A Viet Nam Soldier Story With A Happy Ending

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This is the story of
Ronald L. Ridgeway
whose platoon was massacred
in 1968.

Along with eight other soldiers
—none of whom
was identified beyond doubt—
he was buried here:

 But in 1973,
all American 
Prisoners of War
were released.

Ronald L. Ridgeway
was one of them!


This is how he survived
his captivity:

As he sat alone in his windowless cell
beside a wooden bed and the bucket
he used for waste, Ridgeway went about
creating a “make-believe” life.
There was no one to talk to,
and he was allowed out
only once a day to empty the bucket.
 
So he imagined that he was somewhere else,
that he owned a pickup truck,
that he had a wife and children,
that he would go fishing.

It was a mental exercise, he said,
and he found that spending three days
in his make-believe world
would take up a whole day
in solitary.

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