Life with Father

While controversy swirls around the conduct of a few former prisoners of war, the vast majority of the 680 returned P.O.W.s continue to settle into the routine of free life. For most, the past three months have been a difficult time of readjustment and reacceptance. To find out what that period has been like, TIME Correspondent Philip Taubman repeatedly visited Air Force Lieut. Colonel Kenneth North and his family in Wellfteet, Mass. Taubman's report:

At first, it is hard to tell that Ken North, now 43, has been away for 6 1/2years in North Viet Nam. When Nancy, 14, and Jodi, 15, bring their report cards home from school, they sit expectantly next to their father as he examines the grades. Amy, 11, tugs at Dad's sleeve, pleading for permission to take her sunflower seedlings on the Norths' Florida vacation "to see how they grow." Before dinner. Cindy, at 17 the eldest of the four daughters, discusses her plans for an evening out. "I won't be too late," she promises.

But just beyond the table talk and the girls' tickling attacks on Ken, there is a world of rediscovery in this house, a father getting to know his wife and children, a family learning to be a family again. "The kids are going 90 m.p.h. and I'm going ten," says Ken. "It's hard understanding a 17-year-old high school senior when you last knew her as a grade school child."

The shocks of re-entry hit Ken every day. "We've had dinner discussions when the girls used such vivid language that I was at a loss about how to clean it up," he jokes. His eleven-year-old lectures him on Women's Liberation. "She tells me how she is a person and has to be able to express herself," he says in disbelief. In prison, he once took a vow that he would never let long-haired boys into his house. Now, he admits, "well, they've come and they've stayed."

The accommodation has to work both ways. Ken says, "I don't want them to pity me, and I don't want them to think 'Daddy's home again and he's going to crack the whip.' I never want them to think 'Why doesn't he go back to Viet Nam?' " When the girls once asked him whether he was tortured, he said "Yes," and the family left it at that.

The comely housewife Ken left behind has helped organize P.O.W. wives, and she now is a selectwoman of her town. Before Ken's return, she worried that she would be reluctant to give up the responsibilities she had taken on in his absence. Instead she finds she has "this tremendous sense of relief. There's no longer a void to fill."

Adjustments to the outside world have also been unsettling. When Ken takes the girls out for ice cream cones, he is likely to offer the cashier a dollar and wait for change, only to find the change is not in his favor: "That's a buck thirty-five mister." When North was in prison, he occasionally thought about the two homes he might own. "Now," he says, "I've discovered I can't afford those dreams and plans. Inflation has been so staggering I can't even equate my income with the cost of living and be confident I'll have any money left at the end of the month."

As part of his six-month leave, North took his family to Walt Disney World in Florida. Watching his children dash from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to the Mad Tea Party, he kept wondering "What would the North Vietnamese think of this place? They wouldn't believe it!"

Ken plans to stay in Wellfleet for a while, though home is a house that he had never seen until a few months ago. When he returns to duty in August, he and his family will move to Newport, R.I., where Ken will enroll at the Naval War College for eleven months to advance toward his ultimate goal: the command of a fighter wing. Then, perhaps in ten more years, he wants to retire to Wellfleet.

On these spring afternoons, Ken and his golden retriever Willie walk for miles along the empty beach. "I love the sky and the sea," says Ken. "I can't get enough of them after all those years in a dark cell." He muses on the fact that people in Wellfleet often salute each other: "Have a nice day." "I can't help having a nice day!" he exclaims.

"I've never been happier in my life."

As a prisoner, North dreamed of how "I'd get everyone to sit down and tell me everything that happened while I was gone--things like asking Cindy about her first love." Now, he says, after thumbing through a stack of snapshots taken when he was away, "I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to look back and feel sorry for myself. I say, let's go from here."

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