Pulp | Arts Around Ann Arbor

The Warners, of 2018 McKinley, said good-bye to their son five years ago. Then 26, Marine Capt. James H. Warner, their only son, went to Southeast Asia to serve as a bomber radar officer until he became a POW in North Vietnam during October, 1967.

Today, Mrs. Warner—an activist in efforts to release POWs—is “ecstatic.”

“It’s fantastic. It’s over. No more bombs. Just think of it,” she said.

“But I expected it,” she continued. “I knew the President could not face the people and say he had renewed the bombing again. World opinion wouldn’t allow it.”

But Mrs. Warner, with a mother’s instinct, also had other reasons to believe the war was coming to an end.

These reasons were born with the last letter she received from her son. It was his “Christmas letter,” dated Nov. 25.

In that letter, James told her to price new cars and tell the U-M to be ready to “receive” him. He closed the letter with: “I’ll see you soon.”

“He never ended a letter that way before,” Mrs. Warner explained. “He always ended with: ‘I hope I’ll see you someday.” It’s as if he knew more about the negotiations than we did.”

Mrs. Warner — who, in her efforts to gain information and release of the POWs, traveled to Washington several times and even resorted to a county-wide billboard POW release campaign in 1970 — wishes she “was a little mouse last night, so I could creep into a POW camp and hear the reaction of the men. It must have been wonderful.”

But the Warners and their two daughters also are realistic. They know that adjustments for the men coming home will be great.

“I guess if a man can adjust as a prisoner, he can adjust to long hair, mini-, midi- and maxi-skirt. But Jim won’t even be able to find his way from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor with all the changes. And that’s the least of it: we’ve changed, he’s changed and the country’s changed,” the woman commented.

As she sat listening to President Nixon’s announcement, Mrs. Warner said her “thoughts were jumbled.”

“I still wonder why it couldn’t end two years ago. I wonder if we’ve accomplished anything for the United. States or the people of Vietnam. But I am so happy, I have no bitterness toward anybody,” she said.

She stressed the word “anybody,” adding that as the years of her son’s imprisonment passed, her family did develop some bitterness against places, things, establishments and systems.

“But it’s over, and we’re very lucky,” she said, “luckier than the loved ones of those missing in action. When they’re accounted for, there will be sad news for some families.”

When the President addressed specifically the families of POWs and MIAs—those he said were not willing to settle for anything less than peace with honor — Mrs. Warner realizes he wasn’t addressing her.

She suspects that her son is aware of her activities and that the North Vietnamese have used them as propaganda.

“You know the irony of the POW movement is that we couldn’t expect anything else. POWs are a fact of life in war. I know why my son was there.

He was on a bombing mission and he was caught. But we had to do something,” Mrs. Warner said. "You know, through all of this, I’ve always been proud to say my son was a U.S. Marine.

“But it’s all over. And now it’s time to start working in this country. As soon as I get ready for my son’s return — the first thing I’ve got to do is start stocking groceries — I’m going to do volunteer work in a veteran’s hospital. They (veterans who are patients) really have been forgotten in all this,” she said.

Sunday, a mass at her church is scheduled in honor of James and in prayer for his release. The mass was a Christmas present.

“Now, we can tell the priest to make it a prayer of thanks,” she said.

The next few weeks also will mean an end to visits from the police, who “occasionally” have asked her to remove an old model sports car from the front of her house. It belongs to James, and Mrs. Warner does have a permit to park it there.

“If the police come again, I can tell them Jim will move it himself — in about 60 days,” she said.

CAPT. JAMES WARNER [Image]