FINDING AID AUBURN UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES Record Group: 600 Accession: 02-011 Collection Name: Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr. Papers Dates: 1981 Cubic Feet/Number of Items: 1 Plaque Scope/Content: This collection contains the Audie Murphy Patriotism Award presented to Senator Jeremiah Denton in 198 at the Spirit of America Festival in Decatur, Alabama. Biographical / Historical Sketch: Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr., was born on July 15, 1924 in Mobile, Alabama. He attended McGill Institute, Spring Hill College, and the United States Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. On July 18, 1965, Denton was leading a group of twenty-eight aircraft from the USS INDEPENDENCE in an attack on enemy installations near Thanh Hoa, when he was shot down and captured by local North Vietnamese troops. He spent the next seven years and seven months as a prisoner of war, suffering severe mistreatment and becoming the first U.S. military captive to be subjected to four years of solitary confinement. Denton's name first came to the attention of the American public in 1966, during a television interview arranged by the North Vietnamese in Hanoi. Throughout the interview, while responding to questions and feigning sensitivity to harsh lighting, Denton blinked his eyes in Morse Code, repeatedly spelling out a covert message: "T-O-R-T-U-R-E". Denton was released on February 12, 1973. Denton was elected to the United States Senate in November 1980. In so doing, he became the first Republican ever elected by popular vote to the U S. Senate from Alabama, the first resident of Mobile elected to the U.S. Senate, the first retired military officer and the first Catholic elected to any statewide office in Alabama, and the first retired Admiral or General elected to the U.S. Senate by any state. He was among the Republican senators elected in 1980 to give the Republicans a majority in the Senate during President Ronald Reagan's first term. During his term, he served on the Senate Armed Service Committee's subcommittees on Manpower and Personnel, on Preparedness, and on Seapower and Force Projection; on the Judiciary Committee's subcommittees on Security and Terrorism, on Immigration and Refugee Policy, and on Juvenile Justice; on the Labor and Human Resources Committee's Subcommittee on Family and Human Services; and on the Veterans Affairs and Aging Committees. 1 Denton published his account of his prisoner-of-war experiences, "When Hell Was in Session," (New York: Readers Digest Press, 1976). Denton served in the Senate from January 1981 to January 1987. Senator Denton married the former Jane Maury and had seven children. Acquisition Type: Gift Physical Condition: Good Processed by: Javan Frazier Date: January 2002 2 .