f i r s t
p e r s o n
Faculty member, war hero
T
o viewers of the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary on the me. Conditions were extremely harsh, with minimal food, no shoes, no
Vietnam War, Hal Kushner’s face became familiar. He served in clothing, no blankets, no medicine, no soap, no toothpaste, no tobacco, no
the 1st Squadron, 9th U.S. Cavalry, 1st Air Cavalry Division, and nothin’. The hardest part for me was watching our once-strong comrades
he was interviewed extensively for that film. The clerkship faculty waste away and die, and then eulogizing them and burying their poor
member from the Daytona Beach Regional Campus was honored in starved corpses.
May by the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery with its first Then, with only 12 survivors out of 27, our captors decided to move us
Distinguished Member Award. Here are excerpts from Col Kushner’s remarks to North Vietnam. We walked … 560 miles in 57 days, often shackled, to
that evening. Hanoi and to jail. In jail we were six to a cell, sleeping on a wooden pallet,
and eating two meals of a thin pumpkin soup, a small piece of bread and
I am a small-town ophthalmologist. But before that, I was an Army flight
two cups of water per day. There was a bucket in the cell for a latrine. One
surgeon for a very famous, highly decorated unit. I was the only survivor man got out once a day to empty the bucket. It was brutal and cruel, but it
of a nonsurvivable helicopter crash. And I was seriously wounded in the was better than the jungle.
crash with three broken bones, a bullet wound and burns. Then three days
Every minute that I was captured, I thought about being a physician.
after the crash I was shot again while being captured. My captivity lasted One of my fellow prisoners later wrote, “Capt. Kushner never gave up his
65 months, 5½ years, 1,932 days…. My daughter was 3½ when I left, will to practice medicine. In the end, he would just hold dying prisoners
and when I came back she was in the fifth grade…. My son was born four in his arms and comfort them as they passed to the other side.” Another
months after I was captured…. I met him a week before his fifth birthday. wrote: “Kushner never quit, always trying to motivate us to keep fighting,
The first 3½ years of my captivity were spent in the mountainous jungles
of South Vietnam, where every day saw a struggle for survival against a
keep trying.”…
I never forget I’m here because of my comrades. We helped and
supported each other. None of us would be alive if it weren’t for all of
beaten and starved. Half of us died. Ten very good American soldiers and us…. I owe my fellow soldiers my life. So I thank them for helping me to
Marines died in my arms. Three crew members on my aircraft died beside live to this day and be recognized by you.
merciless enemy: starvation, disease and the elements. We were shackled,
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Hal Kushner, M.D., pictured with students from the Classes of 2018 and 2019