. One of the photos (lower left) is a replica of a “tiger cage” cell that some US servicemen were transported in during the Vietnam war. There are photos of the skeleton-appearing men liberated from Bataan (the final survivor of the Bataan Death March died earlier this year at 102), victims of beriberi (vitamin B1 deficiency), murdered soldiers who didn’t keep up with the rest of the marchers (or for no reason at all), and other things that prove everything in war is hell. Still, I’d recommend it to anyone. Next time I see a license plate depicting a former POW I’ll have a lot more appreciation for what they endured. PHOTO COLLAGE: (Top) Exterior of the National Prisoner of War Museum (Bottom left) Replica of the “tiger cage” cell (Bottom right) Original key and piece of gate from Camp Sumter in the Civil War.