lou meyer was an exercise fanatic. he wanted to stay in shape. he wanted to escape. when jim thompson and lou were together for the first time, jim jumps out of his bunk, tries to do a single push-up and crashes on his face. he begins to cry. lou meyer stops his exercise program, he decides i'm going to build this guy back up to keep myself in shape, ill exci whe jiis sleeping, but otherwise i'll go along with this pace. so, the two o them go throgh this extraordinary exercise regiment while he's captive. jim probably weighed, at his worst part, probably weighed less than 100 pounds. he was a soldier when captured of about 180 pounds. he was a skelton. when the first p.o.w.'s got a glimpse of him, not before any of them lived with him, but mike o'connor, an air force pilot or a army pilot that was shot down during the tet offensive looked through a crack in the door of his cell and he see this is body up against the cell doors and he though for sure the vietcong were playing a joke on him that that was a corpse and he sees the people wipping and move and he realizes t