Family Members of POWs React to Captures
March 24 -- Feelings of uncertainty quickly changed to desperation and fear for American military families who discovered their loved ones had become prisoners of war.
The half-brother of Pfc. Patrick Miller — the Park City, Kan., soldier being held captive in Iraq — says he continues to think about the last words he spoke to his brother.
"Just that he return safely, and now we just hope that he returns," Thomas Hershberger told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.
Iraqi-TV showed footage of Miller, Specialist Joseph Hudson of Alamogordo, N.M., and two other men and one woman being held as POWs after Sunday's ambush of their army supply convoy outside Nasiriya, a city that marks a major crossing point in southern Iraq.
Hudson's mother said she watched Iraqi TV footage of her son on a Filipino TV station to which she subscribes. Anecita Hudson begged President Bush Sunday to "Please do something for my son."
She said her 23-year-old son, who is married with a 5-year-old child, appeared to be uninjured.
Chilling Footage
The clips that aired on Iraqi TV showed Miller, 23, answering questions in a shaky voice. When asked by his captors why he came to Iraq, the maintenance specialist said he came to fix machinery and had no problem with the Iraqi people. The father of two young children said "I come to shoot only if I am shot at."
When Miller's family discovered that Patrick was one of the soldiers captured, they struggled to come to terms with it.
"That's the hardest thing to believe, that, out of all the troops that are over there, he's one that's captured," Hershberger said.
Miller's sister says she believes her brother will hold his head up high, no matter what, but she says it's hard for his family at home to think about what he might be going through.
"It's hard to believe he has two babies over here and a loving wife," Kimberly Miller said. "But he does, and my prayers go out to them every night. I just hope he comes home," she said. "My brother's a fighter and always has been. I mean, he'd give up his life for everybody and now he's giving his life up for our country," Miller said.
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