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 denton promoted to add million 1980. how long did he serve in alabama and how was he as a legislator? a lotta powswhen returned home, they found that america had changed somewhat. they had been behind ours in a foreign country for seven or eight years. jerry denton had fe

jeremiah denton became a u.s. senator for the state of alabama and quite famously some of you all may remember this they put jerry denton on tv for a live interview and he did two things. one, he didn't say what he was supposed to say. he said what he wanted to say so he knew he was getting in trouble for that and he did get in trouble for that. but he also sat there and he blinked a lot. i think everybody thought he was just blinking because the studio lights were kind of right that jerry denton was a lot smarter than i am because i can barely talk and read the same time that jerry denton could talk and blinked torture in morse code again and again with his eyes, torture, torture, torture. george mcknight, george coker. george mcknight was a boxer from oregon. george coker was a wrestling champion from new jersey. these guys were like a molotov cocktail. these guys were probably two of the most incendiary prisoners they had over there because the second they landed in north vietnam they hated their captors and the