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THE FLAG is the true story
about Steve Kiba, Radio Operator on an unarmed B-29 during the
Korean War. He graphically details the horrors that began with
his being shot down over North Korea and being captured and ended
almost 32 months later with his release from a political prison in
Peking, Red China.
Steve vividly takes us
from prison to prison on a "virtual reality" journey through the Red
Chinese gulag system. He shares his feelings of fear, anxiety,
frustration, despair, abandonment, and hopelessness. His story
allows us to endure vicariously the POW/MIA experience: unending
hours of solitary, excruciating pain of seemingly endless
interrogation and re-education sessions, the constant pain of hunger
and unquenched thirst, and the devastating effects of prolonged
sleep deprivation.
Coupled
with the pain of deprivation, we share his physical, emotional, and
mental distress of living in utter filth, being denied even the most
basic sanitary and hygienic needs, being daily threatened never to
be released, and suffering the continuous barrage of false
accusations: violating Red Chinese airspace, working for the CIA,
and engaging in germ warfare.
In a showcase
kangaroo trial on October 10, 1954, Steve and the other crew members of B-29
Stardust Four Zero were judged guilty of war crimes; on November 23rd.,
they were
sentenced to prison terms ranging from four years for the enlisted
airmen to ten years for Colonel Arnold. The other officers'
terms ranged from five to eight years. |
