The Nation: Life with Father

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While controversy swirls around the conduct of a few former prisoners of war, the vast majority of the 680 returned P.O.W.s continue to settle into the routine of free life. For most, the past three months have been a difficult time of readjustment and reacceptance. To find out what that period has been like, TIME Correspondent Philip Taubman repeatedly visited Air Force Lieut. Colonel Kenneth North and his family in Wellfteet, Mass. Taubman's report:

At first, it is hard to tell that Ken North, now 43, has been away for 6½years in North Viet Nam. When Nancy, 14, and Jodi, 15, bring their report cards home from school, they sit expectantly next to their father as he examines the grades. Amy, 11, tugs at Dad's sleeve, pleading for permission to take her sunflower seedlings on the Norths' Florida vacation "to see how they grow." Before dinner. Cindy, at 17 the eldest of the four daughters, discusses her plans for an evening out. "I won't be too late," she promises.

But just beyond the table talk and the girls' tickling attacks on Ken, there is a world of rediscovery in this house, a father getting to know his wife and children, a family learning to be a family again. "The kids are going 90 m.p.h. and I'm going ten," says Ken. "It's hard understanding a 17-year-old high school senior when you last knew her as a grade school child."

The shocks of re-entry hit Ken every day. "We've had dinner discussions when the girls used such vivid language that I was at a loss about how to clean it up," he jokes. His eleven-year-old lectures him on Women's Liberation. "She tells me how she is a person and has to be able to express herself," he says in disbelief. In prison, he once took a vow that he would never let long-haired boys into his house. Now, he admits, "well, they've come and they've stayed."

The accommodation has to work both ways. Ken says, "I don't want them to pity me, and I don't want them to think 'Daddy's home again and he's going to crack the whip.' I never want them to think 'Why doesn't he go back to Viet Nam?' " When the girls once asked him whether he was tortured, he said "Yes," and the family left it at that.

The comely housewife Ken left behind has helped organize P.O.W. wives, and she now is a selectwoman of her town. Before Ken's return, she worried that she would be reluctant to give up the responsibilities she had taken on in his absence. Instead she finds she has "this tremendous sense of relief. There's no longer a void to fill."

Adjustments to the outside world have also been unsettling. When Ken takes the girls out for ice cream cones, he is likely to offer the cashier a dollar and wait for change, only to find the change is not in his favor: "That's a buck thirty-five mister." When North was in prison, he occasionally thought about the two homes he might own. "Now," he says, "I've discovered I can't afford those dreams and plans. Inflation has been so staggering I can't even equate my income with the cost of living and be confident I'll have any money left at the end of the month."