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With American soldiers once again being held prisoner, this time in Iraq, visitors to the National Prisoner of War Museum are reminded that the suffering of POWs isn't just part of history.

Soon, museum officials hope the seven Americans currently listed as POWs in Iraq will be released, and their stories along with that of rescued Pfc. Jessica Lynch will be added to those of prisoners from other wars.

"In the POW experience, you see the worst in humanity man's inhumanity to man," said Alan Marsh, a spokesman for the surrounding Andersonville National Historic Site. "And at the same time, you see the best of the human spirit the rescue of Pfc. Lynch."

President Bush designated Wednesday as a day of national recognition for former U.S. prisoners.

Mary Skaggs, who visited the museum Wednesday, said she thought about the prisoners in Iraq and cried after watching a film featuring letters and interviews with former POWs.

"To see them and hear ... how they dealt with their captivity, I don't think anyone could come out without shedding a tear," said Skaggs, an Atlanta retiree who has a cousin and a nephew in Iraq. "It made you proud to be an American."

According to accounts from some of the 23 U.S. POWs who returned after the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein's troops often mistreated prisoners. Some of these accounts are featured in the museum's audiovisual presentations.

One former POW recounts that Iraqis threatened to amputate a finger each time he failed to answer a question. Another says the Iraqis applied powerful electric shocks that blew out the fillings in his teeth.

"I think Americans ... need to know the history of how our POWs were treated, which was not good," Marsh said. "At the same time, we need to see the positive most of our POWs came home."

Former POWs say the prisoners in Iraq will be nagged by uncertainty and loneliness.

"I know what they're going through emotionally," said William Price, 78, of Marietta, head of the Georgia chapter of American Ex-Prisoners of War. "As far as physically, I'm afraid to say, anything goes."

Price, a member of a B-29 crew who was captured by the Japanese during World War II, was a POW for five months, four of them in solitary confinement.

"It plays on your mind," he said. "At first you say, 'This can't be happening to me.'"

Located in a brick, jail-like building with towers and iron fences, the museum overlooks the site of the Civil War's most infamous prison camp, where 13,000 Union soldiers died in slightly more than a year from disease, malnutrition, overcrowding and exposure.

Andersonville is a national historic site, run by the National Park Service. It's also a national cemetery, with more-than 18,000 graves marked by rows of white headstones. The museum opened in 1998.

Among the displays are shackles, cramped cells and large photos of starving POWs. There is also a bamboo "tiger cage" where the North Vietnamese tried to break the will of American captives.

Bill Robinson, 59, who was held by the North Vietnamese for more than seven years, considers it a positive sign that American POWs in Iraq were recognized by their captors as POWs. The North Vietnamese referred to U.S. prisoners as criminals.

"I lived on hope," he said. "I hope they will never forget that America cares and will do everything humanly possible to ensure their homecoming."

On the Net:

American Ex-Prisoners of War:

Andersonville National Historic Site:

photo credit and caption:

The flight suit of Rhonda Cornum, an Army doctor who was captured by the Iraqis during the 1991 Gulf War, stands on display at the National Prisoner of War Museum in Andersonville, Ga., Friday, March 28, 2003. Also in the display are the combat boots she was wearing when captured and a cast for her broken arm made by the Iraqis. Cornum took part in the 1998 opening of the museum, which focuses on the suffering of U.S. POW's in all the nation's wars. (AP Photo/National Park Service)

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