MWSA Book Review

The First Marine Captured in Vietnam

Author: Donald L. Price

Publisher:  McFarland & Co

Reviewer: Prof Andrew Lubin--MWSA Lead Reviewer

A story of true leadership and courage.

Long before the names and battles of Khe Sanh, Hue City, and Firebase Gloria were seared into America’s consciousness, there were Marines and soldiers fighting, dying – and being captured - in Vietnam.
First-time author Donald Price’s brings back the terror and heartache of these times. Price’s thoroughly-researched biography of Marine Col. Donald Cook blends the story of Cook’s wounding and capture in December 1964 through his December 1967 death with interviews from several of the POW’s imprisoned with him as well as the equally courageous story of his wife Laurette and her four small children.
An advisor to the South Vietnamese Marines, Capt Cook was the first Marine captured by the Viet Cong. Unlike the American aviators shot down over North Vietnam and interned at the infamous Hanoi Hilton, Marines and soldiers captured in the south were normally locked inside small bamboo cages in small camps throughout the Mekong Delta. As opposed to the systematic and calculated isolated torture of Sen John McCain, Adm Jerimiah Denton, and others, life in the south consisted of slow starvation, disease, and simply trying to survive in an extremely harsh environment.
Author Price – himself a highly decorated Marine officer from the Vietnam era – details the abject misery endured by Cook and his fellow captives. Given only starvation rations by disinterested guards who also withheld the few medicines to which they might have access often made dying easier than attempting to survive another day. But drawing on his strength as a Roman Catholic and a Marine officer, Cook took charge of the other POW’s in the camp, and did his best to give them the hope to stay alive.
Through his three years of captivity, his family received only one letter from him. Her major source of comfort came from the Marine Corps, as then-commandant Gen Wallace Greene, Jr. contacted her personally and ensured she and her children were cared for to the best of the Marine Corps ability – indeed, they continued to receive the benefits commensurate with her husband’s rank, as he was promoted twice ‘in absentia.”
Col Donald Cook is the only Marine ever to receive the Medal of Honor while being held prisoner of war, and Col Donald Price has written a story of honor – courage – commitment that encompasses the entire Cook family. Highly recommended !