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EAST LIVERPOOL-The faces are what linger with Fred Elbert. Faces of fellow veterans who did not make it home. They are a stark reminder of the inhumanity he witnessed during his time as a Vietnam prisoner of war.
“To this day I still see faces in the dark,” Elbert said recently at a POW/MIA ceremony as part of the Vietnam Moving Wall’s visit to Lisbon. “They did not return to see their mothers and fathers, their wives or their children.”
Elbert-an East Liverpool resident-is the only known Vietnam prisoner of war living in Columbiana County. He spent a harrowing four years and seven months (from August 1968 until March 1973) as a captive of the North Vietnamese. Since then, he has not hesitated to publicly share his story.
“I hope to make people aware of the things that POWs went through and still go through,” Elbert said. “Sharing what I went through is a way to honor those who were lost.”
Elbert, 67, was originally from Queens, New York. He enlisted in the Marines in October of 1966 rather than wait to be drafted.
“One of my recruiters told me my draft number was coming up,” Elbert said. “I figured if I enlisted instead of being drafted, I wouldn’t be sent to Vietnam as soon. I tried to get into the National Guard, but you wouldn’t believe how long the list was to get in.”
After eight weeks of boot camp and six weeks of advanced training, Elbert was selected to be part of an elite reconnaissance unit.
“I was interested in aviation mechanics, and my recruiter told me that if I enlisted in the Marines, I could get a job working on helicopters,” Elbert said. “But one day at advanced training they just went down the line and started picking people for recon. Out of my platoon they picked me and 24 others.”
After a year of extensive recon training, Elbert and his unit were deployed to the South Vietnamese city of Hue (near the North Vietnamese border) in January of 1968, right before the start of the Tet Offensive.
“Our job in Hue was to help clear the North Vietnamese out of the town,” Elbert said. “It took us a little over five months. It involved a lot of house to house combat. We were also sent to do several recon missions along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”
On August 16th, Elbert and his team were on a recon mission along the Ho Chi Minh trail about 12 miles into Laos when they crossed paths with North Vietnamese troops.
“We were waiting to be picked up and taken out of there, and the North Vietnamese just stumbled upon my team,” Elbert said.
Elbert and his team were able to initially fight their way back to the Quang Tri Province in North Central Vietnam, near the demilitarized zone, before running into a Viet Cong ambush.
“They were waiting for us,” Elbert said. “We were low on ammo and greatly outnumbered. It was either surrender or be killed.”
Elbert and the other three members of his team were split up and taken to different interrogation camps before being transported to a POW camp in South Vietnam in early September.
“There were about 23 Americans at the POW camp,” Elbert said. “Between September of 1968 and January of 1969 six of them died. Some of them had prior wounds for which they were given insufficient care. Some of them simply gave up and stopped eating.”
Elbert was instructed to try and escape if he fell into enemy hands and attempted to do so three separate times.
“At the first interrogation camp, there were no fences,” Elbert said. “The first time, I told them I had to go to the bathroom and just took off into the forest. They caught me after 20 minutes and threatened to shoot me if I did it again. The second time, there was a group of four of us in the woods collecting firewood with only one guard. When he turned his back I took off. They found me after 45 minutes and beat me pretty good. The third time was three days later, I got away for two hours and thought I was clear before they caught me.”
Shortly after the third attempt, Elbert was put in solitary confinement. For six-and-a-half months he was wedged inside a bamboo tiger cage with no room to move around.
“You couldn’t stand up or stretch out,” Elbert said. “I tried to keep my sanity by planning my fourth escape if I ever got out. I was very stubborn. I would also try to harass the guards, anything to pass the time. Every now and then, I would get let out to help bury a fellow American who had died.”
Towards the end of his time in the tiger cage, Elbert came down with malaria. He had three more bouts with malaria during his time in captivity and also came down with dysentery and intestinal parasites.
“My third bout of malaria was the worst,” Elbert said. “I had a 106 degree temperature, and one day my body just went stiff. They called a doctor in and it took about 6 1/2 minutes for them to get a heartbeat.”
Elbert and his fellow POWs would eventually be moved to a camp in North Vietnam. To get there, they were forced to walk for three months through the forests of Cambodia and Laos around into North Vietnam.
“While we were still in South Vietnam, you would hear American jets and gunships about three or four miles away,” Elbert said. “One time we had B-52s fly over the camp. They were so low you could hear the bomb bay doors close. Once they were on the other side of the camp they started bombing again. The military knew we were there. After that, we were moved.”
During the four years in captivity, meals came twice a day in the form of a half can of white rice-at times crawling with maggots.
“Everybody was malnourished,” Elbert said. “We just picked out the maggots and ate the rice, we had no choice.”
Every few days there were harsh interrogation sessions, which consisted of beatings and various forms of rope torture.
“They tried to break us,” Elbert said. “They always were asking where our camps were or how many GI’s were in the area.”
Elbert’s parents did not know where he was for three years. He was eventually allowed to write a letter home.
“MPs (military police) came to my parent’s door in New York and told them I had gone AWOL” Elbert said. “Around 1971 I was allowed to write a letter saying I was in good condition. They obviously read everything before it was sent out.”
In March of 1973, Elbert was finally released after the Paris Peace Accords. Elbert weighed 185 pounds when he was captured. He emerged from captivity weighing 119.
“We were taken to a Navy hospital in the Philippines and checked for diseases,” Elbert said. “They told us we could have whatever we wanted to eat even if they had to fly it in. Almost everybody had either steak or hamburgers. Everyone was talking about the first things they would do when they got back. Before we went back into the public were all shown videos for what had been going on in for the last four years. That’s how I saw the moon landing.”
Upon returning to New York, Elbert and four other POWs from the area were given a small ceremony at Kennedy airport. Elbert then spent four months in the hospital trying to regain his strength. He had to have all of his teeth pulled due to malnourishment.
“We were all in bad shape, but we were all thankful to be home,” Elbert said. “My parents were there waiting for me. There were a couple of times I thought I would never make it out. Mostly belief in God was what pulled me through.
Reacclimation to society was hard. Upon returning, Elbert tried going to college a couple of times, but never finished. He bounced around to different parts of the country doing various jobs. There were stints at an electronics company, a sheriff’s department in upstate New York and also time spent in Oregon raising Appaloosa horses. Elbert married his first wife Evelyn-who passed away from bone cancer in 2002-in 1978. They had one daughter, Melissa, who lives in East Palestine. Elbert has been happily married to his second wife Denise for a little over a year.
“It took over a year for me to readjust somewhat,” Elbert said. “College nerve really worked out because I didn’t like being cooped up,” Elbert said. “I kind of lived all over the place for a while, but I had friends in Leetonia and eventually settled there in 1997. I’ve lived in East Liverpool now for a few years.”
Over the years, Elbert has battled the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder-which caused him to quit his job at the sheriff’s department. He also battles a variety of physical ailments linked to his time as a POW. Each time he shares his story, hopes to further the cause for those who have returned and those that are still missing
“War is serious business,” Elbert said during the ceremony. “It has real costs and real impacts on all who serve. Those of us who have seen it must direct our words to those who do not have the same experience. With each shared memory, we honor our lost friends.”