The Hanoi Hilton was not a place you wanted to be during the Vietnam War. Doug Hegdahl fell off his ship and ended up a prisoner of war. While he was in the Hoa Lo Prison, he hid his intelligence from his captors, which earned him additional freedoms within the camp. This book tells his story.
It also tells a lot of other stories. The best way I could describe it is to say it reminded me of Dug from the movie Up. Every time a new place, ship, or person popped into the story, I took a side trip to explore everything about it. That trip would break the timeline, and many times, take the story far away from Doug himself.
When Doug was released, two others were with him. One of them immediately tried to vanish from the spotlight, and the other was very involved with trying to keep a spotlight on freeing POWs. Doug was in and out of it for years. Eventually, he faded away so that even his friends had a hard time getting in touch with him. It made me wonder if he'd be happy with a book about him.
Overall, it wasn't really what I was expecting. I was looking for a book focused on Doug, and it felt like he was a side character in his own book. It was disappointing for me, but I did learn a lot about other things!
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