I ejected at 680 miles per hour and was knocked unconscious by the impact of the jet stream.

I was born June 2, 1934 and grew up in Modesto, California. My father worked for large construction companies, and my mother was a homemaker who later became a secretary for the school district. My father had polio, which left him with a withered right arm and a shorter leg, but it never slowed him down. It was not an issue in the family nor did he get any special consideration. I realize now that my dad was an inspiration to me. He was my hero. 

In high school, I was athletic and active in the student government. My self-confidence was strong, thanks to my parents, and I had been taught good values. They took me to swim meets, football games and skiing trips to the Sierras. I would have to describe my upbringing as "All-American."

I majored in art at UCLA and after graduating in 1957, I signed up with the Navy, which allowed me to procrastinate from entering the real world. I liked the Navy and after two years I received my wings and was sent to a light reconnaissance group where I flew a Crusader, which was a variation of the fighter plane. I served three years in that squadron flying from the US Saratoga in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the North Atlantic. 

During the Cuban missile crisis I was on the first mission that flew over Cuba. I took the photos that Adlai Stevenson later used in the United Nations to prove that Russia had installed missile sites. We actually saw the missile launchers and the missiles stacked like wood alongside one another. There was no problem spotting or identifying them. Flying at 400-500 feet, we knew we had found the right place because we could see the launch pad and tracks where a missile could be positioned, the trucks designed to transport them, as well as miscellaneous electronic equipment and radar. The Soviets had tried to pull a fast one!

I went over to Vietnam in December 1965 and flew missions from the US Kitty Hawk in the Tonkin Gulf. While flying on February 3, 1966, a sensation occurred similar to driving a car across a speedbump at 60 miles per hour. Since the air was smooth, I immediately assumed we had taken a hit. The warning lights came on and then the hydraulic pressure gauges flickered. I started to lose power. The controls got very sluggish. My plane had been hit by anti-aircraft fire over North Vietnam and the hydraulic system was disabled.

We were at 4,000 feet when we took the hit. The plane rolled uncontrollably and started to go down. I told my crewman Robert Hanson to eject. By that time, the plane’s speed had picked up to 680 miles per hour. When I ejected, I was knocked unconscious. 

I regained consciousness in the water, where somehow I had inflated my survival flotation devices while drifting in and out of consciousness. Almost immediately, Vietnamese boats were coming to pick me up. They were firing at me mostly to intimidate me from trying to escape. I think they knew they couldn’t hit me from that far away, and when they got closer they stopped firing. After being pulled out of the water, we were strafed by U.S. attack planes from the Kitty Hawk who didn’t realize I was in the Vietnamese boat.

My first feeling upon being captured was one of classic denial. I was very groggy and probably suffering from a concussion. My elbow was shattered, my right forearm was fractured, my shoulder was dislocated, and I also had many cuts and burns. I worried about whether Robert Hanson had managed to eject safely.

Over the next twelve days, under the cover of darkness, I was taken north to Hanoi and into Hoa Lo Prison. The first year was the toughest as I realized what was going on in my life, and asked, "Why me, God?" It was very tough dealing with emotional factors. 

I was tortured three to four times per year, until 1970 when the North changed their policy on this. They would interrogate me, and I would refuse to talk so then they would bind my upper arms tightly with parachute shrouds which were tighter than ropes and pull my hands behind me, put a bar over my ankles and feet, and then pull, cutting off all circulation, to the point where it felt like my upper body would split open. The captor would then put a foot on the back of my neck so that my ears were between my big toes.  My shoulders were being separated and there was tremendous pain from lack of circulation. Then they put a hook in the ceiling and hoisted me up, so that all my weight was on my arms. I was twisted in all directions; it was as if they were playing tetherball with me. 

Other times, they would put me on a high stool and let me sit there for days without sleep and with ankles cuffed to the rungs of the stool. When I would fall over, they would shove me back up on it.

I was most vulnerable at the beginning when I was injured and in solitary confinement. Even though I knew intuitively that there were others, it was a huge relief when I made my first contact with another prisoner. We communicated by knocking on the walls using a tap code that was highly developed. This allowed us to converse, share information, jokes, and stories, as well as talking about families and the future. The tap code was based on a 25-letter matrix. The guards knew in theory how it worked, but when some of the English interpreters tried to listen, we went so fast and used so much slang that they could never keep up.

I was optimistic 80% of the time, and the other 20% I was pretty low. There were peaks and valleys. Not knowing how long I would be there allowed me to hope that I would be home for each holiday and birthday.

Spiritual faith was essential. In solitary, even in my darkest moments, I felt that I was not alone and this allowed me to find a little strength. At one prison I stayed in, someone had written on the wall, God=Strength, which summarized it well.

After eighteen months I received my first letter from my wife. It told me that my youngest son, Jerry Jr. had been born two months after I was shot down. He joined three other children we had before I left for Vietnam. Receiving the letter brought a mixture of emotions, but mainly indescribable joy.

From 1968 on, the bombing of North Vietnam was more intense. I felt that the pressure of more bombing, would be the only thing they would respond to. In 1972, Hanoi was bombed from December 10 through December 29, which led to the peace pact in Paris. Finally after seven years in prison, it appeared that I was going to be freed. All the POWs were assembled in the prison courtyard where the prison commander told us we would be released in two-week increments. The sick would be first to go and then it would be in order of when we were shot down. We would not accept any other way.

I was bussed to the airport with fellow POWs, where there was a small ceremony under a parachute canopy. We then boarded a transport plane and were served by four beautiful nurses who gave us coffee, donuts and newspapers. We were still walking on eggs because we were afraid that something might happen to screw up the process. It was almost too much to hope that it would be true.

As the engines started up, we all became quiet, thinking, "Is it really going to happen?" The plane taxied to the runway and then revved the engines. It vibrated as the brakes were released and it began to move down the runway. I was straining against the shoulder harness thinking, "Come on you beast, get airborne, get airborne." Finally the nose came up and we felt the wheels leave the runway. The pilot came over the intercom and said, "Congratulations gentlemen, we’ve just left North Vietnam!" And only then did we cheer. We were in shock and hugging each other.

It was a joy to finally have hot showers and good food. I flew from the base in the Philippines to Florida to meet my family. My wife had kept my image alive and the kids were great. I finally met my son Jerry Jr. who was by then seven years old.

In my absence we had landed a man on the moon, area codes were now needed to dial direct, and even my most respected friends had long hair and beards. I woke up in a different society and wondered, "How the hell did I get here?" I had to build a tough shell around me while in Vietnam, convincing myself on a daily basis that I was right to be there and that our cause was just. Upon returning, I realized that I was in the minority who held this view. There was no respect for authority and a lack of love for our country, all of which, I found very difficult to accept. I was struck by the negative feelings about the Vietnam War. As well, rebuilding my relationship with my wife proved difficult and we divorced twelve years later.

In 1988, I watched my former crewman Robert Hanson’s casket being lowered from the plane after it had been released by the Communist government in Hanoi. It was surreal because in my mind I had put this all to rest. It was also a bittersweet experience, for on the one hand, his fate was resolved. I knew his family would feel that way. On the other hand, it was very sad because he was in his early twenties when he was killed and now would have been in his early forties. I thought about the life that might have been.  He had earned glory by sacrificing his life for the cause of freedom and helping a rather unsophisticated country try to protect itself and build its own democracy. A myriad of things went through my mind that day.

As I look back, I am not angry with the majority of my captors who were only doing their jobs. No matter what the color of skin, the shape of eyes, the sound of language spoken, we all laugh, cry, hunger, thirst, and want the same things for family and loved ones. You cannot let the objects of bitterness keep control of you.

You must find purpose in adversity and recognize that you have skills, wisdom, and the fortitude to do whatever you need to do in order to survive. Having faith that you will find a purpose in what is happening to you, and then capitalizing on it is going beyond survival. There is a heroin all of us. There is nothing extraordinary about me. If I can do it so can you.

Captain Gerald Coffee retired in 1985, and now is a motivational speaker who shares his story with audiences worldwide.

Chapter 2: Jackie Pflug

Thirty minutes into the flight, three men stood up with guns and grenades.

Jackie Pflug was a passenger on EgyptAir Flight 648, which left Athens on Thanksgiving weekend 1985.

In 1985, my husband Scott and I were teaching at the Cairo American school. On Thanksgiving weekend, Scott and his students went to Athens to attend a volleyball tournament for four days. I joined Scott for the weekend and left Athens the day before he and his students were scheduled to leave.

EgyptAir Flight 648 departed at nine in the morning. Thirty minutes into the flight, three men stood up with guns and grenades. We were 35,000 feet in the air. The flight attendant came on the intercom and announced that we had been hijacked by the "Egypt Revolution", and if we did what we were told, then no one would be hurt. I believed that.

The hijackers were screaming in broken English, telling us to sit down and shut up. It was very chaotic. They started to collect passports from the passengers. Halfway back there were three undercover sky marshals. One of the marshals reached for his gun when asked for his passport and bullets started to fly, puncturing the aircraft. The cabin depressurized and the oxygen masks descended as the pilot brought the plane to a lower altitude. He was forced to make an emergency landing in Malta.

That is when the negotiations started. The Maltese officials demanded that all the passengers be released. The hijackers wanted to go to Beirut and they warned that they would execute a passenger every fifteen minutes starting first with Israelis and next with Americans.

About twenty minutes after we landed, the lead hijacker grabbed a woman and put a gun to her head. The passengers in the front could see what was happening. I was sitting in the back when I heard a gunshot. The man beside me said, "Oh my goodness, he shot her and threw her down the staircase." Fifteen minutes later they shot another Israeli woman and it became very clear what was happening. I could not believe they were doing this. I knew Egyptians respected women and held them in high regard, so I had thought we would be OK. This hope left me because the first few people executed were women.

The hijackers tied my hands behind my back. I was taken with two other passengers, Scarlet and Patrick, who were also Americans, and seated in the first row. I sat by the window. I kept thinking about whether I had told people close to me that I loved them enough, and concluded that I had not. Patrick was shot first, then Scarlet.

I had grown up a Catholic and had gone to church every Sunday and was still a strong spiritual person. I had always felt that God protected me. I knew that didn’t mean I would not get hurt in any way; it just meant that I was being watched over. I closed my eyes and prayed to God for my life. A peaceful, tranquil feeling came over me and I felt I would be fine. If I lived it would be OK and if I died I would be OK, too. I also felt that God was saying, "You do not understand this, but someday you might find a reason for it."

They brought me to the front of the plane and opened the door. I looked at my world for what I believed would be the last time. It was a beautiful day with blue sky and puffy clouds, and I thought what a terrible thing this was to be happening on such a day.

My intellect was telling me to try to knock them down, and then throw my body down the staircase. But then some voice inside me said, "Do not worry, it will be OK. Everything in life will be OK no matter what the outcome." It was almost as if I gave up and put everything in God’s hands. I was in shock. That is when he put the gun to my head and shot me.

I did not feel anything as I fell twenty-five feet from the metal stairs of the plane onto the ground. I was sprawled facedown on the airport tarmac with a bullet in my head and my blood slowly draining onto the cement.

I was semiconscious when the vision of my grandmother came to me in spirit as a bright whiteness. She said, "It’s time to go." I lifted out of my body and went with her. She was leading me through a dark tunnel towards light. I had an awareness that I was leaving earth and I could see myself lying on the tarmac below. Something was telling me that it was not time for me to go yet so I told her that I loved her and then she let me go. She went into the white light while
I came back into my body. After five hours I was picked up by an airport grounds crew, who at first assumed I was dead.

I spent time in hospitals in Malta and Germany before being transferred back in early December to the United States.  Recovering from the injuries caused by the bullet was a long-term process both physically and mentally. In the years after the hijacking, I had to battle a brain injury that left me with no short-term memory, near-blindness, and epilepsy that caused seizures. The other big challenge for me was overcoming the event itself.

My marriage ended three years after the hijacking. We had only been married for five months when it happened. Our union was not strong enough to survive the event and the subsequent recovery.

Tragedy catapults you into another way of thinking. Before the hijacking I did not keep commitments and only did things that I wanted to do. I was thirty years old when it happened and thought that life was about friends, laughs, and having the right car and clothes. I was off visiting one country after another by myself. Now I want to be with people and loved ones. My adventurous spirit has never died but I do not need it to make me happy. If you ask my parents or friends, they would say they see me as the "old Jackie," but I think my integrity has changed a lot for the better.

Now I ask myself before I go to sleep: "Did I live with integrity today, did I laugh and smile a lot, talk to someone I did not know, and did I move closer to my goals?" Each night I write down five things that I am grateful for. I constantly tell people how much I love them, and I try to resolve disputes before traveling. Now, when I fly, I can honestly say I have no regrets. I look back at the hijacking as a wakeup call to pay more attention to what life is all about.

Today, when I think back to my out of body experience in Malta, I remember the beauty and peacefulness of it and I am comforted that loved ones ahead of us are all OK.

People’s perceptions of difficult times vary. They could range from cancer or debts to divorce. An obstacle that leaves you devastated may be something I just brush off. Whatever the situation, never give up and get the help you need along the way.

Look around to see who you perceive as strong and follow them. Do what they do. If you want to be fit, go to the person who is fit and ask them what they do every day and then follow their advice. If you want to be at peace with yourself, then follow a person with strong faith, and rely on your faith.

Jackie Pflug was the fifth passenger on EgyptAir Flight 648 to be shot in the head and thrown down the stairs onto the tarmac. The hijacking continued until the plane was stormed by Egyptian Commandos. Fifty-nine passengers died during the ordeal.

Eleven years after the hijacking, Jackie was finally able to forgive the hijackers and by doing so, release the hold they had on her. She has since remarried and has one son. Today, she has rehabilitated herself to a point where she travels the country speaking to groups and advising teachers and students on educational issues.

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