Sonya: Master Wings Publishing. Books that inspire, educate, and last. Welcome to the Master Wings Publishing Podcast. My name is Sonya. I'm Associate Publisher here at Master Wings, and I'm joined today by John Borling, Major General, USAF retired. He's the author of Taps on the Walls, Poems from the Hanoi Hilton, which is a Master Wings Publishing title, a collection of poems that he composed and memorized while a POW in Vietnam. 

He shared them with fellow prisoners via a secret tap code. Today, we'll go beyond the page and talk more about the intent and content of this remarkable work. Hello, John. 

Gen. Borling: Sonya, what a delight to see you. This is beyond the page.  

Sonya: This is beyond the page. And this is Sonya, and this is you.  

Gen. Borling: This series has got real advantage for Master Wings and for the Tawani organization. So I'm just delighted to be with you this morning. 

Sonya: Oh, I am so glad to be with you too, John.  

Gen. Borling: Well, let's get after it because the people who are listening and watching this thing want us to delve deeply into matters of great pith and loma.  

Sonya: To go beyond the page. 

Gen. Borling: That's a tough phrase to get out, pith and loma.  

Sonya: Yeah, I try not to eat the pith generally.

Gen. Borling: All right, go ahead. 

Sonya: Okay, well, I will tell the listener who you are maybe first. I'm here speaking.

Gen. Borling: They may switch it off immediately. 

Sonya: I'll talk real fast, and maybe we can make my voice in two times speed or something. But I am here speaking, of course, with the one and only John Borling, Major General, USAF, retired. He's a published author, poet, a weekly Sunday columnist. He's a sought after commentator, keynoter, emcee across the country.  

Gen. Borling: I think you should go on for about 30 minutes in this regard. This would be great. I could, you know. I'll just sit here and bask in all the accolades.  

Sonya: Record it for your alarm in the morning, yeah. 

You know, this is John Borling. He served 33 years in worldwide high level command and staff positions. He's a highly decorated fighter pilot. His awards include the Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Bronze Stars with V for Valor, two Purple Hearts, six Air Medals, and the Prisoner of War Medal. There's been so many aircraft you piloted. I could list all of them here, but that's probably not the best plan. 

You're from Chicago, just like me. You graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1963. You were shot down by ground fire deep in North Vietnam on your 97th combat mission, June 1966. Seriously injured, captured while trying to evade, you spent over six and a half years as a POW.   

Gen. Borling: I'm kind of a slow learner, so that's, you know, the way it worked. Yes. 

It's easy with the passage of years. You know, it takes a long time before combat guys want to talk anything about that. And it was with the publishing of this book that we're going to talk about, Taps on the Walls, which we published 40 years after I was released from prison. And that's in large measure because John McCain, who I lived with, came and said, look, I'll be the forward. And we got to publish that stuff that you made us memorize way back then. But we'll get into that probably, won't we? You know, I would only comment that, you know, having retired a good number of years ago from the Air Force, but not retiring from life. 

I think that the whole, in fact, I'd urge people never to retire. You know, I'm still employed in biotech business. I've got some other civic activities I do in the business with getting out on the public stage, much like Mark Twain. Are you familiar? When he was in Virginia City and he wanted to get a position, so he made an advertisement in the paper and he said, young man desires position. Executive position. And he was so disappointed with the things he got back. They all required work.  

Sonya: Some work experience. Yeah. 

Gen. Borling: So he said he hired a hall, made a speech, and he never had to work a day in his life. In some ways, I may be emulating Twain a bit in that regard. But I do get out, as you know, pretty regularly on the hustings around the country, both corporately and other circumstances, talking about a host of subjects. 

In fact, this year, it's really made for the 250th anniversary. So the speech I'm doing this year is, or one of them anyway, is America 250. Right. Now what? Now what? And that's the most important question leaders and managers ask themselves every day. You do. Yeah. 

What do I do next? You know, now what? And I think for the national scene, that the now what question across the host of societal concerns, domestic and international, is legitimate fodder for everyone to consider. And can I start with a question with you?  

Sonya: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Gen. Borling: There's a question that's asked every day in America, in most every American home. Hmm. And it's answered every day. And in that answer, you see the glory of the civilization that we've built. So my question to you is, what is the question?  

Sonya: Well, I can give it, here's a guess. Is the question, what's for dinner? And then the breadth of what we can, yeah. 

Gen. Borling: That's exactly right. You know, I asked, I was speaking to 300 ladies here of the D.A.R., Illinois Convention. I asked them that question. And no one, you know, there was this silence out there. And you got it. And the glory, of course, is you can have any damn thing you want. 

Sonya: Exactly, exactly.  

Gen. Borling: This is America. Yeah. I've lived in places where what you're going to have for dinner is highly problematic. And even absent the prison thing that you referenced, the vast, vast population of the globe doesn't have the advantages that we have in America. And if nothing else, we need to fight for, we need to sustain as a nation, our ability to ask and answer that question. 

Sonya: Yeah, the ability to choose, the ability to pursue. I think all of it is, that's immediately, it makes perfect sense to me. Yeah. Having that breadth of ability.  

Gen. Borling: That's what I wanted. Such a smart interlocutor.  

Sonya: We can retake it. I'll go, what could it be? What are we going to have for dinner? Yeah, what, what?  

Gen. Borling: Yeah, that's, wow. Well, what are we going to have in this conversation now that we've gotten off on this start that 250 offers particular responsibilities and we can talk about the past, but, you know, I'm much more oriented to the future thinking that, you know, what are we going to do, you know, tomorrow, the next day, the next year and, and, and vitality as part of that. 

I think it's important that we as people remember that nations like people, nobody fires tired or no one follows tired nations, just like you don't follow tired leaders. You expect an energy level of vitality that is, that can be counted on. Yeah. That's the point, that can be counted on. So what are we going to count on with respect to this podcast today that we're, we're doing beyond the page? 

Sonya: Exactly. I think my goal at least is to get some additional insight in your writing process, your intent, your, your meaning things, things that maybe people who can't come up with a question right away would want to hear about. So things like why poetry made sense as the form maybe would be a good question to start with.  

Gen. Borling: Well, you know, I think maybe if I can expand on the question, why poetry?  

Sonya: Yeah. Why poetry at all? Yeah. 

Gen. Borling: What's that generated that was generated in the depths of a prison in North Vietnam over the years? I guess I'd start out with, you know, it's kind of strange to see a bunch of fighter pilots who are living in isolation or semi-isolation tapping through the walls. And by the way, maybe we should explain that tapping through the walls, saying to people that that's how we communicate. It was forbidden to talk to one another. 

We were in isolation or semi-isolation for many years. And the book on, whatever it is, page nine is, is this tap code? Well, we can both see it. So you just array the alphabet in five rows and five columns so that the letter A would be one, one, the letter E would be one, one, two, three, four, five. Z would be five, five. Now, K drops out, but we had a syncopation that we could do for K. And we could do 30 or 35 words a minute with practice, obviously. And that was the principal way that we communicated. 

And hence, that's the name of the book, Taps on the Walls. But the question remains, why poetry? And, you know, what appeal does that have to a bunch of, you know, government-issue fighter pilots?  

Sonya: Right. What about jokes? Knock, knock, knock. 

Gen. Borling: Well, the answer, the answer is, have you ever been in a fighter pilot's bar?  

Sonya: I cannot say I have.  

Gen. Borling: Boy, you're probably blessed. You're probably blessed. 

But especially in wartime combat, fighter pilots are given, fighter pilots a lot, are given to singing songs in the bar. And the songs verge on, well, they're raunchy for the most part. But you know why they sing?  

Sonya: Spirit, because they're spiritual?  

Gen. Borling: To manage, it's to manage fear. Yeah. To laugh at death. And it's a personal morale builder. So now you take that cohort, and you put them after ordeals of being shot down and injured and captured. You know, in my case, I had a broken back and was unable to walk. And I tried to hijack a truck. 

It says so, you know, we mentioned in the book. But you'd think a guy from the south side of Chicago would have that skill down tight, you know. But we did hijack a truck, but it was full of North Vietnamese regular troops. 

And I got outgunned and elected not to die in a ditch that night. And that started the period that you mentioned. So now you're in a period, especially in the early years, which was 66, the early three, four years, which were, as have been described endlessly, it was pretty brutal. 

And you're in isolation or semi-isolation the whole time. You're living in, what's the appropriate S word? No, no, not that one. Not that one. I was, I'd suggest squalor.  

Sonya: Squalor.  

Gen. Borling: Squalor. Elegant, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it's cute. Suggested squalor, or solitary squalor, or.  

But anyway, and your only contact, if you've got someone next door, is that tap code that we go through. And because you were, a mixing metaphor, terribly running an uncertain race, it's kind of like running a marathon, and then you cross the finish line, and they say, keep going. And you have no idea how far you have to run. 

And time, certainly an enemy needs to be made an ally. And everybody had to find their own way, their own deliverance from the reality that existed. Certainly, we had to keep the faith, hang on, we wanted you to be proud of us. 

That was important. Survival was not as important as survival with honor. That meant everything. 

And so, for the people who remember those return days in 73, we got the sense that that was mutually understood and appreciated. Plus, to get back to real life, and real life being so receptive to us. But that still brings you back to, what are all these raunchy fighter pilots doing?  

Sonya: Poetry. 

Gen. Borling: Poetry, yeah. Poetry. Well, I've always loved literature. And I had a year and a half of college before going to the academy, even though the academy split their curriculum, half humanities and half engineering. You graduate with an engineering degree, but you get a good exposure to the philosophies, and the histories, and the literatures. And I got a lot of that out of civilian college too, and university. 

But the quest to stay sane, the quest to do something productive, to be somehow... We tend to be pretty competitive people anyway, and to do something that would be enabling of that. And so, I started to... Some guys dreamed up golf courses and designed golf courses. People designed houses and built houses in their mind. 

But you had to make, again, time an ally. So, I, being a lover of literature and having an appreciation for form, Petrarchan and Elizabethan sonnets. And if you thought I knew the difference when I was up there, you're wrong. 

So, I mixed them up. But it was a number of 14-line iambic pentameter, ABBA kind of stuff. And then a lot of... See, I think poetry ought to be like a picture on the wall. And you look at it, and you absorb it. And you get an immediate reaction about, gee, I really like that. Or you're turned off by it. 

I mean, I am not a particular fan of going in and seeing muddy footprints on a white wall. You know, I find my artistic appreciation talents somewhat limited, perhaps. On the other hand, you see Sacramento, The Last Supper by Salvador Dali, or even better, Christ of St. John of the Cross, the things in Glasgow. And you're captivated by beauty or Caravaggio. Or now, back to the poetry. So, I had to kill time. And unlike Thoreau, you don't want to kill time and injure eternity at the same time. You want to build something. So, I started creating this poetry in my mind. 

So, Myrna and my little girl, it was three months when I left, seven and a half when I came back, would have legacy in case I didn't make it. I did make it. Buried the book for 40 years, as I said. 

And then when John came, and we talked it over, and then the Master Wings, part of it from Ronnie, picked it up as the first imprint of the library. I'm very honored with that. And now we're 20 plus thousand copies later. 

And 10 years later, we still demand. I'm amazed that after 13 years, most recently, you know, I sold three cases of books, four cases of books out at the DAR down in Bloomington, Illinois. By the way, I buried the book in part because I didn't want to talk about the war. It takes about 40 years to get the bad stuff out. And then I had a chance to go over with the White House Provost Delegation to Vietnam in 2002 and see. But actually, we won too. It's a beautiful loss by most historians. But are you familiar with the name Von Nguyen Giap?  

Sonya: I'm not. I'm not. 

Gen. Borling: There were three principal revolutionaries back in those days. Ho Chi Minh. Everybody knows about Ho Chi Minh. Phan Van Dong was the premier. And Giap, Von Nguyen Giap, was the defense minister. He was a long time. He fought the French at Tien Binh Phu and won. And then he was the defense minister. He was the last one alive when we showed up in 2002. 

And he was going to give us three or four minutes, five minutes max for this delegation. I went out to greet Giap. And so in my best French, “Je vous connais bien, General Giap.” 

I know you well. And he came back and said, "Je vous connais aussi, General Borling." He took my hand and we walked into the room, which was the delegation, obviously. 

But probably 100 international press and a lot of the entourage to make sure that Giap at 100 plus was not going to board out something that would be an embarrassment to anyone. And we sat down and we went back and forth with the audience. I did a little translation. 

He had pretty good capability. And he had a Vietnamese person swinging in his other ear. So, but he would, from time to time, and I never asked a question, he would reach out and pat my hand. 

But it got tough. And there was a moment when challenged by a question. “Nous étions les victoires.” We were the victors. And then he paused and he said, “Et vous aussi, And you too. “Mais le coût, le coût” But the cost, the cost. 

And, you know, pat my hand again. There's a curious thing that goes on amongst people who've been in combat with each other, certainly, opposing. And there's this understanding that gets felt more than expressed. Of a bond or a common understanding, awareness.  

 Sonya: Sure, same plain.   

Gen. Borling: That sense that, you know, we've been down that road, perhaps. Different roads, contesting roads, but common roads. And there is a warmth. And in the book, I tried to achieve a warmth between me and the reader. 

It goes back to the picture. I didn't want to, you know, I read a lot of poetry. I read a lot. 

And I'm always disappointed when I read something that, well, the words may be beautiful and they may have a certain mellifluence to them or a certain edge or sharpness. I don't know what the hell I just read, you know. And I got to go back, and I'm trying to figure out what's this guy trying to say? So, I tried very hard to say things at different levels. But the first level is you got to look at it. It's like the lovely waterfall and background that you have. 

And the thing that, you know, it's the Adirondacks or something. Or it's Niagara or whatever.  

Sonya: Niagara, yeah, early Niagara. 

Gen. Borling: I can see the Maid of the Mist over your left shoulder. But that impression of beauty. And maybe that's the point. We were so absent of stimulus. Yeah. That I've often thought that America, if we were as good as we think we are, would have come up with a common definition or statement of purpose for our educational system. And because we haven't, and I'm bashful, I've come up with that.   

Sonya: Oh, okay. Is this the breaking news?  

Gen. Borling: The purpose of the American educational system should be to instill in the student the skills and the confidence to identify and solve problems. Because that's what you're doing.  

Sonya: Yeah, I like it.   

Gen. Borling: And have good manners. I am so irritated by these people who attack their meat in nice restaurants as if they're engaging something with a chainsaw, you know. And have good manners. And... Appreciate beauty. Appreciate beauty. Skills, confidence, good manners, and appreciate beauty. 

And we sequestered, another S word, had that insatiable sense that we, you know, we're cut off from the outside. We're basically living in a very confined space, no windows. Very occasionally in the early years, got some time outside to go dump your pocket, to be graphic. That's not so pretty.  

Sonya: Good to know.  

Gen. Borling: No, it's not. But we had this sense that, you know, you would see a cloud. This quest for beauty, I think, is universal. And so poetry, for me and for others, was a way to seek and express beauty. 

And now I shared it with the tap code through the walls. Because having something to do with your mind, to memorize things. So, a lot of guys memorized the book, but I did it every day. 

I would not only create things, but I would then go back and make sure that I had all the things that I created over the years logged in again and again and again. And so it's not so much it was something that kept me sane, it was something that preserved the soul, if you will. And I didn't want you to see it for 40 years.  

I murdered it, either. My wife, who hung in there over all those years. This is our 63rd year of marriage. 

And I'm going back to the academy here in about a week, or 10 days, right after I do the Memorial Day thing, over at the Logan statue. A quick, quick- Well, yeah, plug it, yeah. The Logan statue, of course, in Chicago is Major General John A. Logan.  

I'm partial with Major Generals. But Logan was the unsung hero of the 19th century. And beyond all of his exploits as congressman, senator, vice presidential nominee before he died of Civil War wounds, that statue, erected in 1897, had a quarter million people on the street on Michigan Avenue and 900 South in Grant Park.  

And when we rededicated the statue, and Memorial Day ceremonies have been cut in ‘68 because of the convention that was so disruptive here in Chicago. And Rich Daly asked me to bring back the stuff. So, I did. 

And there's a parade and the Daly Center thing. But we did the Logan thing with precise intent, because he was the man who created Memorial Day in 1868. So, I've got that going forward too. 

And then other things that will take place, including that trip to Europe that we talked about. So that's kind of looking behind the pages of the book. Can you put an advertisement in for people to buy the book?  

Sonya: Absolutely, we can. 

Gen. Borling: Yeah, I want you to buy the book. I want you to buy a lot of them, because my wife is renovating bathrooms, and you have no idea how expensive renovating bathrooms are. So that's part of it. 

You know, life is supposed to be fun as well as serious. It was Bernard Shaw who suggested, I think, that you should think what you say with some considerable seriousness, but then try to say it with a little levity. You know, I think, don't we all like people that laugh well and quickly?  

Sonya: I think so. 

Gen. Borling: Especially themselves. I look in the mirror sometimes and say, I wouldn't hire you today, Borling. All right, I've been prattling on here. 

Why don't you hit me with a really hard question?  

Sonya: Well, here's a question that I've always had that I think maybe you haven't talked about as much is the translation between sound and text is something I've sort of wondered about. Like, were there choices that you made intentionally in that sounded a certain way that you had to like change into text and you were happier or less happy when they were in text form versus how it sounded or anything like that?  

Gen. Borling: Yeah, well, I'm a big believer that when you're doing poetry, yeah, you got two choices. You can be Lawrence Olivier. You're on stage and you are Shakespearean. Yes. Or you're Steve McQueen in jeans and a t-shirt and a beer leaning up against the couch doing it kind of conversationally. 

Yeah. But let me give you an example. May I? Yes, please. The first poem in the book is called The Derelict. Yeah. And this is this business where you're saying the sounds versus the words. Yes. Because most people aren't going to sit there and read it out loud, although they should.   

Sonya: Or tap it out loud. 

Gen. Borling: Yeah, right. I've always dreamed of doing an audio book on this thing. Maybe somebody can make this come true sometime. 

But The Derelict talks about an old airplane that's going into a strip in the Western desert, long deserted. And here's how it starts out and why it's so important to, I think, to do it out loud.   

The West was a patchwork of color flung over a racing sky. 

And the wind, the wind was a lover's whisper that needed no reply.  

The strip was of weed-torn concrete scarring the desert floor. And a derelict came flying, flying, flying. 

A derelict came flying long final to zero four.  

Now, I think, or would hope, for whoever's listening in and watching, that that would be impetus, that would urge you to whatever book you’re reading. My book, someone else’s book, to experience it again. Like Olivier, like Steve McQueen. 

Sonya: Yea, Right! 

Gen. Borling: Well I’m kind of dated in my movie and acting stars. I should come up with someone much more current. But you get it.  

Sonya: Yea, I got you! 

Gen. Borling: But by the way, you know again, I consciously put the book into four pieces, then the dark bitter human nature stuff, the ugly, ugly things. And then family things. Thanksgivings, and Christmases and holidays.  

When they all come over, we joked about this before. I said, “When they all come over to your place. And you figure out after about 5 minutes that out of all your relatives, you really like yourself the best! I mean! 

And then there’s the long epic poem at the end. I always wanted to do an epic poem. So it’s about 60 pages or so, of uh, called Sea Story, Southeast Asia story. And the and the play is meant to be a sea story, is meant to be that, but it’s Southeast Asia story. And a lot of flying metaphor in there, but it deals with all the elements and moments of human activity and nature. And uh, tries to shine a light on those things. So at the end there’s a glossary in the back.  

Sonya: Very helpful! 

Gen. Borling: Not everybody knows what taboo for example. Or Ceiling at Visibility Unlimited. You know, and that’s uh, that’s a good kind of day.  

Sonya: Yea. 

Gen. Borling: That’s a good kind of day.  

Sonya: I just think it’s fascinating that your poetry has those sort of three levels to it in terms of sound that a lot of other poetry doesn’t, right? It has an equivalency in tapping that others do not. And there’s movement, I think. There’s more movement in these choices.  

Gen. Borling: Well, you would hope so, you know. I mean, you’re inspired by… Combat tends to, again, bring it up. This is nothing new. I mean, World War I stuff, World War II. Some of the, you know, things that… say, “High Flight,” of course. “My life slipped the surly bonds of Earth/ And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.” I mean, this is, this is great. You know, you get operatic chills for that kind of stuff. I met at Augustana College my literature – I went to Augustana for a year over on Rock Island.

Sonya: Right. 

Gen. Borling: When I didn’t get an appointment to the Academy the first year. In fact, I went to Navy Pier for 6 months and they found me out and I had to go someplace. So I went to Augustana when I didn’t get the appointment for the first year. And they found, so the lawyer looked University of Illinois found me out in 6 months. It took the Lutherans, as we say from the south side of Chicago, as you’ve got Catholics and Lutherans. It took the Lutherans a year to find me out and then I went to the Air Force Academy having to find someplace to go to. And they didn’t find me out for 37 years, 4 years at the Academy and 33 years in the military. And now we’re wound up in biotech businesses and other things to try to... 

Sonya: Yeah, service to others 

Gen. Borling: Try to stay viable in your own eyes. Not in other people’s eyes, in your own eyes. So I urge people never to retire. And to retire, all you do is, all you do is end up, you know, watching old westerns on TV or something or playing entirely too much golf, which is OK! But, you got to, you got to be out there hustling, yeah.  

Sonya: Searching for beauty and creating. Yeah, right.  

Gen. Borling: Well, you know, the, I’ve got a, it’s strange. I’ve got a summer in Michigan. It’s a family home that was built in ‘27 and i bought everybody out after the war. Cottage has turned into Bosnia after about three generations. Uh, there’s just too many people and not enough time or money to spend for everybody. So, somebody’s got to step up and I did. And now we’re up to five, almost six generations. And I had a conversation at dinner the other night at a little restaurant where we were in Michigan over the weekend for my granddaughter’s high school graduation. And i was talk to we had a neighbor on my right. And she was commenting about how much our lake, Round Lake up at Sister Lakes, means to her. And I said, “You know, the safest place in the world for me is the end of my pier up here on Sister Lakes.”  

Sonya: Yeah.  

Gen. Borling: And she said, “And that’s mine.” And now we’re both tearing up, you know because the safe way, and i had occasion to try to use that over those many years when things would get hard. And I would always put myself, uh, mentally, at the end of my pier. And I would close my eyes and try to stay at the end of the pier and sketch the tree line again and again across the horizon. And use that to offset the hurt. The pain. And when I came back, I went to the end of my pier with a sketch pad and a piece of charcoal. And i closed my eyes. I sketched the tree line. I wasn’t even bloody close. [Laughter] But it didn’t matter.  

Sonya: But it didn’t matter, yeah.  

Gen. Borling: Didn’t matter. So there at dinner is lady down the way on our shedding a tear over our safe, our common safe place. And if you went around the lake, I’ll bet you, you’d be surprised how many people find that their safe place is the end of their pier at this 250 acre lake that has been home.  

We would be in Europe on duty. And I figured it out, I could stay at the George V in Paris cheaper than flying everybody back to get 8 or 10 days at the cottage in Michigan. But that’s what we would do. You know, we had Europe at our disposal when we did that the other time. But we get some leave get over there.  Once again, it’s that, that beauty of the swans swimming on the lake, the occasional eagle circling, the bluegills for breakfast in the morning. It’s a Midwestern thing. You know, I really think we’re lucky living in the Midwest.  

Sonya: I love it, yeah.   

Gen. Borling: There’s a the change of scenery, I mean Myrna, again mentioning her, she in the winter with the looking out the window with the, with it’s, you know, a fire in the fireplace and nice music playing. She’s got her book cause, snow coming down outside it and she looks out there and there I am with my snowblower. I mean, it’s perfect for her, you know. But anyway, life goes on and we’re very fortunate. I feel a responsibility to our folks. Nothing very special, but the people who are still with us after these all too much one-sided conversations, you should have taken a stick from me.  

Sonya: No! It’s really beautiful. Yeah, it’s really meaningful, I think the things that you’re sharing here.  

Gen. Borling: Yeah, well, you know, I you know, you want to, you want to leave some marks behind. I’m going to be giving the final toast or the toast at the 63 thing, at the Academy. I’ve been, it’s hard to talk to classmates, because they know you guts, feathers, and all. I mean, they’ve seen you over this over the years. 

Sonya: Right, with your bucket, yeah. 

Gen. Borling: That’s your ration. I mean, you know, they’ve got stories that, you know, they won’t quite put you in jail, but they come pretty close sometimes. So if truth be known, but, so I’m going to talk about contrails and footprints. And contrails, of course, the condensation trail that is left across the sky on certain climatic conditions that trail of vapor water vapor behind the airplane. And I’m going to talk about the contrails that we as a class have left. And the footprints that we left, but more. The contrails that we’re going to generate in the future. And the footprints that we’ll leave as we continue to go down that runway of indeterminate length at this point, but because to quit is to die. And this is the thought. You just got to pick him up and lay him down. You just got to keep marching. You just got to keep marching. So, I’m still writing, still trying to engage with audiences large and small across the country. I'm trying to be an imperfect example. You know, we’re an imperfect country, but we try hard. We try hard. And it’s in the trying that we find the answer. I don’t know if we’re still recording or not, but I’ll use a final poem from the book, which is this I believe. And it is very simply,  

Some are made for mountains, 

And some prefer the plain, 

But all must have a self-esteem 

To bring them home again. 

Values come from people 

Assessing their amounts, 

Those worthy of respect and pride.  

All know, the striving task,  

The striving task. 

Been fun to be with you today.  

Sonya: Yeah, John thank you so much for your time today. It was a real treasure to hear what you had to say. And I will let everybody know if you’re interested in hearing more Taps on the Walls, Poems from the Hanoi Hilton is through Master Wings Publishing and wherever books are sold. I hope you all have a lovely dinner, and until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep the spirit of storytelling alive.