An Incredible Saga of Seaman Hegdahl - American Hero - Page 23

Ross Perot

Well throw him out they did. The 256 names he had memorized contained many names that our government did not have. He ended up being sent to Paris by Ross Perot to confront the North Vietnamese Peace Talk Delegation about the fate of the Missing in Action. He entered the Civil Service and taught as a Survival School instructor for the U.S. Navy and the James B. Stockdale Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape Center (SERE), Naval Air Station, North Island, Coronado, California. And yes, he can still recite those names! You can watch him do it on the Discovery Channel special on Vietnam POWs -- Stories of Survival. A while after Doug had been released; I was called over to an interrogation. It was to be a Soft Soap Fairy kind of gig since there was quality cigarettes, sugared tea in china cups, cookies and candy laid out on the interrogation table. A dapper, handsome Vietnamese, dressed in an expensive, tailored suit and wearing real, spit-shined wingtip shoes, came into the room with a serious look on his face -- all business. "Do you know Douglas Hegdahl?" "You know I do." "Hegdahl says that you were tortured." "This is true." "You lie."