Ex-POW Now Has His Doubts About War

FALLON, Nev. —  The American POW whose bruised and swollen face was seen on television during Operation Desert Storm says he now has second thoughts about war.

“It made me rethink (my job),” Lt. Jeffrey Zaun said. “I don’t ever want to kill anybody again. This country didn’t get to see the cost of the war. I did . . . but they didn’t see the Iraqi mothers get killed.”

His remarks, which included the disclosure that Zaun inflicted some of his injuries on himself in an effort to avoid being videotaped by the Iraqis, were printed in a copyrighted story in the Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard.

Zaun, who is undergoing training at the Fallon Naval Air Station, was one of several American POWs forced to denounce the United States for its aggression in videotapes aired worldwide.

He said that while he wasn’t worried the American public would believe his bogus statements, he still disliked making the video. So he did the only thing he could think of to get out of it.

“I hit myself in the nose and in the face as hard as I could stand it when I knew they were taking me to a TV station,” he said. “It’s not good to get on TV and say your country is all (messed) up.”

But the Cherry Hill, N.J., native could not escape being taped, bruises and all. When he found out his captors were planning to videotape him a second time, he beat his face even harder.

“I beat my right eye until I couldn’t see out of it,” he said. “I tried to break my nose. The idea was not to be put on TV (and the strategy worked). They looked at me and sent me back down.”

Zaun, 28, said he feared for his life. He was forced to “lay on the floor, hands cuffed behind (his) back” in a bunker.

“I figured life was over,” he said. “I had the idea they would kill me as soon as they finished interrogating me. . . . There was a man who would hit you in the kneecaps. There was a man who would hit you in the head.”

Although other POWs disagree, Zaun said, he believes Iraqi guards beat their prisoners to get information, not just to injure them.

“All in all, I didn’t feel they were the bloodthirsty, amoral people we had heard they were,” he said.

The Navy navigator-bombardier became one of Operation Desert Storm’s first prisoners of war when his A-6 Intruder was shot down over Iraq on Jan. 15.