Remembering Lance Sijan
The name Lance Sijan is virtually unknown to most Americans. But if you are a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy, memorizing Sijan’s biography is a required activity, and for good reason. Every American should know his story.
Lance Sijan was born as Lazar Sijan, the son of a Serbian father and an Irish mother. The family owned a restaurant and was active in the Serbian Orthodox Church. Lance, an athlete and good student, made his immigrant family proud by going off to the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he played football for three years. After graduating in 1965 he received an officer’s commission, completed pilot training, and shipped off to Vietnam to fly F-4 Phantom jets out of Da Nang. On his 52nd mission over Vietnam, a malfunction on his plane — not enemy fire — caused F-4 to explode. Sijan managed to eject, but he landed roughly, on a remote and rocky ridge with a fractured skull, a mangled right hand, and a compound fracture in his left leg.
It is here that Sijan’s story takes a turn for the surreal — and the heroic. Despite his injuries, and despite what we now know was a massive effort by the Vietnamese to find him, Sijan managed to evade capture for 46 days, more than six weeks in the hostile jungle of Vietnam…alone. All this despite having no food, little water, and no survival kit. Because of his broken leg, he could not walk. He was able to move only by sliding on his buttocks and back.
He was, however, finally captured and placed in a prisoner-of-war camp. Amazingly, considering his emaciated condition and wounds, he managed to incapacitate a guard and escape. The North Vietnamese re-captured him and by now realized they had an especially defiant young man on their hands. They beat him brutally and sent him to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison, where — in his terribly weakened state — he died of pneumonia on Jan 22, 1968. Lance Sijan was 25 years old. That was 49 years ago this Sunday.
Lance Sijan’s story quickly spread through the military ranks. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of Captain on June 13, 1968. After the war, his remains came back to the United States, and he was buried with military honors in Arlington Park Cemetery in Milwaukee. Two of his former cellmates recommend him for the Medal of Honor, and after a long series of interviews with former POWs and others to corroborate their stories, Lance Sijan’s parents, Sylvester and Jane Sijan, accepted the Medal of Honor for their son Lance from President Gerald Ford, on March 4, 1976.
Sijan’s Medal of Honor citation reads in part: “During interrogation, he was severely tortured; however, he did not divulge any information to his captors. Capt. Sijan lapsed into delirium and was placed in the care of another prisoner. During his intermittent periods of consciousness until his death, he never complained of his physical condition and, on several occasions, spoke of future escape attempts. Capt. Sijan’s extraordinary heroism and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty at the cost of his life are in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Air Force and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Armed Forces.”
Lance Sijan’s story is — in some important ways — different from the stories of other Medal of Honor awardees. Lance Sijan helps us realize that while we may not pick the place we serve, we can choose the manner in which we serve. He also helps us see that there is no such thing as a final defeat. Sijan displayed his heroism in a prisoner-of-war camp, after circumstances had taken him off of what we normally think of as “the battlefield.” By evading capture, and by resisting his captors while a prisoner, he remained a warrior to the very end. His actions directly saved American lives by diverting enemy resources from the battlefield…to guard him. Further, his story almost immediately inspired other prisoners to greater perseverance and courage.
I first learned about Sijan’s story because my son Cole was one of those Air Force Academy Cadets who had to memorize his story. When I would visit him at the Academy in Colorado Springs, I saw a portrait of Sijan on display at the Academy’s Sijan Hall. He stares down on the cadets as they walk by, and he seems to be saying, “I once walked where you walk now. If you one day have to walk where I walked, will you be up to the task?”
Ecclesiastes says, “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” Why? Because stories like those of Lance Sijan tell us who we are, or — at least — who we aspire to be.
