How Suffering Helped POWs Create Lasting Marriages
By Movieguide® Contributor
Lee Ellis, the author of “Captured by Love: Inspiring True Romance Stories from Vietnam POWs,” is sharing how his and his fellow soldiers’ experiences in a POW camp influenced their lives and relationships.
“‘Captured by Love’ shares the inspiring romance and love stories of POWs who returned from the Vietnam War after five, six, seven and even eight years of incarceration and mistreatment in the infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison system,” the Amazon description of the book reads.
The description continues, “Upon our return home, we stayed somewhat connected through military assignments but mostly through hanging out at our NamPOW reunions. It was during those events that I heard more and more of the guys telling stories about how they met their wives, and how great their marriages were…How ironic that the POWs’ physical and mental suffering and years of separation actually helped them create great romance and lasting love.
“I kept hearing these stories of how amazing it was that they met, they stayed together, [and] what the women endured during the time their husbands were gone, and I said, ‘Hollywood couldn’t write a script this crazy, this wild. Somebody needs to write a book on it,’” Ellis told Movieguide®. “So we did.”
Dave Carey, one of the men featured in the book, shared how his time in the POW camp changed his mindset.
“There’s a lot of give and take involved in marriage,” he explained. “I learned pretty well how to do that sitting around Hanoi with a bunch of guys who had various different opinions and backgrounds. That experience made me more introspective and kind of took away my temper.”
Ellis echoed Carey’s statement, saying, “We learned to live with each other, but also, we realized we had to get healthy. We had to get over our bitterness, our shame, our guilt, our anger — all that stuff that would be so negative, because if we went home with a big load of that, we were still going to be in handcuffs.”
Carey also shared a story about how his faith got him through the physical torture the POWs had to endure. After being tortured, he said his captors left him lying on the floor, unable to get up. He said he had “no control” of his mind, but then suddenly, Carey recalled the first verse of the 23rd Psalm — “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
“I discovered, once I had done that, I had control of my mind back,” he said. “Of course, I don’t think that was any accident there. The word of God was planted in my head so that when I would be so desperate, it would be there.”
“Captured by Love” was co-written with Greg Godek, the author of “1001 Ways to be Romantic.”
“Interviewing and getting to know our 20 couples was an awe-inspiring experience,” he told the Longview News-Journal.
A portion of the Movieguide® review of “Captured by Love” reads:
This book is incredibly inspiring and heart-warming to read. It is an amazing experience to read about the perseverance, devotion and bravery that the POWs and their wives upheld during times of trial, and it is a wonderful testament to the power of faith. For anyone interested in inspiring true stories, the beauty of romantic relationships, or world history, this book is a wonderful blend of elements that will inspire and uplift you.
