Excerpt from Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Fifty Years of Freedom
Every man in his generation served, but only a select few served in the Navy’s elite pilot community. The aviators are always easy to spot and Ev Southwick is no exception. He’s a man’s man with ruddy good looks: an eagle’s posture, a wide-stepped saunter, flirtatious brown eyes that sparkle in the company of women, weathered hands that grip you like a vise and a distinctly baritone voice. With Ev, however, you also can’t mistake the music in his laugh.
As a loyal Husky, “I started singing in 1949 at the University of Washington. A fraternity brother told me to walk down to University Avenue and buy a ‘Hawaiian O’ C.F. Martin ukulele. I paid $18.75—now it’s worth more than $800! We played and sang all over sorority row. One of my favorites was, and still is, ‘Be Prepared.’” Good advice for an aviator. “I still bring the ukulele out on occasion at parties—when the spirit moves me.”
“Be prepared, that’s the Boy Scouts’ marching song; Be prepared, as through life you roll along …Be prepared to hold your liquor pretty well; Don’t write naughty words on walls if you can’t spell …” — Tom Leher
In Navy flight training, Ev sang in the Naval Aviation Cadet Choir. “In October 1953, we traveled to New York to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. The camera slowly panned the choir, so each of us had about 1.5 seconds of fame.” Ev immediately breaks into laughter, a deep-bellied roar normally reserved for Saint Nick.
Ev was shot down near Than Hoa in May of 1967 and spent just shy of six years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. To entertain their fellow prisoners, he and a few of his friends formed a singing group. “I was part of a quartet in Vietnam. We also had our own choir, and I was involved in church services there.”
Good singing comes from deep within and the music in Ev’s life is a distinct window into his soul. A high-spirited individual with a perpetually sunny outlook, Ev’s playful nature and sense of humor are his own personal therapy in action. It has sustained him through painful times in his life, including a brain aneurysm and three divorces.
He doesn’t describe himself as particularly religious in a formal sense; rather, singing and laughter seem to serve as his spiritual release. “People often shake their heads and comment to me that they could never have survived what I have. You know what: they’re wrong. The human spirit has amazing fortitude and, faced with such a challenge, can muster incredible strength. Common men have proven this time and time again.”
Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Fifty Years of Freedom takes a close look at thirty former Vietnam POWs from all branches of the military. Produced by photographer Jamie Howren and author Taylor Baldwin Kiland, the exhibit was created in 2003 on the 30th anniversary of the men’s return and updated for the 50th Anniversary in 2023. The exhibit includes 31 impressionistic photos and accompanying written profiles intended to capture these extraordinary American men who were tested like few people of subsequent generations have. It is also intended to defy the lingering negative stereotype of Vietnam veterans.
Open Doors is available for rent as a traveling exhibit to museums, libraries, universities, and other cultural institutions. For more information, please contact info@coronadohistory.org.
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