The next days were not pleasant. Though the questioners were well-versed in technical details—“What was the dispense rate you had set in your ALE-40 chaff dispenser?”—they hadn’t the faintest notion of how American culture worked or how Americans looked at life. One day, the interrogator sat down and announced smugly that George Bush had died, expecting Griffith to break down in tears. Instead, he feigned anguish: “Oh, Christ, that means Dan Quayle is president!”

As the days passed, Griffith was moved from cell to cell and from jail to jail. He quickly lost track of where he was and where he’d been, until one day he was moved to Baath Party headquarters and confined in the cell next to CBS News reporter Bob Simon, who had been picked up on the Iraqi side of the lines, where he’d been trying to scoop the press pool. This had not been a smart place to get caught, since the Iraqis were now convinced that he was a spy and were preparing to execute him—a fact that did not thrill Tom Griffith. Could it mean he was on “death row”?

Meanwhile, by February 25 the Black Hole had picked the last targets in Baghdad, and the Baath Party headquarters became one of the few that were acceptable to Schwarzkopf after the Al-Firdus bunker tragedy. During this strike, a bomb fell short of its aim point and blew in the walls of the prisoners’ cells.

“Oh Christ, I’m going to die in prison!” Griffith cried out to himself, certain that the bombs would set the building on fire.

Three other bombs struck farther away, on the other end of the building, destroying nearby cells (which, fortunately, were empty). Doors were also blown open, temporarily freeing a few POWs, who immediately—and unsuccessfully—went combing the rubble for cell keys that would let them free the others.

Since the building was now a total loss, the inmates were rounded up and sent to military facilities, where they were housed in groups instead of single cells. Tom Griffith was locked up with Jeff “Sly” Fox, who had been captured on February 18.

“How’s the ground war going?” Griffith asked.

“It hasn’t started yet,” Fox answered.

“Ohhhhhh!” Griffith groaned, with a despairing look.

“Hey,” Fox replied, “don’t worry. The air war is going great. It’s not going to be much longer until we get out of here!”

Welcome words indeed. Griffith had by now lost twenty-five pounds. All the old heads in prison were suffering from dysentery, and there was no way to keep clean.