A Second Chance at Freedom
- Ross Perot, April 2005

In 2002, Jamie Howren and Taylor Baldwin Kiland produced the extraordinary exhibit “Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Thirty Years Later,” which has touched the hearts of thousands of those fortunate enough to see it at more than 20 venues around the country.

The Open Doors exhibit traveled throughout the United States for three years. It was featured on NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, CNN and Parade Magazine, and will be permanently housed in the Library of Congress beginning in 2006. Jamie’s and Taylor’s book will now allow this story to come into every home.

While I could not help but be deeply moved by the commitment and heroism of the POWs who were imprisoned in Vietnam for up to 10 years, the rich, full lives they have lived after returning to freedom are even more awe-inspiring. This book gives you an intimate look into the current lives of our POWs 30 years after returning from Vietnam, focusing on how they rebuilt their lives – professionally and personally.

This inspirational story of hope and opportunity that details what these men made of their second chance at freedom can give us all some perspective for our own lives. We appreciate the efforts Jamie and Taylor made to give these men the recognition and credit they have so richly earned – and for giving us role models to emulate.

To quote former POW Navy Commander Paul Galanti, “There’s no such thing as a bad day when you have a door knob on the inside of the door.”

Foreword
- Joseph L. Galloway, April 2005

Their homecoming over three decades ago was cause for a joyous American national celebration. Some of them had been held prisoner in Vietnam, tortured and brutalized, for more than eight years.

That homecoming in 1973 was something all Americans could cheer, no matter where they stood in a nation deeply divided over the war. It was the only good news out of Vietnam in a long time.

We shared, briefly and tearfully, their televised reunions with their families — families changed by years of absence. There were children who barely remembered a father who had been neither alive nor dead to them for years. There were wives made stronger by the demands of taking care of a family and working to free a husband held prisoner. There were wives who had given up hope and moved on.

We know what happened to some of them. Jeremiah Denton and John McCain were elected to the U.S. Senate. Sam Johnson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Doug Peterson served as the first U.S. Ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. VADM James Stockdale ran for vice president unsuccessfully. Some wrote books about their experiences as POWs. One took his own life only four months after he returned home. Most simply concentrated on rebuilding lives, personal and professional, that had been put on hold for so long.

How are they doing today? What are they doing today? This book goes a long way toward answering those questions about thirty of the former POWs who came home from Hanoi so long ago.

Two talented young women, writer Taylor Baldwin Kiland and photographer Jamie Howren who have been friends since childhood, felt that there was a story to tell about these brave men and their lives today and they set out to tell it.
They put their own savings into the project, visiting thirty former prisoners of war to capture the images and gather the stories that in August of 2002 became the highly successful traveling exhibit titled “Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Thirty Years Later.”.

Jamie’s black-and-white sepia toned prints, shot with one camera and one lens, and Taylor’s profiles--character studies really—show how these men rebuilt their lives after they came home from a season in Hell. They make “Open Doors” an inspirational story of hope, opportunity and second chances.

The underlying theme to both the exhibit and this book is found in the words of former POW Cdr. Paul Galanti: “There’s no such thing as a bad day when you have a door knob on the inside of the door.”

For three years the ”Open Doors” exhibit has traveled America, going to 16 cities, the territory of Guam, even aboard a U.S. Navy ship at sea, the USS Boxer. The Museum of History and Art in Coronado, Calif., manages the traveling exhibit. When ”Open Doors” ends its road tour in 2006 its permanent home will be the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

NEXT: The Message