Eleven Letters Honor POW's Hidden Wound

His smile faded quickly. He was despondent, quietly retreating within himself. Some wives had moved on to other relationships, but Debby was waiting to help him. It soon was clear, though, that their relationship could not match the fantasy that had sustained him.

She wasn't the 21-year-old he had fixed in his mind, but an independent woman who had struggled alone and bore her own scars. It was just one of the shocks that he took the blame for. He saw how his parents had aged and felt responsible. The guilt stretched to his memories of the camps: Maybe he could have resisted more; maybe he had not been a strong enough officer. His family couldn't understand how he could believe he let them down. The depression was back, but this time dreams of an idyllic return couldn't buoy him.

With no help coming from the government, Debby discovered that taking care of his depression was a 24-hour job. She loved him but figured they would have a lifetime to work it out. She needed some time for herself.

Bob arranged for Alan to visit him in Alexandria. The itinerary was designed to give his brother a lift. They watched "2001: A Space Odyssey" at the Uptown Theater in Washington. Bob arranged for an airline at Dulles International Airport to let Alan see a 747 and tour the cockpit. But nothing cheered him for very long.

On June 2, two days before many POWs attended a ticker-tape parade and a rally at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, the Pentagon's top medical officer warned that initial evaluations suggested the returned prisoners were in "worse condition than everyone thought."

The same day, Bob Brudno got a package in the mail. It was the Pulsar watch. There was no note.

"I knew it wasn't good, and I set out to find him," Bob recounted, tears streaking his face. "I can't remember how I managed to find him, but I found him in a hotel in Boston, alone. And I was so scared. And he said, 'Don't worry, the watch was running fast, and I figured it would be best for you to take it back to where you got it. I was going to call you, but I guess it got there faster than I expected.'

"He fooled me. And [if I had realized], I know now what I would have done. I would have called somebody to get him. I would have called the police. I would have called the Air Force. I would have called somebody. But I didn't know what I know now. If he was suicidal, I didn't know -- I wasn't told. And people tell me, 'Well, had you done that, he still might have killed himself.' My response is, 'Thanks for the attempt, but it doesn't make me feel any better.' I had the chance to do something heroic. To save him after all the years. What could be more important to me after all those years?"

Alan was dead the next day. He left a two-line note, in the French he studied in prison. A detective translated it for the New York Times: "It said roughly, 'There is no reason for my existence . . . my life is valueless.' "

The Quest

Bob Brudno was mingling with other guests at a reception at the Cosmos Club in Washington in 1997 when he spotted the longest-held prisoner in North Vietnam, Everett Alvarez Jr.

During the years after his brother's suicide, Brudno had distanced himself from POW issues. He bore grudges: against war protesters who he said degraded the POWs by suggesting they had survived for an ignoble cause; against Debby, who, he thought, failed to understand how essential believing in the war's value was to Alan; and against himself. But on this evening, he approached Alvarez, who recognized the Brudno name.

"I don't understand," Brudno recalls Alvarez saying. "He was one of us. He was tough."

At that moment, Brudno realized that his brother had essentially disappeared, reduced to a foggy memory. He got the idea that his brother's name should be put on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The next year, in 1998, he made a request -- as Debby had separately -- but Jan Scruggs, the president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, told him that he did not think Alan fit the requirements: Honorees must have died of injuries suffered in the war.

Late last year, Bob Brudno went to the Air Force, which ruled that Alan Brudno qualified. Scruggs protested. But Brudno had a cast of former POWs in his corner. Orson Swindle, a friend of Alan's in the prison camps, was a federal trade commissioner and made some calls. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) fired a letter to Scruggs calling his argument "an affront to the family, friends and comrades-in-arms." McCain said he also placed a call to the Defense Department panel that would make the final decision, saying he had talked to numerous POWs who had known Brudno well and who were convinced that his suicide had resulted from combat wounds.

Robert Hain, a doctor who studied Brudno's medical and psychological records, agreed. The government in 1973 did not appreciate the scope of the problems, he said.

Hain, who has worked with hundreds of POWs, told the Defense Department he believed that Brudno's death was a direct result of the physical and psychological wounds suffered in the camps. Records showed no indications of psychological problems before the imprisonment; his post-release evaluations were full of very clear signs.

Several on the panel said they came to the conclusion that Brudno had exhausted his coping skills in the camps just to make it home. When he got back, they said, he had nothing left.

Scruggs, his mind changed, stood near Bob and Debby Brudno as the stonecutter placed a piece of paper over the newly inscribed name and made pencil rubbings for Debby and Bob.

Both have lived for years in the Washington area. Although they are the closest surviving links to Alan -- whose parents have since died -- the two of them had never really talked. Then, after Debby learned of Bob's push to put the name on the Wall, they reconnected. In one four-hour conversation, they compared memories for the first time and laid misconceptions to rest.

They walked away from the Wall with their rubbings in hand. Debby said she planned to frame hers and display it in her home. Bob said he would do the same, putting it next to the shadow box where he keeps Alan's medals.

Chatting under a grove of trees in Constitution Gardens, Bob used such words as "relief" and "years" and "pain" and "happy" and "honored." The 11 letters he held said more.

Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.