Look me in the eyes...

     It has been said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. No matter if you believe that or not, you can tell a lot about a person by just looking at their eyes. Often people will inadvertently give away a lot of information through their eyes, and during the Vietnam war, one American POW used just his eyes to pass purposely pass information back to officials back in the US.

     Jeremiah Denton was an American naval aviator whose plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965, and was captured, becoming a POW. In 1966 Denton, as part of his incarceration, was forced to participate in a press conference by the North Vietnamese. As American intelligence experts watched the press conference, they noticed that Denton was blinking a lot more than most people would. They also noticed that there seemed to be a pattern to the way that he was blinking.

     As they studied the video, it was eventually discovered that Denton was blinking in Morse Code. While he was speaking, Denton repeatedly blinked out the message T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse code. He did this to try and pass on the message to his superiors that he and other American service men were being tortured while they were being held by the North Vietnamese. Denton said, "In case they fitted words into my mouth, that were apologetic on my part. In other words, faked it. I would at least let them know I'd been tortured by the T-O-R-T-U-R-E."

     While his act gave the Americans important info as to the state of their men who had been captured, it didn't lead to him being released any earlier. Denton remained a POW until he was released with many of his fellow prisoners in 1973. However during his time as a prisoner, he was promoted to captain and was given the Navy Cross, among other honors.






1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgelmcOdS38
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton
3. http://www.batesline.com/archives/2009/02/torture.html