Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 14, 1991 TAG: 9103140447
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"About 90 percent of the time you felt you were in danger of losing your life," Navy Lt. Jeffrey Zaun of Cherry Hill, N.J., said at a suburban Washington hospital.
Zaun, Navy Lt. Lawrence Slade and five Marines appeared on an auditorium stage at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center, where they are undergoing treatment.
Marine Corps Lt. Col. Clifford Acree said statements made by the POWs on videos for broadcast by the Iraqis were made under duress, but he declined to go into details.
Zaun, describing the making of the videos, said, "They took me to a TV studio and sat me next to the big guy and then told me what questions they were going to ask and they told me what my answers were going to be."
He said he tried to "screw up" his answers but he didn't think it made any difference because they were translated into Arabic anyway.
In the Iraqi TV broadcast, Zaun spoke in a slow monotone and said: "I think our leaders and our people have wrongly attacked the peaceful people of Iraq."
At today's news conference, Zaun said he was apprehensive that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein might use the videos to convince his people that they were winning the war, but he did not worry about the reaction of Americans.
"I had enough faith in Americans to know that anybody who saw this was going to say, `This is ridiculous,' " he said.
Zaun, whose badly bruised face was widely pictured in the United States after the video, said about 90 percent of his facial injuries occurred during his ejection from his airplane and "maybe a little bit of it was getting slapped around."
He said he also "banged my nose" in the hope that he could disfigure himself so that he would not be shown on television.
Capt. Russell Sanborn of the Marines described captivity as a "terrifying experience" in which the prisoners were kept in solitary confinement.
"There was some mistreatment and the food was less than adequate," Sanborn said. He described the medical treatment as "minimal."
Marine Corps Capt. Michael Berryman of Yuma, Ariz., said, "It was very difficult coping with the interrogation." He said he was helped by his religious faith.
Maj. Joseph Small said he came down in an Iraqi infantry position after his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft artillery on Feb. 25 and "when they didn't shoot at me right away I figured I had a fighting chance."
Slade said his most frightening experience was an allied attack on Baghdad on Feb. 23. "I thought my number on the Rolodex had come up," he said.
Air Force Capt. Mike Roberts released a statement Wednesday saying he was physically abused during his 44 days as a prisoner in the Persian Gulf War.
A spokesman for Roberts, Capt. Ken McClellan, said Roberts described the abuse as beatings but did not elaborate.
by CNB