Lt. Commander Mike Christian, USN (ret.)



21 April 2001

This morning I had the privledge of being involved in the ROTC Hall of Fame induction cermony at my university, Purdue. We inducted 9 people, all of them great men from varying services and with varying accomplishments. It was a honor to see and meet all the great men who came out of the very same place I am at right now. All of them were great men, but one stood out among them. Sadly, Commander Christian died in 1983, but his wife and many from his family were present for the cermony. When his biography was read, there were few in the audience who were not near tears. Afterword, a letter was read from Senator John McCain, who had been imprisoned with Commander Christian in the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam. When it was finished, I was struck with such awe that this man, who had brought a whole room full of people to tears many many years after his death, had come to his commision, begun his life as a Navyman, from this very unit, in this very room. Below is the text of the bio read this morning. Sadly, I was unable to obtain a copy of Senator McCain's letter, which was also very moving.


Lt. Commander Christian enlisted int he Navy on January 28, 1955 and served as an Aviation Electronics Technition. He applied for and was accepted into the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program in 1959 [a program which alows current enlistedmen to still serve out their enlistment while also earning a college degree and a commission at a major university]. He entered Purdue University in 1960 and earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1964.

Upon commissioning, he served on USS Dahlgren (DLG-12) until his flight training began. He attended Naval Flight Officer training in Pensacola, Florida, and Oceana, Virginia. After receiving his "wings of gold", he was assigned to Attack Squadron 85 (VA-85) at NAS Oceana, Virginia, serving as a Bomberdier/Navagator in the A-6 Intruder. While deployed with VA-85 on USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) to the Gulf of Tonkin, he was shot down on April 24th, 1967. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war until his release in 1973. He was a POW for almost six years at various camps, including the Hao Lo POW Camp, which is better known as the Hanoi Hilton.




Back to Heros in Uniform During his internment, Lt. Commander Christian acquired a grimy rag and the remnants of a handkerchief. Using a bit of soap, he spent days cleaning the material. At night, under his mosquito net, he worked on his creation. He made red and blue from ground up roof tiles and timy amounts of ink. He painted colors onto the cloth with watery rice glue. Over a period of a few months, using a thread from his blanket and a homemade bamboo needle, he sewed an American flag on the inside of his prisoner shirt.

Lt. Commander Christian's shirt, with his flag, was hung on the wall of the cell every afternoon, and before eating a bowl of soup, the occupants of the cell would say the Pledge of Allegiance. The camp guards eventually found the flag and came for Lt. Commander Christian in the night. He was pulled from his cell and beaten where all the other prisoners could hear. After a severe beating which lasted a couple of hours, he was thrown back in the cell.

Senator McCain recalls how he and the other prisoners tried to comfort him after this brutal beating. He was not in good shape. But when the others lay down to go back to sleep, Lt. Commander Christian, with eyes almost shut from his beating, sat beneath a dim light bulb, with a piece of white cloth, a piece of red cloth, another shirt, and a bamboo needle, making another American Flag.

Upon his return, Lt. Commander Christian attended Old Dominion University where he recieved a Masters Degree. He also attended the Armed Forces Staff College. He retired on Februaray 1, 1978, following a tour at the Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia. He died in a tragic restaurant fire on September 4, 1983.