The six-year nightmare: one Airman's wife reflects on coping with the reality of her husband's POW time in Vietnam

Airman, Nov, 2004 by Gailyn F. Whitman

I can remember I was flying a plane that suddenly caught fire. It spun out of control, and I felt doomed. Suddenly, I was out of the plane parachuting to the ground. I had a handgun, which I instinctively threw away from me as I floated to the earth. In an act of faith, I began to recite the Hail Mary prayer. I came to a stop and felt as though I was trapped. I couldn't move my arms. They were stuck to my sides."

Claudia Mechenbier, wife of then-2nd Lt. Edward Mechenbier, awoke from her dream frightened. Little did she know, her dream would become a nightmare that would last for nearly six years.

Claudia's real-life saga began when she met Edward in 1959 during their junior year of high school in Dayton, Ohio. Each attended Catholic school and worked in the cafeteria of a local hospital. It was Claudia who worked up the courage to ask for the first date.

During their senior year, Edward learned his application to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., had been accepted. Edward was worried Claudia wouldn't wait for him. But wait she did, and during the "Ring Dance," held in Edward's junior year, he proposed.

The engagement allowed Claudia to finally move to Colorado Springs and live with her aunt, a nun in a local convent. Claudia spent the year working in a hospital and looking forward to weekends when Edward could get away for a date. She also joined an academy program called "Bluebell Brides," which offered instruction in etiquette, such as wearing gloves to the officer's wives club.

"The classes offered nothing of substance, such as where you could go for help. This was a different time and, as wives, we had to learn from watching the women around us," Claudia said.

The couple married three weeks after Edward graduated in 1964, then rushed off to Vance Air Force Base, Okla., for pilot training. Edward completed his training at Vance and moved on to fighter training at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., to train in the F-4 Phantom. Claudia, along with the other wives, continued to "glide along," she said.

"I had no military background. I was just a second lieutenant's wife. There were no classes or groups to help teach me the ins and outs of military life," Claudia said.

She was supposed to rely on Edward to teach her, but he was busy trying to learn his own Air Force job.

After six months, the couple prepared for an assignment in England, where Edward spent much of his time training in the F-4. Claudia learned more about her independent streak as she braved the streets of London on her own.

It wasn't long before Edward's squadron received orders for Vietnam. Claudia and the other wives were flown home to the United States to await the outcome of the war.

"I remember we were all riding on a bus to the airport to go home. All I kept thinking was 'Not all of us are going to come back,'" Claudia said. "And they didn't, very few from the squadron made it home. It was a bad time."

Claudia returned to Dayton and rented a house with a friend whose husband was serving with Edward. Neither of the women knew much about military life, not even how to make an appointment at the hospital. Claudia confessed to being too shy to ask for help, so she did nothing. The women were able to find the gym and shopped at the commissary a few times, but these experiences would not prepare them for what was about to come.

Edward arrived in Vietnam in December 1966. He and Claudia kept in touch through letters and by sending audio tape recordings to each other.

In January 1967, Claudia learned that a friend's husband had been shot down and captured. She knew there was a possibility Edward could die in Vietnam, but she said the possibility he could be captured was never considered.

"No one ever talked about what would happen if they were captured," she said. "The idea that Ed would become a prisoner of war never occurred to me."

The Nightmare Begins

After Edward completed 79 of the required 100 missions in Vietnam, the couple was looking forward to their next assignment in North Dakota.

On the evening of Edward's 80th mission in 1967, Claudia had dinner with his parents. They talked about Claudia's friend and the difficulty she was having getting information about her missing husband.

That night, Claudia would have the dream she said changed her life forever. The following day Claudia visited her parents before leaving for a trip to Chicago. She told her mother, "If anybody in a blue car comes, don't let them in." The comment was made in jest, but it was an unknowing indication of things to come.

While in Chicago that night, Claudia jumped at the sound of a knock on the hotel room door. Not expecting anything, Claudia opened the door to find two men in uniform. They had come to tell her that her husband had been shot down and was missing.

"I cried a lot and kept thinking that they wouldn't catch him," she said. A couple of weeks passed before Claudia heard word from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The base was closest to where Claudia lived and responsible for keeping her informed of Edward's status. A man named Cecil Hyslope came to her home and introduced himself as her contact on the base. He didn't have any further information to give Claudia at the time.