The John-Henry Westen Show - May 30, 2025


Vietnam WAR HERO ｜ Despair of Captivity to Grace and FREEDOM!


Episode Stats

Length

44 minutes

Words per Minute

171.13295

Word Count

7,691

Sentence Count

556

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

Vietnam vet Guy Gruters talks about his experience in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, and how he found joy in the midst of the suffering he endured in the crucible of torture that was daily for years.


Transcript

00:00:00.160 Hundreds of people came screaming at me from all directions with machetes.
00:00:05.140 They were going to cut me to pieces.
00:00:07.960 Hey, my friends.
00:00:09.020 Today, we are honored to welcome a man whose life, well, it reads something like a war epic.
00:00:16.140 Guy Gruters is a Vietnam vet.
00:00:20.800 He was a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton, the famous Hanoi Hilton.
00:00:24.940 And his story is, it strikes you as so impossible because of the suffering he endured, but how
00:00:33.780 he got out of that suffering, how he endured it.
00:00:38.300 In fact, it answers one of the most difficult questions of the faith.
00:00:42.220 That is, how do we, all the saints say we have, we can have joy.
00:00:49.360 How do you have joy in the midst of suffering?
00:00:51.780 Many people are suffering in their lives and in their family situations, in circumstances
00:00:56.900 they find themselves in.
00:00:58.300 Well, imagine this, in the crucible of torture that's daily for years, you're still going
00:01:07.360 to experience joy.
00:01:09.180 If he can do that, we can have joy in the midst of our daily sufferings.
00:01:14.140 Guy, welcome to the program.
00:01:15.400 Thank you very much, John.
00:01:16.600 Let's begin as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
00:01:19.020 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
00:01:24.680 Amen.
00:01:25.540 Amen.
00:01:26.080 Guy, can you start us off with, you know, why did you enter into, you know, the Air Force
00:01:32.940 in the first place?
00:01:33.660 What got you there?
00:01:34.620 Well, I got there, I always was sort of led to the Air Force, like in high school.
00:01:39.640 My dad was in the Army in World War II.
00:01:42.520 But I was led to the Air Force, I had a, I did trapping, I had some cash, and I subscribed
00:01:49.260 to Air Force Magazine and the Flying Magazine in high school.
00:01:52.940 So I didn't think I was going to get in the Air Force or anything, but I did get a, effectively
00:01:59.160 a slot to the Air Force Academy.
00:02:01.160 And that got me into pilot training afterward.
00:02:05.420 I did very well there.
00:02:06.720 And I became, effectively, a fighter pilot as a result of pilot training.
00:02:11.500 So that's really how I got there.
00:02:13.180 And I had studied a lot about communism in the 50s and growing up.
00:02:18.240 And I really wanted to try to keep the communists away from our country.
00:02:23.260 You know, their philosophy was to take little country after little country and surround us
00:02:27.840 in Europe and then have us fall into their hands.
00:02:30.780 So I didn't mind.
00:02:32.880 I wanted to, in fact, I volunteered to fight in Vietnam.
00:02:36.100 And I wanted to keep them away from the families because I'd read enough about war.
00:02:40.000 I'd read hundreds of war books.
00:02:41.580 And I knew that the people who really suffer in the wars are the ones that the armies cross
00:02:48.160 their nation.
00:02:49.240 Did you feel it as a calling as well from our Lord?
00:02:51.940 I wouldn't call it a calling, but I felt like I was supposed to be a soldier.
00:02:55.580 My dad was on Eisenhower's staff from North Africa all the way across through Germany.
00:03:01.700 And he had, you know, we would watch the Korean War together, you know, every night
00:03:05.640 and so on.
00:03:06.640 So I sort of grew up in a warrior family.
00:03:09.600 And I felt like I could do that.
00:03:11.500 I felt like I could fight and be a good soldier.
00:03:15.700 Was there sort of a, you grew up in a Catholic home.
00:03:18.120 Was there sort of a spiritual preparation as well?
00:03:20.460 Yes.
00:03:20.700 I had five years in a Catholic school in northern New Jersey, but I just would like to emphasize
00:03:28.840 that although we were taught very well by the nuns there and so on, that about our faith
00:03:36.040 and the Baltimore Catechism and so on, but I didn't really believe that God was, you know,
00:03:42.600 with you every second.
00:03:43.820 I didn't have that infinite.
00:03:45.320 I knew that God was there and I believed in him and I believed as he was in church and
00:03:49.780 so on.
00:03:50.700 But I just felt as a scientist, I was an engineer, that there's no way in the world that God can
00:03:57.380 be with each individual.
00:03:59.320 That's just ridiculous.
00:04:00.680 You're just expecting him to do too much.
00:04:03.340 So I sort of thought that you were on your own, if you know what I'm saying, and that
00:04:08.220 you really don't have his help on a moment by moment or day by day basis.
00:04:12.880 That's the extent of my lack of faith.
00:04:15.480 I did not have the true faith that he gave me as a result of the prison camp experience.
00:04:21.860 That's just beautiful right there, that understanding that is now so deeply with you.
00:04:26.700 But I think a lot of people go around with the thought that, yeah, of course I believe
00:04:30.120 in God.
00:04:30.520 I go to church every Sunday.
00:04:31.920 But that God dwells in here and he's waiting for me to turn to him every second that he's
00:04:39.040 there.
00:04:39.600 That does not register, I don't think, to most.
00:04:42.140 But okay.
00:04:43.200 So everything changes then in Vietnam in 1967.
00:04:48.760 Take us through that day.
00:04:50.200 What happened the day you were shot down?
00:04:51.900 What went, what was going through your mind?
00:04:53.200 Well, we were just, my instructor and myself, I had just joined a really good top secret
00:05:01.080 all-volunteer unit flying scouts over North Vietnam, low level and fighters.
00:05:05.640 And we went up there under a 1,500 foot cloud ceiling.
00:05:10.740 In other words, we were the only plane up there because the bombing flights, the guys that
00:05:15.220 were dive bombing had to have weather clear up to about 15,000 feet, 10,000 feet.
00:05:21.300 And it wasn't like that.
00:05:22.680 It was down to 1,500 feet.
00:05:24.640 So the only planes that could get up there, you'd have to go under 1,500 foot clouds.
00:05:28.840 So we went up there.
00:05:30.040 We didn't carry bombs.
00:05:31.280 We just would mark targets with smoke rockets.
00:05:35.060 But we did have cannons, 20 millimeter cannons.
00:05:38.260 And when the clouds were down like that, the North Vietnamese convoys would get on the
00:05:43.200 road to supply their forces in South Vietnam.
00:05:49.040 So we knew that.
00:05:49.880 So we went up there and sure enough, we shot up a number of convoys that afternoon.
00:05:55.080 We had our own tanker assigned to us.
00:05:57.600 So we had five and a half hour flights, three cycles in a fighter.
00:06:01.760 And we shot up three convoys very well, ran out of ammo.
00:06:05.320 And then we were looking to get the position on a 36 gun anti-aircraft position that had almost
00:06:11.520 shot down a number of the people we were putting in.
00:06:13.900 And while we were doing that, they shot us down.
00:06:16.960 We were captured there just before Christmas on December 20th in 1967.
00:06:23.220 And at this point, you've got a family already at home, do you not?
00:06:27.120 Yes.
00:06:27.560 We've got a Sandy and I had two little kids.
00:06:30.020 And Sandy was, you know, at home and in with my in a home with my parents in Sarasota, Florida.
00:06:38.380 My dad and mom had moved to Sarasota after his retirement with AT&T.
00:06:43.980 And they were down in Sarasota and Sandy had rented a home there.
00:06:47.840 And so she was there when I was shot down.
00:06:52.540 Unbelievable.
00:06:53.420 So you're shot down and then you're you're approached.
00:06:58.160 And do you think you were going to survive at that point?
00:07:00.980 What happened?
00:07:01.520 First, I tried to get away.
00:07:03.100 I got away from the enemy soldiers to two different times.
00:07:07.540 Literally ran away from them from I was shot down two times.
00:07:11.420 This was the second time.
00:07:12.500 And the first time the they had not they took my pistol to to clean it, but they had not returned it.
00:07:20.720 So I didn't have a weapon except a knife.
00:07:23.120 So I literally ran away, which saved my life.
00:07:25.900 I'm sure if I tried to shoot it out with those soldiers, never would have had a chance with a pistol.
00:07:31.120 But at any rate, I finally got away from them and hid for about 30 minutes and had 30 patrols go by me.
00:07:39.240 And just as it was getting dark where I figured I had a chance to get out of this farm valley and make it across the fields to a mountain and maybe get rescued.
00:07:50.260 Two soldiers saw me in the jungle and covered me in motion from 15 feet away with AK-47s and motioned me out to them.
00:07:59.360 And I had a squad of 10 or 12 soldiers right away on me.
00:08:04.180 And they led me out into the fields out of the jungle and hundreds of people came screaming at me from all directions with machetes.
00:08:13.220 They were going to cut me to pieces.
00:08:14.800 But this soldier actually had his men surround me and withdrawn bayonets stopped the crowd from killing me and then led me through the crowd and to a place.
00:08:29.420 And 11 o'clock at night, this woman fed us some cassava meal, which was like a potato.
00:08:35.320 And that's the first time I thought I might have a chance of living.
00:08:39.140 We had not heard of anybody shot down.
00:08:41.680 And as a matter of fact, six out of seven men shot down were killed, never made it back.
00:08:47.680 Only 500 of us, 470 of us made it back out of 3,500.
00:08:53.080 So I really didn't think I was going to make it out of there.
00:08:55.800 But when they fed me that meal, I figured, well, maybe there's a chance.
00:09:00.020 I still was thinking only escape.
00:09:03.240 But I felt at that time for the first time, because we'd seen these guys surrounded by these crowds and cut to pieces.
00:09:10.960 You know, we'd seen other guys shot down.
00:09:13.800 But when they fed me, when that woman fed me that meal, I figured, well, they're keeping me alive at least for a few days.
00:09:20.700 So that's the first time I really thought I might have a chance of living through this thing.
00:09:25.800 Unbelievable thing.
00:09:27.100 You were five years then in the Hanoi Hilton.
00:09:32.340 Explain to some of us who might not know what that is.
00:09:35.020 What is it?
00:09:35.920 And how did you fare there?
00:09:38.140 It was communist prison camps and communist prison camps.
00:09:42.100 There's plenty of books on them.
00:09:43.420 It's much like the stories of the gulag that I'd read, you know, in the USSR.
00:09:48.380 This was typical communism.
00:09:50.260 And what it is, is a total rule by the government without any morality or laws whatsoever.
00:10:01.280 And that's what they do.
00:10:03.460 They can torture, kill not just the POWs, but their own people at will.
00:10:11.320 Just anything they want to do.
00:10:12.740 Communism is so bad that you can't believe it until you're in it, that it's real, because it sounds like a horror story.
00:10:22.960 And it was a horror story in those prison camps.
00:10:26.120 Basically, they kept us in these concrete cells, no windows, no doors, no books, no magazines, no radio, no TV, no nothing.
00:10:35.600 It's like you're put in a concrete coffin, and those first two and a half years were like that.
00:10:42.060 You're basically in a concrete cell, no way of looking out, and you're not allowed to write, as an example, you're not allowed to write letters telling your wife you're alive or anything like that.
00:10:53.840 And you're not allowed to get letters from your families.
00:10:57.680 They keep you, it's like you're out of the world.
00:11:00.600 It's really like you're put in a coffin, and they can torture you for information, beat you at will, and so on, all this kind of thing.
00:11:09.420 And that's how it is.
00:11:10.680 It's just completely different than anything you have ever experienced, you know, in the United States or in combat or anything else.
00:11:20.440 You were tortured how often, take us through a typical week, like how did this look like, this cell, was it big enough for you to lie down, did you have a blanket, did you, what was it like?
00:11:34.620 The first thing you're in, you're in these torture cells, okay?
00:11:38.080 And there you're in irons, you have your feet, they have irons built into the concrete bunks.
00:11:45.360 You never have a mattress or anything like that.
00:11:47.700 You're sleeping on concrete or wooden bunks, boards across soul horses, basically.
00:11:54.380 But in the torture cells, you have your ankles in these irons, okay?
00:12:00.280 In other words, you're on your back, you have your ankles in irons, and you have handcuffs on.
00:12:05.560 And they come in and they beat you around type of thing.
00:12:10.320 And they bring you out for interrogations to basically find out who you were flying for, what your missions were, what airplanes you were flying, all that kind of thing.
00:12:24.460 And that lasts for a number of weeks.
00:12:26.560 You have professional interrogators that interrogate you.
00:12:29.660 And after that time, you're brought back to your cell.
00:12:32.200 And then from then on, the torture is to get you to believe like they believe about the war and communism and everything else.
00:12:46.240 In other words, the most incredible thing about communism is, is that you have to believe like they want you to believe or they'll torture you, okay?
00:13:02.400 Like you believe in God?
00:13:04.680 Nope.
00:13:05.580 You can't believe in God.
00:13:07.160 The government is God.
00:13:08.840 No, you can't, you know, you talk about God and you're tortured until you stop believing in God, okay?
00:13:17.360 You know, until you say that you don't believe in God.
00:13:20.740 John, you could still believe in God.
00:13:23.460 But you, you know, as long as you say you do, you get tortured, okay?
00:13:27.480 I mean, that's the idea.
00:13:29.140 Finally, you shut up.
00:13:30.560 You know, you learn to shut up about the war and things like that.
00:13:34.260 Now, I didn't, so I got smushied, but God saved me from those tortures.
00:13:39.100 I could tell you that story because that was the biggest thing that happened to me was, is that they beat and tortured to death a good friend of mine that I was with, that I'd been with at three years at the Air Force Academy.
00:13:52.800 He's in my squadron.
00:13:54.300 And they beat him to death in the first month.
00:13:57.200 And that made, got me into, that and the tortures and so on, got me into hatred of these people, which is something you never want to do.
00:14:09.040 Remember the example of Jesus on the cross.
00:14:12.140 You're not a Christian if you hate.
00:14:15.600 And remember, that hatred can't be for good reason either.
00:14:20.320 In other words, Jesus had the example for all time.
00:14:24.600 Remember, they had no reason to torture him.
00:14:28.380 They had no reason to kill him.
00:14:30.300 And he still forgave them instantly, right?
00:14:34.100 That's the example.
00:14:35.920 That's what I did not understand.
00:14:38.720 And I got into terrible hate.
00:14:40.760 And that led into vindictiveness, which is, you know, trying to get even.
00:14:45.720 And that, over a period of months, that led into literally evil spirits talking to me, trying to talk me into suicide or getting even with them and, you know, thinking of ways I could torture them back, which effectively resulted in addiction, believe it or not, to hatred, to hatred and anger.
00:15:08.920 If that happens to you, I'd never hated anybody or been mad at anybody like that in my life.
00:15:14.140 And I didn't understand, really, what I was getting into.
00:15:18.180 But what I did was, is I became blind to the terrible sin of hatred, which, you know, is Satan himself, right?
00:15:28.180 You know, God is love himself, right?
00:15:31.940 Satan is hatred himself.
00:15:34.060 So when you hate, what you do is you basically, God lets Satan work on you until you realize, until hopefully you repent.
00:15:44.560 And one of the things that happens to you when you're in that kind of hatred and vindictiveness is that you're blind to it, literally.
00:15:52.820 But what happens is you have no peace, no peace.
00:15:56.060 You can't even sleep good at night.
00:15:57.860 All you can think about is revenge, getting even.
00:16:02.120 It's terrible, terrible peace.
00:16:04.520 No joy.
00:16:05.820 You're always terrible.
00:16:07.640 The thoughts of suicide are just all the time.
00:16:11.120 It feels like the only way out of this absolutely misery that you're in, because of your hatred, because of these people.
00:16:18.340 You want to hurt them any way you can, but you can't.
00:16:20.400 You don't have a knife.
00:16:21.240 You don't have a gun.
00:16:21.880 You can't kill them.
00:16:23.160 So the only thing you think you can do is maybe, you know, commit suicide.
00:16:27.160 You know, maybe that'll keep them from getting anything from you at any kind of meeting of delegations or propaganda or so on.
00:16:35.700 So maybe you can get even with them that way.
00:16:37.640 It's basically terrible, terrible, logical things put in your mind by the bad guys, and you know they're not you.
00:16:47.080 These are voices in your head.
00:16:49.400 It's really, honestly, demons.
00:16:51.460 This is why, remember, they say that you never want to go to bed angry in a marriage or anything like that, right?
00:17:01.360 And I can attest to that, that the last thing you want to do, if you want to have peace and joy, is hate and think of getting even with people.
00:17:12.220 You're just, we're not allowed to do it, and when you do it, you get in deep trouble.
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00:17:48.400 With the extremity of your example, you point to all of us who will once in a while lose it.
00:17:55.000 And everybody's going to say in your circumstance, you had every single reason to have hatred because those guys were torturing you every day, and yet.
00:18:06.460 Yeah, that's right.
00:18:07.280 I had a reason, but that's why I keep saying, that's why I tell people, remember, Jesus Christ on the cross had every reason to hate.
00:18:20.620 And remember, he could have got even, he could have killed every one of them instantly, okay?
00:18:26.660 He could have tortured every one of them, you know, to death instantly, but he didn't.
00:18:32.480 As the example, we have to follow.
00:18:36.140 So, luckily, I had a nun in eighth grade that used to, because the suicide was really logical in that situation.
00:18:44.540 In other words, John, you're in there, they're really after you to convince you to be like them, and to meet delegations, you know, from your, you know, liberal delegations, like Jane Fonda from the U.S., but also all kinds of liberal delegations from all over the world.
00:18:59.400 They want to get you to tell them that the U.S. shouldn't be in Vietnam, we should get out, and this kind of, they want to get you to say that, John, okay?
00:19:07.020 And you don't want to say that, I mean, this is treason, you don't want to be a traitor to your family, to your country, okay?
00:19:13.340 So, basically, they want you, personally, to say this, all right?
00:19:17.460 So, and they torture the devil out of you to try to get you to do this.
00:19:21.240 And, you know, when you've been in torture for days, and sometimes weeks, you realize, someday I may break under this stuff and become a traitor to my family.
00:19:29.920 How would you like to face your family as a traitor, you know, for the rest of your life if you ever did get out, see?
00:19:36.360 Okay?
00:19:36.920 So, basically, so the logic of the devil that you should commit suicide sounds very good in that situation.
00:19:44.060 But, anyway, I had this nun who told us that the one thing you never want to do is commit suicide because it's being a quitter and a coward.
00:19:51.320 But worse than that, it makes your family a quitter family, a coward family, because they'll always talk about the fact that they had a kid, they had a son who committed suicide.
00:20:03.680 So, they're a quitter family.
00:20:05.380 They're a coward family.
00:20:07.100 So, that's the way she'd talk.
00:20:08.920 And it always impressed me.
00:20:10.360 I never forgot it.
00:20:11.700 So, when I had these thoughts of suicide, I thought, no, well, I can't do that.
00:20:15.620 I said, why in the world am I getting these thoughts?
00:20:19.320 That's not from God.
00:20:20.520 You know, I always figured I was a good guy, right?
00:20:23.100 I went to daily mass at the academy.
00:20:25.160 I didn't pray, but I went to daily mass, and I went to daily mass in pilot training and in combat and everything like that.
00:20:33.340 And I, you know, tried to give God a good place in my life.
00:20:37.380 But, again, I didn't believe that he was all-powerful.
00:20:40.540 I thought he was just scared.
00:20:41.320 Wait, can I stop you there for a second?
00:20:42.320 You said, I went to mass, but I didn't pray.
00:20:44.780 What was that?
00:20:46.220 What do you mean?
00:20:46.960 I mean, I didn't say any other prayers other than going to daily mass.
00:20:50.200 I just, you know, you're supposed, you know, the command is literally, okay, rejoice always, pray continually, and everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
00:21:03.660 That's right from the Bible, and there's no escaping it.
00:21:08.140 He says it a number of times.
00:21:10.960 Love me with your whole mind.
00:21:13.800 Talk to me all—this is God talking.
00:21:16.560 Love me with your whole mind.
00:21:18.180 Pray all the time.
00:21:19.380 Let me handle your life.
00:21:22.120 Then I can work through you.
00:21:24.180 But I can't work through you if you have all these ideas on what you're going to do and how you're doing everything.
00:21:29.440 So let me run your life.
00:21:31.360 Would you please?
00:21:32.160 Because then I can really work through you, you know?
00:21:34.500 Well, I had no—I had no idea of that.
00:21:37.640 I had no idea.
00:21:38.540 I understand that.
00:21:39.740 That's the right answer, and we all have to go for that, and I'm trying.
00:21:43.600 Lord knows I'm trying.
00:21:44.820 I'm not there yet, but I think it's one of those things that you try for your whole life,
00:21:49.160 and you never get there.
00:21:50.720 But anyway, I pray hours and hours a day now, but I don't pray all the time.
00:21:55.860 But that's the job.
00:21:57.520 So I didn't have any idea of that.
00:21:59.360 I went to Mass, and that was it.
00:22:02.160 So in prison camp—and I didn't—I wasn't even saying the rosary.
00:22:05.600 I'd stopped saying the rosary.
00:22:06.860 I'd forgotten the mysteries of the rosary.
00:22:09.160 You know, that's what I'm saying.
00:22:10.260 In other words, I went to Mass, but that was it.
00:22:12.020 Thanks be to God I went to Mass.
00:22:14.700 I think that's what got me through this thing, along with the prayers of my wife and family
00:22:20.520 and my mother and aunt and so on.
00:22:22.860 They went to daily Mass for me and prayed the rosary every day for me,
00:22:26.480 and that's why—is the only reason I survived, and I came out of this terrible temptation
00:22:32.820 because all of a sudden I started thinking,
00:22:36.100 why are the—you know, why—obviously, why are the devils talking to me?
00:22:40.380 That can't be God telling me to murder myself, you know?
00:22:44.240 And so I thought, what—why is that?
00:22:46.500 Because I'm blind to hate, right?
00:22:48.460 And so finally, because of their prayer, I saw,
00:22:51.640 oh, hatred.
00:22:52.980 That's right.
00:22:54.320 The devil is hate, and that's what I'm in.
00:22:57.700 Oh, my gosh.
00:22:58.460 I'm in hatred.
00:22:59.860 So I can't do that.
00:23:01.100 Obviously, these devils talk to me.
00:23:03.440 So I said, okay, now here's what I mean, John.
00:23:06.000 I say to myself, okay, I'm going to stop hating.
00:23:09.760 Me, guy.
00:23:10.840 Guy is going to stop hating.
00:23:12.320 I'm going to stop hating.
00:23:13.640 I'm going to fight these devils and tell them, get out of my life, you know?
00:23:17.460 So I did that for a couple weeks.
00:23:20.300 It didn't get any better.
00:23:21.680 It just got worse, okay?
00:23:23.260 So I said, holy crap, I can't beat these guys.
00:23:27.360 They're beating me, okay?
00:23:29.540 So I got on my knees, and I asked the Lord in the cell, in the prison camp.
00:23:34.660 I got on my knees, and I say, Lord, what can I do?
00:23:37.000 What can I do?
00:23:38.300 And to my mind came, we'll try to say the rosary.
00:23:41.220 I said, I don't even remember the mysteries.
00:23:43.440 So I just said 100.
00:23:44.940 I remember it was 100.
00:23:46.300 I just remembered it was, I was thinking a three-decade rosary, I guess, from the school.
00:23:50.900 But I remember it was 150 Hail Marys and 15-hour fathers in between, and that's all I remembered.
00:23:56.680 But I just said those prayers many times a day.
00:24:00.580 And after three months of that, I remember thinking for the first time in my mind only, Lord, forgive them.
00:24:11.180 But I didn't mean it, John.
00:24:13.400 I didn't mean it.
00:24:14.920 But I'd never been able to say that.
00:24:17.040 That's how bad the hate was.
00:24:18.880 So when I said that in my mind, I said, God's working.
00:24:23.520 God's working.
00:24:24.300 He's changing my heart.
00:24:25.300 And three months later, I was literally praying for my enemies.
00:24:30.680 I wanted every one of them, including the torturers, including under torture and everything else, to go to heaven.
00:24:37.260 I was honestly praying for my enemies.
00:24:42.480 And for the last three and a half years, I had great joy and peace in prison camp with what looked like no hope of ever getting out.
00:24:53.340 If you read that story of that priest that was up there 25 years in the gulags, you know, in Siberia, he had the same thing happen.
00:25:02.740 And that's what happened to me.
00:25:04.240 I had joy and peace in a communist prison camp with nothing.
00:25:09.100 Terrible conditions, horrible, you know, bread and water only and not enough.
00:25:13.960 You know, you're starving to death.
00:25:15.440 You have one blanket in the wintertime.
00:25:17.580 You're shivering for days and nights at a time in the winter.
00:25:21.240 In the summertime, you're breathing under the door of the cell to try to get 100 degree air because it's 150 in those cells, tin roof buildings, you know, and so on.
00:25:32.640 It's just horrible conditions.
00:25:35.120 And I didn't care.
00:25:36.740 I wasn't worried about anything.
00:25:38.880 I had God and I knew I had God because he's inside me.
00:25:43.480 And I have joy.
00:25:45.180 I have tremendous joy.
00:25:46.420 I had never had joy like that in my life.
00:25:48.880 And the joy was from, yeah, the joy was from praying for the enemies.
00:25:53.080 I'm convinced.
00:25:54.200 I knew he was with me.
00:25:55.980 I couldn't believe it.
00:25:57.380 When I first started praying up there, I think, I wonder if God's up here.
00:26:00.900 When I first got up there, you know, in the tortures, I wonder if God's up here.
00:26:05.800 And I answered my own question, John.
00:26:07.700 I said, you can't expect God to be up here in a communist prison camp.
00:26:11.540 What are you, crazy?
00:26:12.980 This kind of evil, this kind of terrible things, this is horrible evil.
00:26:18.360 He would never, you can't expect God to be up here.
00:26:21.920 And after, you know, about eight, nine months from then, I realized that, holy mackerel, God is infinitely powerful.
00:26:30.100 And he's with us every single second.
00:26:34.180 I just had no idea.
00:26:36.320 Something you said just there is so striking.
00:26:39.280 This really cuts to the heart of so much in, even in all of our fears about what may happen to us.
00:26:48.980 Because you are the it of what might happen to us.
00:26:53.460 Torture that goes on and on and on.
00:26:55.320 You barely survive and they keep torturing you and you're just alive enough to get more tortured.
00:26:59.860 And that's when you think, okay, there's no way.
00:27:02.260 I'm just, there's no way.
00:27:03.540 And yet you say, in the midst of that, you had more peace, more joy.
00:27:11.940 Look, it's so hard to even imagine.
00:27:17.920 That joy you had, how would you describe it relative to today?
00:27:22.380 Today, you're released back to your family.
00:27:25.180 You have access to the sacraments.
00:27:27.300 You had no sacraments.
00:27:28.080 You had no nothing.
00:27:28.740 How would you describe your peace and joy at that time relative to even right now?
00:27:35.300 Well, I would say that, you know, realistically, it was a, it was, I really am, I'm very happy.
00:27:42.640 I really am very happy.
00:27:43.920 But I would say that, you know, I'll give you an example of one time where I had, I think, the most joy in my life.
00:27:50.440 And I don't know, I think what it was.
00:27:52.780 I, you know, I'll just tell you the story and then you can see.
00:27:55.140 And I think I mentioned it at Mar-a-Lago, but I was brought in for an interrogation session.
00:28:03.120 And he said, we want you to thank God for, we want you to thank the government for giving you food.
00:28:08.620 You should be very thankful that we're giving you food and keeping you alive.
00:28:12.380 I said, I don't, I thank God for the food.
00:28:15.100 You know, the government has given me some food, but God gives me the food.
00:28:20.180 And he pressed the, no, no, no, God, no, God, the government, the government is giving you food.
00:28:25.420 The government, I said, the government doesn't have the soil.
00:28:28.280 You know, God made the soil.
00:28:29.500 He made the seeds.
00:28:30.280 He made the plants, made the sun.
00:28:32.260 He made the rain.
00:28:33.600 God grows the food.
00:28:34.620 Then your government gives me some, but the government doesn't make food.
00:28:37.320 It can't make food.
00:28:38.400 Has no way of making food.
00:28:39.760 So this goes back and forth.
00:28:41.400 We're going like this for, and he's getting more and more upset.
00:28:44.740 And I'm also getting a little strong, and I was very rarely, generally, you're trying to stay calm in these interrogation sessions because bad things happen.
00:28:56.660 You know, you get really beat badly when you, if you at all raise your voice or anything.
00:29:02.480 But I finally raised my voice, and I said to this guy, I said, look, I understand what you're doing here.
00:29:08.720 You kill Sajon, you kill our friends, and you kill us, but basically, I'm telling you, God is in charge.
00:29:16.200 Jesus Christ runs this world, okay?
00:29:19.460 And I'm telling you, I understand you're obeying orders, and you're doing what you're told, but before you die, get on your knees to Jesus Christ, because when you die, there's going to be no government there.
00:29:34.560 It's going to be you and Jesus Christ only.
00:29:37.480 You've got to have been sorry for what you've done, or you might go to hell and burn forever.
00:29:44.400 So this guy goes completely nuts.
00:29:46.920 He starts bouncing off the walls.
00:29:48.620 There's five guards in the interrogation room, and he has them bring me out and put me in a hot box.
00:29:56.460 It's about 11 o'clock in the morning in August day, hot as the son of a gun, puts me in a hot box.
00:30:04.040 That's bad news, temperatures, and those little things.
00:30:06.900 So I'm stepping into the hot box.
00:30:09.020 By the way, as I leave that cell, he's screaming at the top of his lungs.
00:30:13.540 So this is what's ringing in my ears as I get up to the hot box, and as I step into the hot box with one foot in and one foot out,
00:30:33.160 one of the guards picks up a piece of old stiff cardboard from the ground and makes a fanning motion with it.
00:30:41.240 He doesn't speak any English, so he wasn't aware of what the conversation was in the interrogation room.
00:30:46.720 He was in that room, but he picked up a fan, effectively a piece of cardboard, made a fanning motion,
00:30:54.300 and gave it to me as I stepped into the hot box.
00:30:57.320 So I'm on my knees.
00:30:59.320 The fan, I have, and all I'm thinking is, boy, what a miracle that is.
00:31:06.300 This guy's screaming, I'm going to have nothing, and here I got a fan in the hot box.
00:31:11.040 So the fan's on the ground.
00:31:12.680 I don't care about the fan.
00:31:13.920 I'm on my knees in the hot box, and I'm just saying, thank you, Jesus.
00:31:17.600 Thank you, Mary.
00:31:18.500 Thank you, Jesus.
00:31:19.620 Thank you, Mary.
00:31:20.640 And I have this, it's almost like my chest is bursting with joy and happiness.
00:31:26.860 I'm sweating like a pig.
00:31:28.520 These things can, these hot boxes can kill you.
00:31:31.360 You know, it's really bad heat, you know.
00:31:33.640 But I don't care.
00:31:35.280 I could give a darn.
00:31:36.680 I just know that I've got Jesus, you know, with me, and he loves me.
00:31:42.520 I can tell him that he loves me, you know.
00:31:45.160 And I'm just so happy and such joy.
00:31:49.560 And this goes on.
00:31:50.400 I'm just literally, I never said a word for five minutes except, thank you, Jesus.
00:31:55.880 Thank you, Mary.
00:31:57.260 Thank you, Jesus.
00:31:58.740 Over and over with a big smile on my face, happy as can be, just in pure joy.
00:32:05.920 And all of a sudden, I hear, bam, in the distance, and it's thunder.
00:32:10.680 And within 20 minutes, there's a major thunderstorm come in, completely cool off the hot box.
00:32:17.240 And they bring me into a torture room, and I have to stay on my knees for a couple days.
00:32:21.580 But it's nothing like that hot box.
00:32:24.020 So he saved me from the hot box, and it was so clear.
00:32:28.800 And I just, you know, I just had total confidence in what he was doing.
00:32:34.060 Tell us, how did this progress into freedom?
00:32:38.100 Like, how in the world do you get out of this?
00:32:40.100 You had no hope for freedom, or did you?
00:32:42.140 No, there was no hope.
00:32:43.440 It looked like no hope for freedom whatsoever.
00:32:47.240 And that went on.
00:32:48.380 That went on for a long time.
00:32:51.280 And actually, that went on until Christmas of 1972.
00:32:58.300 Okay, Christmas of 1972.
00:33:01.120 It just looked like there was no way we were ever getting out of there, okay?
00:33:05.980 But in Christmas of 1972, Nixon made a decision.
00:33:12.200 The president made a decision to try to bomb us out of there, you know, with B-52s,
00:33:18.500 and started a B-52 bombing campaign.
00:33:22.440 We were all fighter pilots up there, you know.
00:33:25.320 But, and of course, you know, fighter pilots and bomber pilots, they all kid each other all the time, right?
00:33:30.400 But, you know, these B-52s, they carried 104 bombs apiece.
00:33:35.480 And there was a hundred of them a night come over there, bombing military targets.
00:33:40.060 But, you know, they're bombing from 50,000 feet.
00:33:42.760 So those bombs scatter over a long way.
00:33:46.780 And anyway, they had effectively, if you think of what's going on there,
00:33:50.840 these are military targets right in the Hanoi, Haiphong area.
00:33:54.720 That's 10,000 big bombs a night.
00:33:59.780 That's 10,000 bombs a night.
00:34:02.720 That went on for 11 days.
00:34:04.240 And after eight days, and my brother was in those, was a pilot in one of those B-52s.
00:34:09.800 So my brother literally bombed me out of there, you know, along with the other crews and so on.
00:34:14.700 But anyway, Nixon got us out of there because after about, you know, eight or nine days,
00:34:19.600 the North Vietnamese gave up and they signed a peace agreement where they would let South Vietnam be free,
00:34:25.820 which they revoked, you know, two years later when they invaded again.
00:34:29.080 But for two years, South Vietnam was free.
00:34:32.120 The war was over.
00:34:33.520 And what Nixon really wanted was to get us out of there.
00:34:37.200 And we started coming home in January, just a month later.
00:34:40.240 And over the next three months, we all got out of there, the ones that were alive.
00:34:45.320 And it was because of God inspiring Nixon to take a decision when the Congress was gone.
00:34:52.140 You know, the Congress was home for Christmas vacation.
00:34:55.820 And so the Congress couldn't give him any arguments in the press or anything.
00:35:01.700 And, you know, God inspired him to get us out of there.
00:35:04.300 And he got us out of there.
00:35:05.800 Unbelievable.
00:35:06.780 You get back.
00:35:08.160 What is the reunion with your family like and your start back into regular life?
00:35:14.780 How does that even look like?
00:35:16.320 They took us home in four releases.
00:35:19.820 I was in the third release.
00:35:21.960 And the third, they took us to one of seven bases throughout the United States.
00:35:26.520 I was brought to Montgomery, Alabama, to Air Force Base just outside of Montgomery.
00:35:34.500 And that's where the people from the southeast were brought.
00:35:39.160 I met my wife and my parents and my brothers and sisters there and my little children.
00:35:45.060 Who weren't so little anymore.
00:35:47.760 No, they weren't so little anymore.
00:35:49.340 Now, when I left, they were one and two.
00:35:51.020 When I came back, they were seven and eight.
00:35:53.360 In fact, that was a funny story.
00:35:54.800 My little one, who was one, of course, she didn't remember me at one year old.
00:35:59.120 You know, when she heard that we were going to meet Daddy, you know, she said,
00:36:03.380 Oh, good.
00:36:03.880 Now I can see what Daddy looks like.
00:36:08.400 My wife did a wonderful job.
00:36:11.180 She did just super work taking care of them.
00:36:15.000 And she went to Paris, you know, to try to talk to the North Vietnamese to get a letter
00:36:20.780 or something like that or to find out who was alive and who was dead.
00:36:24.800 Of the 3,500 men shot down and not returned, you know, who was alive, who was not alive.
00:36:32.080 They would never say anything who was alive and who wasn't, you know.
00:36:35.220 I think they were ashamed of the fact that so few of us were alive.
00:36:39.400 Tell us about right now, your life right now, and what you devoted.
00:36:44.640 You're doing this.
00:36:46.120 You've got some books out.
00:36:47.620 Tell us a little bit about that.
00:36:48.880 Well, we're doing, yeah, I've written some books on it.
00:36:51.380 I talk throughout the country.
00:36:54.040 Catholic speakers, as you know, .com is who I work with.
00:36:58.820 But basically, there's been about 10 or 11 books now written with my story, you know,
00:37:05.620 one of which I've written a number of others that are in final form.
00:37:09.280 One is I'm going to be on forgiveness, by the way, just really stressing the importance of forgiveness
00:37:15.960 and what it's meant to me in my life.
00:37:19.860 But also, we're doing a movie.
00:37:21.300 We've been working on a screenplay for years now.
00:37:24.120 It's going to be a movie, basically a family movie, talking about what forgiveness has meant to our family
00:37:29.700 and also the leadership in the prison camp, how good our leadership was at being very religious,
00:37:38.020 very pro-God, and how trusting in God is what got our entire group through that prison experience.
00:37:45.940 And our leadership was a big part of that.
00:37:47.680 I was low-ranking, but God-fearing leadership was wonderful.
00:37:53.240 And so it's going to be more a family movie rather than a combat scenes all the time.
00:37:59.340 It's going to be more about the family back home, us in prison camp, the leadership that they stood up to the communists
00:38:07.440 to have a, when we got in the latter years, to have an actual church service.
00:38:12.820 And they took all our leadership out and tortured them to stop the church service, but nothing would stop it.
00:38:19.680 And, you know, because we, you know, we told them, one of our guys told them, he says,
00:38:22.980 you can torture and kill every one of us, but as long as one man's alive, we're having that church service.
00:38:28.900 And we meant it.
00:38:29.960 And they knew we meant it.
00:38:31.180 And so they didn't want to kill the last few hundred men.
00:38:33.960 And so they, we had a church service every Sunday for two hours when we got together.
00:38:39.660 And I mean, it's, it's a, it's that kind of movie.
00:38:42.120 It's more like a trust in God movie.
00:38:44.120 There's, there's combat scenes in it.
00:38:45.680 There's a lot of good combat in it, but it's really more what forgiveness means and why it's so important
00:38:51.760 and why Jesus gave us that example on the cross and why he put it in the, our father.
00:38:59.380 It's vitally important to living in unity down here with, I'm talking about all 8 billion human beings.
00:39:08.920 We are meant to be all together.
00:39:12.420 We're all God's children, all 8 billion.
00:39:16.780 There's no differences in that.
00:39:18.760 And, you know, it's going to be like that for eternity.
00:39:20.660 Really, really.
00:39:22.100 What is your message to the folks who say, you know, they're, they're not even in a war.
00:39:28.260 They're not in a prison camp, but they feel, uh, hopeless.
00:39:32.620 They feel persecuted.
00:39:34.520 They feel, um, lost.
00:39:37.200 What's your message for them?
00:39:39.280 Well, the message I believe, I believe the right message is to hold to the Catholic faith
00:39:45.840 and the Catholic catechism in every way you can.
00:39:48.620 And basically really believe the Bible and everything it says and really believe that the best thing you can do every day is to go to daily mass
00:40:00.280 and at least say a rosary and to really, truly try to help everybody around you and to try to get honest humility.
00:40:10.420 Like, you know, St. John Chrysostom says, which is, you should never have even a fleeting idea that you're better than anybody else.
00:40:18.240 In God's eyes, he who believes that everybody else on earth is possibly better wins.
00:40:23.880 And John, that to me was the hardest thing to understand is that all these people, they were a different, you know, they were Vietnamese.
00:40:33.040 They weren't Americans.
00:40:33.900 I had, you know, nothing I thought in common with them to understand that they were masterpieces of God, just like I was.
00:40:41.620 And like everybody else on earth is that to me is the hardest thing to understand is, is that there's no distinction here that we have to be humble like Jesus and not looked out on anyone on earth.
00:40:54.160 I think that's very hard to do.
00:40:56.420 I think this humility is something we have to pray for and work on our whole life because we had this idea that we're something special.
00:41:03.880 And the fact is, everybody's something special, that everybody's a child of God, but we're not any better than anybody else.
00:41:11.220 Everybody's the same, you know.
00:41:13.060 So for men, one thing in your life is really different than most people today is that you are tough.
00:41:21.180 You're from a fighting family and so on.
00:41:24.160 And what would be your message to men today?
00:41:28.080 There is a lot going on with men today that they're unable to do a lot of things and struggle in their marriages, raising children in their work life.
00:41:35.400 What's your message to men?
00:41:36.800 Well, I think the same, the message is the same.
00:41:39.540 Be a man, you know, try to be the head of the family.
00:41:43.280 The woman is supposed to be the lover of the family.
00:41:46.540 The man is supposed to be the leader of the family.
00:41:49.480 And men are made to be like that.
00:41:51.200 You know, you've got to protect the family.
00:41:52.860 You've got to provide for the family and you've got to lead the family and let the woman do the talking and let the woman do the loving because they do that so perfectly with these children.
00:42:05.600 They train these children on how to talk and how to love and how to be really caring for everybody.
00:42:11.980 And you've just got to support them like crazy by making sure they have what they need to bring those kids up good, you know?
00:42:19.400 Indeed. Indeed.
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00:42:42.580 Call our team at 610-326-2000 and let us step you through crafting a solution for your family.
00:42:52.780 And finally, what's your message to young people?
00:42:55.720 There are young people right now, particularly those in the church today who are struggling a lot because they're struggling with even what's going on in the church because there's a lot of ruckus in the church itself.
00:43:06.460 What's your message for young people?
00:43:08.760 I would just don't worry about that unless you're a priest or a bishop or whatever, and then you've got to do what it takes to be disciplined in that regard.
00:43:22.900 But the basic idea, as a believer, it's very easy to me.
00:43:27.320 You've got the catechism.
00:43:28.600 You've got the Bible.
00:43:29.820 You've got the mass to teach you.
00:43:32.360 You know that you're supposed to do the Ten Commandments, you're supposed to be a good person.
00:43:37.740 And, you know, take care of your own job, which is to raise a family.
00:43:42.300 Let the priest and the nuns go in the inner city areas, you know.
00:43:46.200 That's not our job.
00:43:47.680 The job that we have is to raise these families, you know.
00:43:51.640 Beautiful.
00:43:53.060 Guy Gruters, thank you so very much.
00:43:55.520 Thank you for your witness.
00:43:56.400 Your suffering has meant so much to the world because our Lord has used you as a powerful instrument.
00:44:03.360 Thank you for telling us about the need to pray always, and you've inspired me in that.
00:44:07.800 I hope to be able to get there, too.
00:44:11.380 God bless you, Guy Gruters.
00:44:12.720 Thank you so much.
00:44:13.880 If anybody wants to book Guy, as he said, you can do so at catholicspeakers.com.
00:44:18.400 And I'm very much looking forward to the release of this film to inspire many more with your amazing story.
00:44:26.120 God bless you.
00:44:26.860 Thank you, John.
00:44:27.640 And God bless all of you, and we'll see you next time.
00:44:34.580 Hi, everyone.
00:44:35.400 This is Father James Altman for LifeSite News.
00:44:38.540 We hope you enjoyed this video.
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00:44:53.860 Thank you for watching, and may God bless you all.