profilet

Hello! I am Leo Profilet's grand-niece. Hubert, did you know Leo, AKA Corky? You and my uncle were in the Hanoi Hilton together during the same time period, although you were there a year longer than he was. Did all of you guys know one another?

I have so many questions. I loved my uncle and I got to know him much better when I lived for a few years quite near him in Northern CA. But there were some things I was curious about but afraid to ask him.

One thing was...his health. He had trouble breathing a lot as he got on in years, and while I understood that he had been tortured, I never knew how, or why it might have long-lasting impacts on his cardio-vascular system in general. Do you know?

Were you one of the guys who told stories through the walls/pipes? What stories did you tell? Which ones were your favorites to hear? Did Corky tell any good ones?

Corky's first wife divorced him while he was a POW. He met his new wife, my beloved Aunt Sue (she's still alive!) on his return flight when he was released. She was a flight attendant. It was love at first sight. Did Corky know that his wife was going to leave him while he was in there? Did word get to him, or did he find out only after he was released? What did he say about his first wife, or his kids?

Who was your best friend there? Do you still keep in touch with him? Corky died a while back. I went to the ceremony for him at Arlington. So did a lot of people. He's gone but never forgotten.

Thank you for this reply.

I will share something Corky told me. It was years ago, so perhaps I misremember the details. Also, he never told me any stories that involved him being punished or tortured in any way. So perhaps this is censored as well.

Where Corky was, he could hear some people if they whispered. I don't remember if it was a thin wall, or a pipe or vent. Maybe I have mixed up a memory of tap code with a story of him and his roommates. But what I remember is that Corky said the POWs would entertain one another with this carefully covert storytelling. He said the people involved--a handful, I gather--really looked up especially to one man, who was so good at telling wonderful stories, everyone looked forward to his stories the most.

As I said, maybe I am mixing up memories, and he told stories back and forth with roommates of some kind. Then again, I remember my mother once telling me that she thought Corky was kept in solitary confinement a lot of the time.

I want to say thank you for sharing your story. As you can tell from my uncertainty, even those who loved Corky and knew him very well were unable to get him to say much about what happened to him during those nearly six years he spent in the Hanoi Hilton. When he died, he left me feeling like I lost not only him by my chance to truly know who he was, who his experiences had made him.

You're giving the gift of yourself to your loved ones by sharing what happened with them.

Edit: erased a phrase that was confusing