Task: Story Composition
Input (English): Fact1: Captain Edward W. Hall returns home to USAF base in San Francisco, Fact2: welcome-home party is held for Hall, Fact3: Hall 's father asks son, Fact4: fellow prisoner and much-decorated officer reveals scars received while under interrogation, Fact5: Miller never conceded to captors anything but name rank and serial number
Output (English): Having survived two years in a Korean prisonerofwar camp, Captain Edward W. Hall, Jr. Paul Newman, returns home to a USAF base in San Francisco. His father Walter Pidgeon, a retired colonel, is glad to have his son back despite grieving over the death of his other son, Pete. Petes widow, Aggie Hall Anne Francis, confides to her friend Caroline Cloris Leachman it is difficult to be around her brotherinlaw without painful reminders of her lost husband. A welcomehome party is held for Capt. Hall, surprising Colonel Dudley Smith Fay Roope, a friend of Ed, Sr. He finds out that Capt. Halls father is unaware that his son is about to be tried in a courtmartial for collaboration with the enemy. Halls father asks his son if the charges are true, and receives a stark, simple, reply: yes. Ed Sr. cruelly challenges his son: Why didnt you just die? Major Sam Moulton Wendell Corey prosecutes the case. He calls eyewitnesses who testify that at the POW camp in the winter of 1951, Hall made speeches and signed documents on the enemys behalf. A fellow prisoner and muchdecorated officer, Capt. John Miller Lee Marvin, reveals scars received while under interrogation, but claims he never conceded to his captors anything but his name, rank and serial number. In unguarded comments on the stand Miller calls Hall a coward. Capt. Hall has his sisterinlaws support, but his father initially refuses even to attend the trial. Hall is disconsolate and wishes to plead guilty. But his lawyer, Lt. Col. Frank Wasnick Edmond OBrien, persuades him to take the witness stand and explain his actions. In stark detail, Capt. Hall discloses the torture he underwent. This includes how he was ordered to bury other soldiers, dead or alive; how he carried a wounded man for four days so he wouldnt collapse and be placed in a grave; solitary confinement for months at a time, denied light and company and forced to live in his own excrement. Facing repeated demands to read propaganda statements, Hall relented but wrote one himself, using language that attempted to mock the enemys purpose. Hall experienced a breaking point when the enemy delivered a letter from his father, revealing his brother Petes death. Halls father, who finally attends the trial, is devastated by his sons testimony about his breaking point. He forgives his son, but the official judgment is less kind. Hall is found guilty of treason and the film closes with Halls contrition on the witness stand.