TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2020
BENGE
Continued from Page 1A
“Hickey and I replied
that we damn well believed
it,” said Benge, who had
previously served as a
member of the U.S. Marines
for 3-1/2 years but was then
working as a civilian for the
U.S. Agency for Interna-
tional Development.
Moments after the Tet
holiday celebration started,
Benge and Hickey heard
the usual crescendo of fi re-
crackers, but above the
din they also heard a huge
explosion at the south end
of town followed by a
shock wave.
“Off to our left appeared
a stream of green tracers,
but these were not shot at
the moon; rather they were
arching toward the nearby
155th Assault Helicopter
Company’s guard towers,”
Benge said.
Others began noticing
that something was hor-
ribly wrong.
“Oh my gosh! It’s the
real thing,” Benge heard
someone shout.
The Tet Offensive, a
major escalation of the
Vietnam War and one of
its largest military cam-
paigns, was starting. Benge
noted the false cease fi re
so fooled the South Viet-
namese military that it had
given passes to half its sol-
diers so they could go home
for the holiday.
“They fell for a Machia-
vellian ruse,” Benge said.
Benge worked furi-
ously after the start of the
Tet Offensive to get at least
12 USAID staff to safety.
Then the North Vietnamese
caught him shortly after he
noticed his waving friends.
Fate in hands
of ‘senseless
barbarians’
Benge was tied up and
led like a dog on a leash.
Two days later he arrived
at Buon Ea Ana, 9 miles
southwest of Ban Me
Thuot. He was led to a
bamboo platform where 15
teenage Montagnards were
kneeling with their hands
wired behind their back
and their heads down. The
teenagers were the defen-
dants in a kangaroo court
trial in which they were
found guilty of betraying
the communist revolu-
tion. The judge then killed
each of the young men by
shooting him in the base of
his skull.
“I wondered if the
NVA (North Vietnamese
Army) had orchestrated
it at that time to impress
me; and impressed I was
by how cruel, inhumane
and without conscience the
Vietnamese Communists
were. My fate was now in
the hands of numerous,
senseless barbarians,”
Benge said.
Barbarians who would
treat Benge with unspeak-
able cruelty. On a number
of occasions he was sure
that he would be killed.
Once, early in the days
of his captivity, one of his
captors accused him of
lying. The man then jerked
his hand, jamming the
pistol into Benge’s temple.
“I thought I had bought
the farm. Everything went
as if I was in a cloud, and
it took me a few seconds to
realize I wasn’t dead and
regain my composure,” said
Benge, who grew up on a
ranch between Heppner
and Ione and today lives in
Falls Church, Virginia.
The North Vietnamese
were constantly asking
Benge for information. He
eventually determined his
best chance of survival was
to provide small amounts of
information that were basi-
cally meaningless.
“The North Vietnamese
were not that interested in
THE OBSERVER — 5A
information,
(the threats)
were mostly a
power trip. If
you confessed
to something,
Benge
you could
make do, but if
you resisted too long or too
hard you would be badly
tortured, or just killed,”
Benge said.
In the fi rst months after
his capture, Benge was
placed in a small pole cage
with a grass roof where his
legs and arms were tied in
stocks. He would be taken
out of the stocks once a day
to eat and use a latrine.
“This became an
everyday routine,” he said.
Determined to
survive
Benge was at a large
camp that held about 50
Vietnamese and Montag-
nard prisoners. He was later
joined by two American
missionaries, Betty Olsen, a
nurse from a hospital where
people were treated for lep-
rosy, and Hank Blood, a
Wycliffe Bible translator.
Benge, Olsen and Blood
were kept together and
moved to a different loca-
tion once a month. In July
1968 they were moved to a
mountain camp.
“All three were chained
to a tree with little cover
during a cold two-day rain-
storm while our keepers
stayed in a nearby cave,”
Benge said.
A North Vietnamese
nurse diagnosed Blood with
pneumonia. Medics at the
site refused to treat him,
saying their medicine was
for their soldiers. Blood
soon died.
Benge said Olsen’s
health also was
deteriorating.
“She told our guards that
unless she had some nutri-
tious food she would die,”
Benge said.
The guards initially
refused Olsen’s request and
threatened to kill her if she
continued to ask for more
food. Then they appeared
to back down and provided
a large meal. One which
had tragic consequences.
Benge and Olsen were
given a meal of rice, corn,
mung beans and bamboo
shoots.
“We were so hungry we
gobbled everything down,”
Benge said.
The two soon became
extremely ill because
the bamboo shoots had
not been boiled twice.
This caused them to get
dysentery.
“The North Vietnamese
had determined that it was
to be our Last Supper,”
Benge said.
The pair became vio-
lently ill. Olsen died about
two days later.
“I was a bit stronger,”
Benge said, “and I had
made up my mind not to
give them the satisfaction
of dying.”
Benge succeeded but
only after being extremely
weakened.
“I struggled for the next
two weeks, barely able to
put one one foot in front of
another,” he said.
His reward for surviving
was more horrifi c adver-
sity. Benge was transported
to a camp in the Rattana-
kiri Province in Cambodia.
There he was held with 13
U.S Army troops in cages
for a year before being
moved to Hanoi in North
Vietnam, which today is
the capital city of reunifi ed
Vietnam.
Benge would be held
captive in Hanoi for fi ve
more years.
The worst part of the
experience were the total of
17 months he spent in soli-
tary confi nement, including
one year in a black box in
Hanoi. Benge said he sur-
vived the solitary confi ne-
ment by keeping his mind
active.
“I built a house in my
mind,” he said. “It was
important to keep my mind
focused in a positive way.”
He was released as a
POW in 1973.
“I can’t explain what it
felt like to fi nally be free,”
Benge said.
Returning to home,
family and new
career
Terry Hughes of Island
City, a nephew of Benge’s,
was attending an Oregon
State University basketball
game in Corvallis when he
was paged for a phone call.
On the line was his mother
who greeted Hughes with
two words — “He’s alive!”
she told her son.
Hughes will never
forget the sense of joy and
relief that two-word mes-
sage conveyed.
“I still get emotional
when I talk about it 47
years later,” he said.
Hughes said his family
received reports from the
State Department and the
Red Cross that people had
spotted his uncle in North
Vietnam.
“Once a year we would
get a report that someone
had seen him,” Hughes
said.
He said when Benge
fi rst returned to his home
in Oregon he slept on the
fl oor. Hughes said Benge
had become accustomed
to sleeping on hard beds
while a POW.
Benge was recognized
after his release by the
U.S. State Department for
his efforts to help people
evacuate from Ban Me
Thout. He said he was pre-
sented with its highest
honor for heroism, cred-
iting him with saving the
lives of 12 people.
Benge, who has a
degree in agriculture from
Oregon State University
and a master’s degree in
agroforestry from the Uni-
versity of the Philippines,
enjoyed a successful and
award-winning career as a
horticulturist after leaving
Vietnam. Today he is a
member of Vietnam Vet-
erans for Factual History.
The group publishes works
its members write about
the Vietnam War.
“We just want to get the
truth out,” Benge said.
He has written at least
300 papers and book chap-
ters about Vietnam, Cam-
bodia and Laos. Benge is
now at work on his mem-
FAMILY
OWNED
oirs, including a portion on
his Vietnam experiences.
“I’m about three-fourths
of the way through,” said
Benge, who said he is
enjoying the process.
Recollecting the horrors
of his Vietnam experiences
does not upset him.
“I have never really suf-
fered from post-traumatic
stress syndrome,” the
former POW said.
Hughes described
his uncle as an amazing
person who can speak the
dialects of multiple South-
east Asian languages. The
trauma Benge suffered
through in Southeast Asia
fi ve decades ago has never
dimmed his passion for its
people and culture.
“He truly loves the
people of Southeast Asia,”
Hughes said.
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