I bear the moniker.

We call ourselves “brats,” but we don’t like other people to use the term. We came from a small town spread all over the world—a city with a centralized government and a code of conduct but no borders. We made friends quickly and adjusted seamlessly, not because we came into the world with special talents, but rather because our survival, at least in a social sense, depended on flexibility and adaptability. We went to Department of Defense schools, Catholic schools near bases, and schools in the little towns outside the gates. I attended eight such schools and taught in two as well. We formed relationships with those in the “family business” of the military and often married each other.

My father, Friday Henman, my hero and the best human I’ve ever known, flew in three wars, including Vietnam. Fortune smiled on him during World War II when he avoided capture, thanks to the bravery of the French Resistance, after the Germans shot down his B-24 Liberator. His experiences caused me to question, “What would have happened if Dad had been a prisoner of war? Would I even be here?” 

Dad’s history fueled my curiosity about history and psychology, but it did more. It shaped my opinions about what a man should be and gave me a framework for understanding the Vietnam Prisoners of War. Dad failed in one regard, however. He didn’t teach me how to spot those who can captivate with their charm and create the crushing disappointment of a hostage situation in the guise of a marriage.

 I needed help developing those skills, so I went back to school. As part of my doctoral studies, I read psychologist Carl Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis (The Mysterious, Mystical Union). In it, Jung explained the path of the hero:

In myths the hero is the one who conquers the dragon, not the one 

who is devoured by it.  And yet both have to deal with the same 

dragon. Also, he is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if

he saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing.  Equally, only one

who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it

wins the hoard, the ‘treasure hard to attain.’  He alone has a genuine

claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his

self and thereby has gained himself…. He has arrived at an inner

certainty which makes him capable of self-reliance, and attained

what the alchemists called the unio mentalis (the unity of mind).

I felt drawn to study those who had slain dragons—eager to learn the lessons they could teach me—and felt especially curious about the Vietnam Prisoners of War. I learned that when the Vietnam Conflict ended in early 1973, 566 military prisoners of war returned from captivity in North Vietnam. The twenty-year follow-up study, which included yearly psychological exams, indicated this group hadn’t experienced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  How could that be when POWs from other wars showed extreme after-effects? I found answers among this inspiration group of men. It was almost like a religious retreat.