Captain Ben Ringsdorf was locked away for six and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, the most notorious prison camp in the Vietnam War. After he and the rest of his captive soldiers were freed at war’s end, he was greeted with not only a hero’s welcome, but a “ready- made” family. However, even with all of the accolades and love he received, Ben faced physical, mental and emotional challenges just as daunting as his imprisonment, ones that threatened to tear his family apart. While things appear to look bright for the Ringsdorf family, their patriarch soon finds himself haunted by past memories and debilitated by alcoholism and a sense of paranoia, signs of the (at the time) not-yet-diagnosed PTSD. After the Music Stops is Gloria Gayden Corona’s memoir of her promising – yet whirlwind – relationship with the former POW, chronicling their blossoming romance, Ben’s repatriation and desire for a medical career, and his struggle with mental illness.
The Men We Left Behind: Henry Kissinger, the Politics of Deceit and the Tragic Fate of Pows After the Vietnam War
The omnipresence of black flags featuring the bowed head of an American prisoner of war, which fly in front of most public buildings throughout the United States, and the high-profile coverage of POWs in the Persian Gulf War speak volumes about the emotional hold of the POW/MIA issue in this
