Commander Charles P. Zuhoski, U.S. Navy (Retired) – Vietnam Fighter Pilot, POW, and Successful Business Executive
Everyone’s life takes twists and turns. Sometimes, the twists result in unexpected opportunities while the turns present formidable challenges. How we handle those opportunities and challenges determines the courses our lives take. No one knows that better than Commander Charles P. Zuhoski, U.S. Navy (Retired). In August 1966, limitless possibilities opened for him as he pinned on the gold wings of a Naval aviator for the first time. Less than one year later, he found himself confined in an infamous prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam. Charlie used both those experiences, as well as many more from throughout his life, to mold himself into the man he is today.
Charlie was born in a foundling hospital in the Bronx in 1941. He has little memory of his early childhood because his birth mother abandoned him and a younger sibling when they were very young, so Charlie spent most of his early years in foster homes. When Charlie was seven, Peter and Alice Zuhoski adopted him. Peter was a prominent dentist in Riverhead, Long Island, and he and Alice brought Charlie into their home in nearby Jamesport. They had struggled for eleven years to start a family of their own, so Charlie was an answer to their prayers. So were the three siblings Alice conceived within six years after Charlie joined the family. Suddenly, the Zuhoski household was full of kids.
Although Peter and Alice had no way of knowing it in advance, the timing for Charlie joining their family could not have been better. Alice had developed a heart condition and with three toddlers to take care of, she needed help around the house. Charlie stepped up and assisted with his younger sisters and, as a result, formed a very close bond with them. His parents also loved him very much and were appreciative of his help.
Even with his extra responsibilities, Charlie had plenty of time to enjoy all that life on Long Island had to offer. Until he entered the ninth grade, he rode his bike to the five-room Jamesport Elementary School about a half mile away. During the summer, he would walk barefoot to the dock overlooking the nearby bay with a bucket and a drop line to catch fresh fish for dinner. And when he turned fourteen, his father bought a boat and water skis that Charlie took full advantage of often.
For high school, Charlie rode a school bus five miles to Riverhead High School. He excelled at school, particularly in mathematics. He also participated in three theater productions, rounding out his extracurricular activities. He graduated in the spring of 1959.
After high school, Charlie enrolled at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. He did well until the fall of his junior year, when the constant card games at his Theta Chi fraternity house proved more interesting than his schoolwork. He failed the fall term and returned home for the Christmas holiday, where he was able to secure a job at a local jewelry store. He worked at the store all through the spring and summer, earning enough money to return to RPI in the fall of 1962, this time determined to finish. Instead of living at the Theta Chi house, he moved into an apartment with some friends—that made all the difference.
By the end of the spring semester in 1964, Charlie had just one more exam to take, but he needed more time to prepare. When his professor said he could sit for the exam in August, Charlie took a temporary job for the summer as a lineman for the Delaware & Hudson Railway laying continuous rail track. He then passed his exam in August, completing his bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a physics minor.
Now that Charlie was out of college, he knew he was a prime candidate for the military draft. Taking control of his own future, he visited a Navy recruiter and was accepted for a slot at Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island. He reported for duty on October 14, 1964, officially beginning his Navy career.
OCS trained Charlie to become a Navy officer. The first month was the roughest because it focused on military discipline, physical training, and Navy customs and courtesies. The following months built on that foundation, adding layers for leadership and basic naval warfare skills. During the third month, Charlie learned he could pursue a career as a surface warfare officer driving ships, a Naval aviator piloting airplanes, or a submariner operating submarines. Recalling an airplane ride a neighbor took him on when he was twelve, Charlie jumped at the chance to fly airplanes and requested aviation training. After demonstrating the necessary aptitude on written examinations, he was selected for the Navy’s aviation program.
Charlie graduated from OCS on March 5, 1965. He then reported as an ensign to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, for Aviation Preflight Indoctrination. After completing ground school and learning the theory and rules underpinning aviation, he began learning to fly in the two-seat T-34 Mentor variable-speed propeller aircraft with Training Squadron One (VT-1).
Charlie’s Primary Flight Training consisted of a series of twenty-three rides, or “hops,” in the T-34 Mentor. On Charlie’s first takeoff, his instructor told him to level off at 1200 feet. When Charlie looked at his altimeter, he saw the “2” in the hundreds slot and leveled off, thinking he was at 1200 feet. He didn’t realize, though, that he was at just 200 feet. When the instructor asked him why he had leveled off at 200 feet, he realized his error and took the plane to the designated altitude. His instructor took the event in stride as a typical error by a new trainee, but the event is still etched in Charlie’s memory after over sixty years.
On the twelfth hop, Charlie and his instructor climbed into the T-34 together for the flight. The instructor told Charlie to do some practice landings and takeoffs called “touch-and-goes” on one of the training facility’s grass airstrips. After successfully completing the touch-and-goes, the instructor told Charlie to land the plane and come to a full stop, which Charlie did. He then directed Charlie to do two more touch-and-goes on his own and return to the airfield to pick him up. He added, “If you don’t pick me up, you fail.” The instructor then climbed out of the T-34 and sent Charlie off for his first solo flight. It was the first time Charlie realized he was the only one flying the plane. Charlie returned to pick up his instructor and passed.
On the next ten hops, Charlie learned aerobatic maneuvers, which he loved doing. In fact, he excelled at them, earning the chance to fly jets. To celebrate his success, Charlie bought a used Ford Mustang, which he loaded with everything he owned after completing Primary Flight Training and headed to Naval Air Station Meridian, Mississippi, for Basic Jet Training. There he learned to fly the T-2A Buckeye jet trainer. During one training flight where he was flying at 250 knots in formation with another student pilot, his engine flamed out. Fortunately, Charlie was able to relight the engine and land safely. The incident was initially thought to be caused by pilot error, but when two instructors later experienced a flameout with the same plane, Charlie was exonerated.
After gaining sufficient experience with the T-2A jet trainer at Naval Air Station Meridian, Charlie’s training shifted back to Pensacola. There he practiced aerial gunnery against towed targets and learned to land the jet on an aircraft carrier. To prepare for his first carrier landing, Charlie practiced on a runway painted to mimic the look and size of an aircraft carrier’s flight deck. By practicing on this runway (known as Field Carrier Landing Practice), Charlie learned to “call the ball” using an optical landing system that allowed him to keep his jet on the ideal glide path for a successful landing. He also learned to drop his jet’s tailhook to catch one of four arresting cables stretched across the runway to bring his plane to a sudden stop, just as he would have to do when it came time to land on a ship.
Once Charlie perfected his landing skills on the runway, he ventured out to sea with his jet for his first landing attempt on an aircraft carrier underway in the Gulf of Mexico. At first, the ship looked no bigger than a postage stamp as he flew toward it at an altitude of 5,000 feet. Undeterred, he made his approach from astern of the carrier, called the ball as he had learned to do during his practice landings ashore, and caught one of the ship’s arresting cables with his tailhook to bring the plane to a jolting stop. This was the first of many successful carrier landings Charlie would complete during his career.
After Charlie completed ten arrested landings, or “traps,” and four touch-and-goes on the carrier, he was ready to move on to the next phase of his training at Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas. There he learned to fly the swept-wing high-performance Grumman F-9 Cougar jet fighter. He completed his training in August 1966 and invited his seventeen-year-old sister to attend his graduation ceremony, where he finally was awarded the coveted gold wings of a Naval aviator. One of the instructors even gave Charlie’s sister a high-speed ride on the runway in the backseat of one of the jets, giving her a small taste of the thrill Charlie experienced every time he climbed into the cockpit for a flight.
Charlie’s next stop was Fighter Squadron 124 (VF-124) at Naval Air Station Miramar, located just north of San Diego, California. There he learned to fly the Vought F-8 Crusader, a supersonic fighter aircraft designed to operate from aircraft carriers. Unlike the previous aircraft Charlie flew, the plane had only a single seat, so his first flight in the Crusader was a solo. Because of its tilt wing landing mode, the plane presented a different sight picture than the other aircraft he’d flown, so he missed his first three or four landing approaches. Once he got used to the new sight picture, he landed the jet successfully and never had any issues again. Charlie trained in the F-8 with VF-124 from August 1966 through March 1967, when it was finally time to report to his first operational squadron, Fighter Squadron 111 (VF-111).
When Charlie joined the VF-111 “Sundowners” in March 1967, they were preparing for a deployment to the Vietnam War. As Charlie had been dating a woman he met in San Diego for a while, they decided to elope and get married before he departed. They did, and then Charlie and the rest of his squadron left in June for the waters off Vietnam onboard the World War II-era Essex class aircraft carrier USS Oriskany (CVA-34).
The Oriskany arrived at Yankee Station, a designated operating area for U.S. aircraft carriers located approximately 100 miles off the coast of North Vietnam, in early July 1967. The squadron was immediately tasked with providing fighter cover for an “Alpha” bombing strike deep into North Vietnam. The VF-111 commanding officer told his squadron he was going to use only the most experienced pilots for this more dangerous mission. When the squadron was tasked with another Alpha strike the next day, the commanding officer realized he could not limit participation only to the most experienced pilots. Accordingly, he told the squadron, “They tell me you are all fully trained, so we are using everyone from here on out.” As a result, Charlie began flying Alpha strike missions over North Vietnam together with the more experienced F-8 pilots.
On July 29, Charlie and the rest of the sailors onboard the Oriskany saw a thick plume of smoke rising from just over the horizon. They soon learned the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal was on fire, burning after a rocket misfired from one of the ship’s aircraft on the flight deck, striking future Senator John McCain’s A-4 Skyhawk waiting to go on a mission, setting his aircraft ablaze. Although Lieutenant Commander McCain was able to escape the fire, 134 sailors were killed and another 161 were injured. The incident brought home for Charlie that Navy life could be dangerous and unforgiving.
On July 31, 1967, Charlie learned that lesson firsthand. He took off in his F-8 from the Oriskany as part of another large Alpha strike against Hanoi. He had some trepidation about the mission because they were to fly a straight line from the coast to Hanoi, making it easier for North Vietnamese air defenses to target the strike aircraft. Charlie’s assignment was to fly as the escort for an Iron Hand mission, which involved an A-4 Skyhawk using its special electronics suite to detect enemy air defense radars. When it did, it would launch anti-radiation missiles that homed in on the air defense radar signal to destroy the site, making it safer for the strike package aircraft to follow in its path.
Because the A-4 pilot had to keep his eyes on his air defense radar detector, Charlie flew cover and called out flak hazards and maneuvering instructions. For this mission, the North Vietnamese flak and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) seemed heavier than on Charlie’s previous missions, making it a challenge to watch the sky ahead of him for missiles heading his way on a constant bearing with a decreasing range. Suddenly, a SAM approached him unseen from behind and struck his F-8, lifting it up and slamming it down. Charlie instantly knew his plane had been hit. It also became eerily quiet in the cockpit, confirming his plane’s jet engine was out, which meant the plane’s hydraulic controls would soon stop working. When he saw his engine had zero RPMs, he knew it would not restart and he had to eject.
To prepare for the massive gravitational force on his body once he ejected, Charlie put his back and head against his seat and pulled the ejection seat latch. In an instant, the canopy blew off and Charlie shot into the air and away from his stricken plane. His parachute opened at 10,000 feet and he began the slow descent to the hostile territory below on the outskirts of Hanoi. His squadronmates did not see him eject but did see his plane explode in mid-air, so they reported him as killed in action when they returned to the ship at the end of the mission.
Far from being dead—in fact, he was uninjured other than perhaps a slightly compressed spine from the ejection—Charlie floated down toward a group of villages that increased in size as he neared the ground. He felt like he was in shock—one moment he was flying and seconds later he was parachuting into enemy territory. When he landed, people from the villages surrounded him, cut away his clothes, and held him there until North Vietnamese Army (NVA) officials arrived and took him into custody.
The NVA officials loosely bound him and drove him to “New Guy Village”—a section of the Hoa Lo Prison complex dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton” by the American prisoners of war (POWs) incarcerated there. They stripped him down to his skivvies and put him still loosely bound into a twenty-foot square pot-marked plaster-walled room with a stool for him and a high-backed chair for an interrogator. The room looked exactly like what he had experienced in survival training at flight school, so he felt at least somewhat prepared for what he knew was about to happen.
The interrogator began to ask Charlie questions, but all Charlie told him was his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth. At that point, the interrogator had Charlie’s arms tied behind him and, after putting Charlie’s legs into leg irons, began to pull his arms backwards over his head towards his manacled legs. The pain was excruciating, spiraling throughout his body as his arms were stretched to the point of nearly dislocating his shoulders. The POWs gave this torture a name—“the ropes.”
Under intense pain, Charlie agreed to talk to the interrogator. His quick assessment was that the interrogator really didn’t know anything about America and simply needed to report that he had successfully extracted information from his prisoner. So, when the interrogator asked Charlie for the names of the other members of his squadron, he recited the names of the starting lineup for the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers—names he knew by heart and could reproduce if asked again.
The interrogator then asked Charlie for information about his family, which he refused to provide. Again, his captors stretched his tied arms over his head toward his manacled legs. Charlie screamed in pain and began to moan, so the interrogator had a piece of cloth jammed into his throat and held it in his mouth with a pipe stretched across his mouth from side to side. For the first time, Charlie feared he might die if the gag caused him to throw up—he would drown in his own vomit. He decided to give the interrogator information about his family, especially if doing so might allow him to write them later and let them know he was okay.
Once Charlie conveyed his family’s information, the interrogation and torture ended. Although he had given up no military information in the face of incomprehensible pain, he still felt demoralized for having talked at all.
Approximately two weeks later, prison guards moved Charlie from New Guy Village to one of seven six-and-a-half- by seven-foot concrete cells in a section of the Hanoi Hilton the POWs called “Heartbreak Hotel.” Once there, Charlie could not see or communicate with any other POWs. His captors also issued him a rice mat to sleep on, a mug for water, sandals made from rubber tires, a toothbrush, and three cigarettes—a rarity now that he was in captivity. From then on, he received two meals each day, usually consisting of some rice and a bowl of boiled greens, or a small loaf of French-style bread with boiled greens. It was all he would get to eat each day for the next five-and-a-half years.
Sometime in August 1967, the prison guards grabbed Charlie and brought him back to New Guy Village to a cell occupied by an Air Force F-105 Thunderchief pilot, Captain Wally Newcomb, who had been shot down and captured on August 3. Captain Newcomb had fractured his ankle during his ordeal, so the prison guards moved Charlie and Captain Newcomb to a small cell in Heartbreak Hotel where Charlie could help Wally get by. Although the two men had to share the cell, the move proved a major gift because they could now keep each other company. Although other POWs in Heartbreak Hotel cells were already using the double-tap code[1] to communicate with each other between cells, Charlie and Captain Newcomb had not yet been introduced to the code, so they remained isolated from the other POWs.
After a while, the prison guards moved Charlie and Captain Newcomb to the “Little Vegas” section of the Hanoi Hilton, which was the main holding area for the POWs. Their cell was still six-by-seven feet but contained two sets of wooden bunk beds. They were then joined in the cell by Navy Lieutenant Dave Carey and Air Force Captain Tom Norris, both of whom were shot down over North Vietnam in August 1967.
While Charlie was confined in Little Vegas, the guards took him from his cell and brought him before prison officials. They asked him to speak on the radio to condemn U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War as a few other POWs had done in return for early release or more lenient treatment. Charlie responded he was not required to do so, and they would have to force him because he would not make a statement voluntarily. Realizing there was no way Charlie would cooperate, the prison officials returned him to his cell without further action. Although he escaped torture on this occasion, he was still punished at times when they accused him of camp infractions, like playing chess with pieces fashioned from paper scraps. For violations like this, Charlie was made to stand on his knees with his hands held above his head until the guards felt he had learned his lesson.
Soon thereafter, Charlie and his cellmates were separated and moved to a different prison, known by the POWs as the “Annex” to the “Zoo,” formerly a French film studio on the southern outskirts of Hanoi. Charlie and Lieutenant Carey were confined in a twenty-five by twenty-foot cell along with seven other POWs, while Wally Newcomb and Tom Norris were confined elsewhere. Charlie’s cell had a tiny courtyard with a French-style outhouse and a deep well from which the POWs could draw water to bathe. Every night, the guards allowed the prisoners to listen to “Hanoi Hanna” broadcast anti-American propaganda over the radio and play American songs, hoping the show would demoralize its captive listeners. Instead, the show had the opposite effect.
Life in the Zoo was better than in the Heartbreak Hotel cells because Charlie had eight cellmates he could talk to—but it was still miserable. Because the men had to use a bucket in their cell for a toilet, there was always a nasty stench in the air. To make using the toilet more tolerable, the men took off their sandals and balanced them on opposite sides of the top of the bucket, providing a cushion on top of the bucket’s metal edges. Charlie also had a body rash from head to toe from Hanoi’s intense subtropical heat. On the positive side, Charlie’s cellmates taught him the double-tap code so he could communicate with other POWs even when he was isolated. They also created hand signals to communicate visually with POWs in other buildings in the Annex, helping keep morale and discipline high.
In March 1968, President Lyndon Johnson restricted bombing in North Vietnam to bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table. Charlie and the other POWs realized Hanoi was no longer being bombed, so they hoped their conditions would improve. They also hoped their ordeal might end soon, but that was not to be as the Paris Peace Talks quickly stalled.
In May 1969, two POWs held in another building in the Annex escaped from the camp. Charlie knew the attempt had been made when the guards came storming into his cell and did a head count. Afterwards, the POWs in Charlie’s cell and the adjacent cell closed off a vent in the ceiling they secretly crawled through at night to visit each other. They would not use the vent again.
The Zoo’s prison officials took draconian steps to punish the two escapees, Air Force Captains John Dramesi and Edwin Atterberry. After quickly recapturing both men, they tortured them, killing one of them. They dragged senior ranking POW leaders out of their cells and tortured them as well, using the ropes, electric shocks, and beatings across their backs with truck fan belts. Charlie and his cellmates could hear their screams, even while they had no choice but to eat one of their two meals for the day. No one tried to escape again as the risk and costs were simply too great.
In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died. Ho had been North Vietnam’s leader since 1945. Charlie and the other POWs immediately sensed that the rules had changed, and the guards began to lighten up. The POWs took advantage of the rules change by pushing back more against the guards. Soon thereafter, Charlie and many other POWs were moved to Camp Faith, located nine miles west of Hanoi, where living conditions were better. They lived in a set of rooms within a long building. During the day, the guards opened the doors to the rooms, allowing the POWs to mingle and visit with each other in the facility’s courtyard.
In November 1970, the situation changed again when the United States launched a raid on the Son Tay Camp to free the POWs being held there. Charlie and his fellow POWs could hear the raid taking place but did not know what it was at the time. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese had moved the POWs from Son Tay shortly before the raid, so none were liberated. Even worse, the raid put the North Vietnamese on notice that their dispersed POW camps were vulnerable to attack. Accordingly, they moved Charlie and the other Camp Faith prisoners back to the Hanoi Hilton POW complex in the center of Hanoi. In their haste, they put large groups of POWs in big rooms in downtown Hanoi.
At first, Charlie was disappointed about the move from Camp Faith, but soon realized what a boon it was. Now he shared a large room with forty to forty-five other POWs in a communal living area they called Camp Unity. They could socialize freely and hold meetings, teach classes, and conduct Sunday services if they were done quietly. Charlie especially enjoyed playing duplicate bridge with other POWs using cards they made. Some were even permitted to write home and to receive letters from their families, although both were censored by the North Vietnamese. All these changes gave rise to increased optimism that their release was on the horizon.
Around May 1972, the North Vietnamese moved Charlie and other POWs from Camp Unity to “Dogpatch”—a secure POW camp located in the mountains about 100 miles northwest of Hanoi near Vietnam’s border with China. On the way there, the POWs were manacled together inside canvas covered trucks where the temperature soared. Once they arrived, they were confined in cells in several pairs of granite dungeon-like buildings. The buildings in each pair were separated by a French style latrine with seven to nine POWs occupying each cell. One benefit for Charlie, though, was the cooler mountain air finally allowed his heat rash to clear up. He and the other POWs stayed there until late January 1973, when they heard trucks coming into the camp. Charlie was sure the trucks meant they would be going home. He was right. The United States and North Vietnam signed the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973, bringing the Vietnam War to an end.
The trucks took Charlie and the other Dogpatch POWs to yet another camp known as the “Plantation.” This time, though, the trucks were open air and made water stops, and the POWs were uncuffed during the trip. Once they arrived at the Plantation, the POWs were grouped according to the date they were shot down. Although they were locked in their cells at night, the doors remained open during the day, so the POWs had some freedom of movement within the camp. And, confirming what Charlie suspected, the camp officials announced the Paris Peace Accords to the prisoners, letting them know they would be going home. They also announced international observers would soon visit the camp, but Charlie and the others did not want to be photographed out of concern the North Vietnamese would use the photos for propaganda purposes.
The day Charlie had been waiting for finally came on March 14, 1973. The North Vietnamese issued him a shirt, slacks, shoes, and a small carrying case. They then drove him and the other POWs to Hanoi’s Gia Lam Airport, where they were presented to U.S. Air Force Colonel George Seely. When Charlie’s turn came based upon the length of his captivity, he boarded a C-141 Starlifter transport plane for the initial leg of the trip home via Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Once Charlie’s plane took off and cleared North Vietnamese airspace, everyone on board cheered.[2]
After a brief two-day health check at Clark Air Base and a phone call with his wife in California, Charlie continued on his way to the United States, first landing at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, and finally at Kennedy International Airport in New York. There he had a tearful reunion with his parents and siblings. He spent the night at a Navy Reserve hospital in Queens, where his wife spoke with him behind closed doors. She told him she didn’t want to stay married and refused to discuss it any further, so Charlie told her to return to California. She also had a lawyer, who insisted she should receive half of any of their remaining savings that she hadn’t already spent. Charlie was just happy to be home and decided not to fight it. This was not the welcome he had expected from her.
Charlie wasted little time moving on from his captivity and his former wife. He spent the next month debriefing the military about his experience and regaining his physical health. The Navy then gave him three months of rest and relaxation leave before he had to report in August for refresher pilot training at Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas. Just five months after being released from captivity in North Vietnam, Charlie would be climbing into the cockpit again!
Getting to Kingsville proved to be a challenge. On the way there, Charlie fell asleep at the wheel and totaled a leased car that Ford had given him as a gift. Once in Kingsville, he found a sleek new 240Z sportscar at a Datsun dealer and bought it right away. Now he was ready to begin refresher training in style.
Before his training started, Charlie hitched a ride in the back seat of an A-4 Skyhawk that an ensign instructor pilot was using to train a student in another plane on formation flying. The ensign instructor, far junior in rank to Charlie, let Charlie fly formation and attempt to land the plane, but said nothing as Charlie struggled in the landing pattern. Concerned the ensign might let them crash, Charlie suggested the ensign take over the landing, which he did. After that, Charlie found flying just like riding a bike. His skills quickly returned to where they needed to be, including landing aboard and taking off from an aircraft carrier.
Charlie wasn’t the only former POW restarting his flying career. About a half-dozen of his Hanoi Hilton shipmates were with him in Kingsville. All had been promoted during their time in captivity, many twice, so they co-hosted a huge promotion celebration known as a “wetting down” for all the officers at Naval Air Station Kingsville, followed by breakfast the next morning. So many officers attended, the event all but closed the base.
Charlie completed refresher training in December 1973, just in time to fly to New York for his first Christmas at home in seven years. There he found his family and friends concerned that he was thirty-two years old and single. So much so, that one of the attendees at the Zuhoski family Christmas dinner celebration persuaded her niece, Marcia Siedlecki, to stop by her house on her trip home for the holidays from Washington, D.C. to meet Charlie. Marcia made the stop out of a sense of obligation to her aunt and was quickly on the road again, but she did go out with Charlie when he called her a few days later. It was love at second sight for both of them.
After Christmas and with Marcia still on his mind, Charlie reported to Fighter Squadron 126 (VF-126) at Naval Air Station Miramar for duty as an instructor pilot. He invited Marcia to visit him in California not long after he arrived and they decided to get married in April. After they married, Marcia joined Charlie in San Diego and they started a family, adding a son (Charles B. Zuhoski) and a daughter (Joanna).
In August 1976, Charles transferred to the Naval Postgraduate School up the California coast in Monterey. The coursework was extensive and Charlie found himself studying all the time, although he did take off Friday nights and all day on Saturday to spend time with his family. He also ate dinner and played with the kids every weeknight before hitting the books to prepare for the following day. He graduated in September 1978 with a master’s degree in operations research/system analysis.
When it came time for follow-on orders after postgraduate school, Charlie called his detailer to arrange an assignment in Washington, D.C. His detailer said the Navy needed flight training instructors in Meridian, Mississippi. When Charlie protested, his detailer said the only way to get a better assignment was to find someone important enough to call him and direct him to make the change. Charlie called the detailer’s bluff and soon the detailer received calls from Vice Admiral Carlisle Trost, who would later become the Chief of Naval Operations, and Vice Admiral James Stockdale, a former POW and president of the Naval War College. Needless to say, Charlie got his orders to Washington, D.C.
Those orders sent Charlie to the Operations Study Group in the Center for Naval Analysis, an assignment perfectly tailored for his new operations research/systems analysis skills. There he analyzed issues using system optimization models. He remained there until February 1980, when he was recommended for a senior systems analyst position in the Tactical Air Division in the Office of the Director for Program Analysis and Evaluation, which was part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. That job proved particularly valuable because Charlie learned the intricacies of the budgeting process, adding to the value he already brought to the table as a systems analyst. He and Marcia also added their second son (Alexander) to the family in 1980.
In November 1982, Charlie took his final active-duty job working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. There he served as a branch chief in the Joint Force Allocation and Analysis Division of the Joint Analysis Directorate. He remained in that position until he retired from the Navy on November 1, 1985, after over twenty years of distinguished service.
Charlie took what he learned in the Navy and parlayed it into a successful business career. He started by working in an executive level position for the United Technologies Analysis Group. He remained there for five-and-a-half years before signing on with Booz Allen Hamilton as a senior associate. After skillfully managing contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and innovating to provide scientific and technical analysis services to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Intelligence community, and the Department of Energy, he rose to the level of partner before finally retiring on July 1, 2011. He and Marcia now enjoy retirement in northeast Florida, traveling and visiting with their three adult children and their many grandchildren.
Voices to Veterans is proud and honored to salute Commander Charles P. Zuhoski, U.S. Navy (Retired). After successfully completing the rigorous training that allowed him to wear the wings of a Naval aviator, he demonstrated courage and determination flying combat missions over North Vietnam. Then, after being shot down and captured in enemy territory, he upheld the honor of the United States through his resilience and courage in the face of torture, isolation, and inhumane living conditions. Once released, he resumed his service to our country first by completing his long Navy career and then by assisting our national defense through the private sector. Although we can never repay him for his long service and sacrifice, we thank him for all he has done and wish him fair winds and following seas.
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[1] The double-tap code used by the POWs at the Hanoi Hilton divided the letters of the alphabet into five groups of five letters, with the letter “k” being omitted. To spell out a message, a POW would first tap the number of times corresponding to the group and then immediately follow by tapping the letter’s position within the group. For example, one tap (letter group one) followed by for taps (fourth letter in the group) would correspond to the letter “d.” Over their years of captivity, the POWs became proficient at sending and receiving messages using the code.
[2] Charlie was awarded the Legion of Merit with Valor for his unflinching conduct as a POW. The citation reads in part: “By his diligent efforts, devotion and loyalty to the United States and under the most adverse of conditions, he resisted all attempts by the North Vietnamese to use him in causes detrimental the United States. While in daily contact with the North Vietnamese guards and officers, he performed duties in staff positions and maintained good order and discipline among the prisoners. Further, he served as an educator providing diversion and constructive rehabilitative thinking to his fellow prisoners during their long internment.”
