Death of a Former POW

Recently I read the obituary in my hometown newspaper of 84-year-old Ted R. Sprouse, who spent virtually the entire Korean War as an American prisoner of war. Sprouse had a fascinating story, which I told in a lengthy newspaper article for the Fairfield (Iowa) Ledger in 1988. He had kept the memories bottled up for 35 years. I knew Sprouse both in his role as public works superintendent as well as a fellow attendee of church.

Sprouse had been wounded twice in the previous two days before his capture. The second injury, from a grenade, came moments after Sprouse prayed for the first time in his life to God, promising to serve the Lord if he made it back home. All other nine men in his group were killed by the blast. Sprouse had harrowing tales from his hostage years of near starvation, marching in sub-zero temperatures, failed escape attempts, deaths of fellow soldiers, near-fatal illness and abuse at the hands of his captors.

Once back home, Sprouse faced multiple medical problems. He also had fits of rage and excessive drinking — before making good on that promise he had made to God years later.

Five years after the newspaper article, Sprouse contacted me about writing a book on his life to tell things he wanted to get off his chest. He agreed that he wanted the book to be truthful, and, after extensive interviewing and other researching, I wrote a rough draft manuscript. Sprouse didn’t care for the proposal because it mentioned some unsavory details. For instance, he wanted to leave out the part about a fellow soldier divulging details to enemy guards that led to his capture after escaping. He also didn’t want to mention that when he arrived back home after three years as a POW he found his wife holding a one-year-old baby.

I argued that the importance of including all his painful and gruesome memories, because they all contributed to the anger that Sprouse felt as he spent years trying to forget the promise he had made about serving God. However, we couldn’t work out a compromise, and I walked away from the project, having naively not drawing up a contract for my efforts.

The obituary explains that Sprouse found someone else to write his book, published in 2000. I also see that the obituary mentions that he and his first wife divorced. That’s the wife he didn’t want to mention in the manuscript I wrote.