POW Pictures

I am writing in response to the letter by John Gregory Dunne regarding the bruised POW airmen held by Iraq (Jan. 27).

I believe he has taken some incorrect assumptions from the material he cited in Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff.”

High-speed ejections are hazardous. Fortunately, they are rare in normal flying, even in combat. The most battered of the crewman that I saw on the television came from the A-6, the slowest of the aircraft involved.

During my 21 years in the Air Force, I saw a great many pilots who had ejected from all types of fighter aircraft and I never saw any that were as battered as our POWs shown on TV. I know that it is hard to attribute inhumane treatment of prisoners to their captors, but, if you consider the mentality of the man behind those holding our pilots and crewmen, I believe you have to come to the conclusion that the bruises on their faces came after they were captured.

WILLIAM H. ALLEN, Anza