by that fall, the fall of 1969, torture in the hanoi hilton and other pdip -- pow camps had stopped. important shift in treatment. because a lot of pows were on their last legs at that point. so the advocacy of those families really help those -- their husbands survive. announcer: when was jeremiah denton release and when he -- and when did he set foot on reconciling and? pedal --ey: he was a pow for seven years. jerry denton and 10 other american pows were known as the alcatraz 11. these pows were so effective as leaders and so frankly obnoxious that the north vietnamese kick them out of the hanoi hilton. if you can imagine how disruptive you have to be to be detention.of a pow they were among the highest-ranking officers. so the first plane out of hanoi on february 12, 1973, jerry denton happened to be the highest-ranking officer. the plane landed at clarke airbase and he walked out and stepped onto, you know, free soil for the first time in almost seven and a half years and gave these beautiful three sentences that were the first words americans heard from pows. wasuncer: jeremiah

mentor and as an advisor at the navy war college and i had the privilege of going through the hanoi hilton while it was still on active duty and seeing it as it is today which is basically a tourist attraction. i thought i probably ought to read it and the way i'm going to do this is i'm going to read an early chapter, going to read a middle chapter and then read the last chapter. it doesn't work. it doesn't work. it is a great book. it is written in a very captive capturing narrative style. it's the kind of book that picks you up and absolutely embraces you with the human spirit and our ability to adapt and the heroic measures that were taken by those that were captured and held for extended periods of time. but i'm not going to tell you about it and i'm not going to read the book. i'm going to let the author do that for you and without further ado folks alvin townley. it's an honor to have him here with us. [applause] alvin: thanks general. what the general didn't tell you is he's a marine corps general and he didn't tell you was the reason he was only going to read three chapters is bec

was a war hero, after he was shot down over hanoi and imprisoned and tortured for five years in hanoi hilton. our movie is a movie about hope, it's about redemption, it's about second chances. it's a throwback, i guess, like me in some respects. in that, you know, it's not bleak. it's not cynical. there are a lot of bleak and cynical movies out there. our movie is about the transition of a man who happens to be a congressman at a certain point in his life. and facing the real question of what it means to be an american. >> it's freedom and you have -- i know you wrote it. i'll praise you for it. that speech at the end is amazing. it talks about, don't get me for not absoluting, giving the pledgeallegiance, that esa ritual. i know what this country's really about and one of the things it's about is not having to do that, ironically. and the audience gets it. >> i hope so. i think so. we've gotten enough feedback from audiences that they have appreciated the fact that even though the pledge of allegiance has good words in it, and we're not quarreling with those words, about don't need to recit