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Abstract

The repatriated Vietnam prisoners of war are suffering almost no mental illness, and the effective use of humor seems to be one of the reasons for their health. The literature by and about prisoners of war from several recent wars indicates prisoners often found humor to be an effective coping mechanism, a way of fighting back and taking control. By defining humor as an element of communication and by thinking of resilience as a communication phenomenon, the links between humor and resilience become more apparent. This was a qualitative study that consisted of interviewing approximately 50 Vietnam POWs in unstructured interviews and 12 Vietnam POWs in a structured, topical format. Chronicling the subjective accounts of these men and framing them as communication allowed an examination of the results. Knowing that human connection contributed to the survival and resilience of these men implies that resilience is contagious, as humor seems to be. Through the creation of humor in a well-defined system of social support, these fiercely independent men learned to rely on their own power and to draw a sense of mastery from each other.
HUMOR, CONTROL & HUMAN CONNECTION:
LESSONS FROM THE VIETNAM POWs
by
Linda D. Henman, Ph.D.
In 1973 the Vietnam Conflict drew to a close and 566 military prisoners of war were returned
from captivity in North Vietnam. Over 25 years later the medical and psychological tests of
approximately 300 of these repatriated prisoners show few medical, social, and psychological
problems. How can this be when other groups in history who have experienced captivity have
often shown extreme aftereffects? The answers are varied and complex, but one thing seems
clear. The Vietnam prisoners of war (VPOWs) had a system that worked, a system for human
connection based on control and grounded in the effective use of humor.
Psychologists tell us that human beings want power and authority over their futures. We want
to feel that we have a say in how things will go for us. When we perceive that our actions will
make an outcome likely, we feel optimistic and secure. When we don’t, we feel insecure. We
feel like victims. Sometimes people stay in a victim’s frame of mind after a loss or
disappointment. They doubt their capacity to make their lives happen according to their own
aspirations, so they wait to be rescued or blessed by good fortune. They start to feel undermined
and overwhelmed; and they can become totally immobilized.
But the VPOWs weren’t victims. They were certainly victimized by their captors, but they
never saw themselves as victims, no matter what was done to them. They weren’t victims
because the took control of the few things they could control. They were told when and what and
if they could eat; they were told if and when the could shower, sleep, and use the toilet. They had
no say about parts of their lives that people normally take for granted. But they did have control
over one thing, and that was their humor perspective.
Control and Human Connection
In 1958 William Schutz proposed a theory of behavior that suggested that control is one of
the salient variables of interpersonal relationships, and people form groups to fulfill their needs for
it. Their need for control served as a framework for the VPOWs who created and maintained a
system of strong interpersonal relationships and group affiliation that helped them survive over
seven years in captivity and thrive during the years since repatriation. Humor was one of the
elements of this system. The VPOWs taught each other how to use humor as a weapon for
fighting back and as a tool for building cohesion.
One way to break down a group's power is to reduce the feelings of control the members
have. If people have a need to feel control, authority, and influence in their lives and over the
lives of others, removing this perception can, according to Schutz, compromise the cohesion of
the groups. In the Nazi prison camps, the guards succeeded in doing just that. The prisoners
were forced to say "thou" to one another, which in Germany is indiscriminately used only among
small children. Using this term with adults shows a lack of respect, but the Nazi guards did not
permit the prisoners to address one another with the many titles to which middle and upper-class
Germans were accustomed. On the other hand, the prisoners had to address the guards in the
most deferential manner, showing respect by giving them all their titles (Bettelheim, 1953).
As Bettelheim pointed out, forcing these adults to live like children, to speak like and to be
spoken to like children caused them eventually to take on some characteristics of children. They
were unable to plan for the future, and they were unable to establish durable relationships. The
Nazi prisoners had no control over their lives, even to the extent that their most basic of human
needs for food, sleep, and using the toilet were controlled by the guards. Numerous accounts
claim many prisoners eventually reverted to such childlike behaviors as bed-wetting and soiling
themselves. The need for control was purposefully thwarted for these prisoners. Expressions of
independence, rebellion, and resistance were almost certain triggers for more abuse, so these
prisoners did not find control within their own lives or through forming relationships with other
prisoners.
Groups as Systems of Control
The VPOWs, on the other hand, did form groups and relied on their system to help them
overcome some of the adversity of the situation. These prisoners, like the Nazi prisoners, were
treated like children. Satisfaction of their basic physiological needs was also determined by their
guards; however, one significant difference is apparent. The Vietnam prisoners had a system for
resisting. They were forced to submit and comply with many of the guards' demands, but because
of their system of human connection, their group, they were able to rebel when prisoners in other
captivity situations had not been able to.
The Vietnamese captors, like the Nazi captors, tried to break the power of the group, but the
Vietnamese were not so formidable. The Nazis were successful in controlling the prisoners
because the prisoners had no system for resisting the coercion. When the North Vietnamese tried
to impose a rule similar to the Nazi's rule of saying "thou" to one another, they were met with
unexpected resistance. For example, the VPOWs refused to give into the captives' demands that
they refrain from addressing each other by rank.
The VPOWs also created humor among themselves, and in so doing, exercised control in
another sense. Humor has its basis in the individual, but it manifests itself in interpersonal
relationships. When responding to what helped them make it through, the research respondents
described humor from both an intrapersonal and interpersonal perspective. That is, they reported
a sense of humor within themselves and the laughter they shared with each other. One
participant’s observation that, “The larger the group, the more lighthearted things were. The
smaller the group, the more intense things were” reflected the comments of many.
As one man stated, “Believe it or not, even under the almost worst of conditions over there,
under the right circumstances, we could laugh.” They would say, “Well, boy, we’re going to look
back on this and laugh, but boy, it sure does hurt now.” Another participant added, “The first five
months I didn’t have a sense of humor. I was having great difficulty finding anything very funny
about the situation, and then I discovered by living with other people and the way we interacted,
that we eventually started being awfully funny.”
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He went on to clarify the kind of humor he often found valuable. He remembers, “I lived next
to a guy in late ’67 who had been beaten very severely.” After several days of being beaten on a
routine basis, the friend reported he had been threatened that he would have both arms broken if
he did not answer the questions the next day. When asked what he intended to do, he replied, “I
don’t know. I suppose I’ll tap with my cast tomorrow.” The participant described this as an
“almost morbid sense of humor.” Another participant called this a type of “in-house humor.
“Those who have not experienced it could not understand how two men could find a discussion
about the honey bucket so funny. Taking off the lid and commenting that one had diarrhea and
one was constipated when they had both eaten the same thing was truly funny, but the humor is
lost on outsiders.”
A third participant called this “had to be there humor.” In explaining what he meant, he
mentioned an incident that the VPOWs found humorous. He had passed a worm of substantial
length, so he gave it to the guard, thinking the guard would take it to a doctor and request
medical attention for the parasites he obviously had: “So I handed it to him through the bars in
the door on a piece of bamboo stick, and the water girls were on the cell block at the time, and I
thought, ‘Hey, he’s going to take it to the doctor,’ you know, and ‘I’ll get some medicine here.’
So he closes the door and the starts chasing the water girls with it, screaming and laughing, and
the water cans tipped over.” He further commented that he too remembers mocking the situation
to find humor. He mentioned that one of the VPOWs with whom he was communicating tapped
to him that when he gets out and “he fills out his critique sheet,” he will tell them “The exercise is
real and it lasted too damn long.”
According to some VPOWs, the importance and the value of a sense of humor was first and
foremost. “Humor allows you to get up every morning and think this isn’t the end of the world,
so one’s sense of humor is pretty critical.” One VPOW reported that even after being beaten the
men ended up telling jokes to each other in spite of the miserable conditions of the cell. Some
others on the other side of the wall, who had also been beaten, tapped the question, “What’s so
funny?” The response was, “If you don’t have a sense of humor, you shouldn’t have joined up.”
One repatriated VPOW remarked on the link between humor and control. The value of order
and self-control is best appreciated in the light of the prisoner uncertainties and required
compliance's. In other words, taking charge of anything allowed a perception of some degree of
control (Naughton, 1975). Researchers Rahe and Geneder (1983) echoed Naughton’s
observations. They found that the use of humor was a way of exercising some control as well as
a means of coping. “Use of humor has an immense coping value. Getting the best of one’s
guards, on occasion, not only provides humorous remembrances that can be savored later, but
gives captives a moment of control in what otherwise is a totally uncontrolled situation” (p.580).
Human Connection at Work
To prevent a disjunction of the self and to find meaning in a situation void of meaning, the
VPOWs relied on resources many of them did not know they had. Their internal sense of mirth
and humor, their reliance on one another, and their group interactions all combined to create a
system for survival. Their humor perspective provided the framework for discovering how to
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cope with their captivity, and their commitment to one another other gives an important
perspective about what coping is made of. The role humor can play in bouncing back from
adversity, especially when we are linked to others who will help us laugh, seems critical.
Groups operate as systems anytime people come together and communicate with one another
over a period of time to achieve a goal, but few groups rely on the system as much as a group in
crisis does. The VPOW system, with its related use of humor, acted as a type of anchor in
humanity for the VPOWs. Because they were cemented in a strong social structure, they had a
buffer against fragmentation of self or of the system. Humor within oneself and with others
allows for taking control of a senseless situation and for the establishment of groups.
The VPOW accounts indicate these men formed a system that defined and encouraged humor
among the group's members. These men relied on humor not in spite of the crisis but because of
it. The VPOWs' system was a powerful civilizing force that discouraged any antisocial slip into a
kind of jungle mentality. Control is central to individuals’ health, their personal benefits, and in the
case of the Vietnam POWs, their actual survival.
REFERENCE LIST
Bethelheim, B. (1953). Individual and mass behavior in extreme situations. Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology, 34. 417-452.
Naughton, R. (1975). Motivational factors of American prisoners of war held by the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Naval War College Review, 27. 2-14.
Henman Performance Group
www.Henmanperformancegroup.com 636.537.3774
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Rahe, R. & Geneder, E. (1983). Adaptation to and recovery from captivity stress. Military
Medicine, 148. 577-585.
Schutz, W. (1966). Interpersonal underworld. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavioral Books,
Inc.
Schutz, W. (1992). Beyond FIRO-B--Three new theory-derived measures--Element B:
Behavior , element F: Feelings, element S: Self. Psychological Reports, 70. 915-937.
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www.Henmanperformancegroup.com 636.537.3774
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