By Brian C. Rittmeyer, Trib Live
At a special display on Veterans Day at the Lower Burrell VFW to honor POW-MIA servicemen, Larry Gizzi, left, and Brian Barbieri of Lower Burrell constructed a replica bamboo cage in which captured U.S. servicemen were kept under extremely harsh conditons by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, as photographed on Monday, Nov. 11, 2013. Photo: Eric Felack | Valley News Dispatch
A space four feet by four feet by four feet.
No room to stand. Not enough to lie down. Kept there for days, weeks, months.
During the Vietnam War, captured American soldiers were held in such cages. Made from bamboo, they were called “tiger cages.”
Two Lower Burrell men recently handcrafted a replica of a tiger cage at the request of Vietnam veteran Tom Rushnock of Arnold. Rather than being a macabre reminder of pain, the replica cage is meant to honor prisoners of war and teach people about their experiences.
An Air Force veteran, Rushnock served two tours in Vietnam but was never taken captive.
“People don’t know what we went through in Vietnam. People don’t talk about Vietnam today,” he said on Veterans Day. “This was part of it. Our prisoners of war were kept in these for weeks and months. They lived in these and defecated in these. They died in these cages.”
Rushnock is overseeing construction of the Alle-Kiski Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Lower Burrell Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 92. He asked Brian Barbieri, 35, a constable, and Larry Gizzi, 48, a mechanic, to build the cage for an August fundraiser for the memorial.
Barbieri and Gizzi are members of the Sons of the American Legion, made up of men whose parents or grandparents served in the military and were eligible for American Legion membership. Barbieri’s grandfather served in World War II; Gizzi’s father was in the Army toward the end of the Korean War.
“It was a real history lesson making this thing,” Barbieri said.
They’re called tiger cages because they were adapted from cages that were used to keep tigers, said Edward Luttenberger, communications director for the National Vietnam War Museum near Mineral Wells, Texas.
“They were used by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese to keep prisoners in for torture,” said Luttenberger, who did two tours in Vietnam in the Army.
Prisoners held in the cages suffered pain and damage to their joints and muscles.
“Basically, they were bamboo cages that were too small to stand up in and too small to lay down in. You had to crouch in them,” Luttenberger said. “They were also used to transport prisoners of war by the Viet Cong when they were taking them north to North Vietnam.”
Luttenberger could understand Rushnock’s intent.
Read the full story by Brian C. Rittmeyer from Trib Live.