Jeremiah A. Denton Jr., a retired Navy rear admiral and former U.S. senator who survived nearly eight years of captivity in North Vietnamese prisons, and whose public acts of defiance and patriotism came to embody the sacrifices of American POWs in Vietnam, died March 28 at a hospice in Virginia Beach. He was 89.
The cause was complications from a heart ailment, said his son Jim Denton. Adm. Denton was a native of Alabama, where in 1980 he became the state’s first Republican to win election to the Senate since Reconstruction.
This man embodies all the reasons why I cannot overlook the traitorous actions of Jane Fonda. May his memory be eternal.
If you haven’t read his account of his time in Hanoi, please try and get a copy of [i]When Hell was in Session[/i].
Here’s an example of the depth of this great patriot
[blockquote] His manger birth drew kings in awe,
His smile the former blind men saw,
In Him divine and mortal merged,
Yet He’s the one the soldiers scourged.
He praised the humble and the meek,
The grateful deaf mute heard Him speak,
His face was love personified,
Yet He’s the one they crucified.
Now our tears with doubts combine,
How could He die yet be divine?
We must dispel this faithless gloom,
Let’s pray at dawn beside His tomb.
Written in the Spring of 1968 in the North Vietnamese prison camp known as Alcatraz for Easter, almost 3 years into his captivity. The first stanza written for Joanna and speaks of the events of Maundy Thursday; the second for Mary the mother of James, and recounts Good Friday; the third composed for Mary Magdalene, and speaks of Holy Saturday. [/blockquote]
Requiescat in Pace.