Many ex-POWs have stated that due to the length and divisiveness of the Vietnam conflict, if the policy of the North Vietnamese toward the captured Americans had been one of strict adherence to the Geneva Convention the North Vietnamese might have returned a group of men who would have been grateful and sympathetic to their problems in that part of the world. Instead, a dedicated group of anti-Communists emerged from that ordeal.
–John McCain, essay for the National War College, (pdf), 1974, from today’s NYT article