FARMINGTON — Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Jay Hess missed six Christmases — 2,029 days — in prison camps across Vietnam.
He knows what it is like to be without his family for the holidays.
On Friday, he sang at a concert in his hometown — a song about being home for it all.
"I'll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me … I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams," Hess said, fighting back tears.
It was the first time some of his children — who believed for a time that their father, a fighter pilot sent to Vietnam in 1967, was dead — can recall him singing since before the war.
"What a thrill to be here tonight," Hess said, just before gracing the proud audience with a song.
Hess, 88, is decades away from being a prisoner of war — he was released March 14, 1973 — but those torturous memories are hard to erase. It took years to adjust.
Music is where a lot of happier memories live, he said.
Hess was invited to sing at Cori Connors' annual holiday concert in Farmington this weekend by Connors, a popular singer-songwriter who is also from the growing northern Utah city of Farmington.
After learning of Hess' experiences, Connors said she felt moved to write a song about what it might've been like to experience Christmas as a prisoner of war.
"Christmas in the Annex," she said, talks about what "home" must have felt like for him in those days of being so far away from it, not knowing whether he would ever return.
"He expressed to me a fine line that the prisoners would choose to either walk over or stay away from, and that was the line of memory, or their remembrance of home," said Connors, who draws a lot of inspiration from the people and places around her. "Thinking about home must have been super sweet for a moment, but the lingering pain of being away from it was almost worse."
Her recording of the song, with other newly written acoustic pieces, was released this weekend.
"I was always intrigued that he had five children as a POW," Connors said. "I think we think of POWs as young soldiers."
Connors has honored Hess in previous concerts, but being a part of the sold-out concert, she said, is new.
"He represents that part in all of us that has the capacity to endure things that are almost unimaginable," Connors said. "There is a reverence for him and what he went through because it reminds us that we have this innate capacity to endure, because he did, and he endured it gracefully."
Hess, she said, is an example of making it through hard times.
"We, too, have it in us to survive the unimaginable," she said.
Hess was captured by enemy soldiers when he ejected from his F-105 Thunderchief after it was gunned down during a bombing mission northeast of Hanoi, close to the border of China.
A historical account of his states that at that point, he "resigned myself to the worst."
He was eventually taken to the Hoa Lò prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton," which was infamous for its brutal treatment of prisoners, including the late U.S. Sen. John McCain.
Hess reported being blindfolded, tied up, interrogated and isolated for months.
"My focus began to change from how I was going to escape, to how I was going to make it through the day, to how I was going to make it through the next minute," Hess told the World History Group, which recorded oral histories of prisoners of war. "I dreaded the thought of the Air Force car pulling up to my house and telling my wife and five children that I was missing, or worse, dead."
Over the years, Hess was relocated to various prison camps, including the "Annex," "Dogpatch," "the Plantation," and back to Hoa Lò.
Conditions improved somewhat — he recalls the first time he was able to go outside, brush his teeth, or had a window in his room — though, he remained a prisoner of war and lived in despicably squalid conditions until 1973.
He was only ever allowed to receive three letters from his family during his time as a prisoner of war. Other American soldiers became close and tried together to survive the days, hours and minutes until they were free.
Hess counts it a blessing he "never had to see anybody die in Vietnam," he said. When it came time to go home, he did not believe it was truly over.
"You've been in the dark and everything has been dirty and brown. And then seeing that red, white and blue, I mean, it is outstanding because of its color, but also because of what's changed in you, about your feelings about your country," he said.
The U.S. government reports that more than 766 Americans were taken prisoner during the war in Vietnam. More than 114 of them died in captivity.
Hess has received numerous awards and is one of Farmington's "Hometown Heroes," though, Connors said, "Jay would never allow himself to be called a hero."
Family, friends and perfect strangers sniffled as the veteran sang his Christmas song. It sounded as though he, himself, almost choked up a little, but the sentiment was there — he is home.
Connors has two Christmas albums, "Sleepy Little Town" and "One Small Boy." Other albums include "Pontiac Rocket," "Out of the Blue," "Love Abides" and "Saints on the Seas." Her new compilations reside on an album entitled, "The Sycamore Tree."
In addition to Friday's concert, Connors and Hess will perform Saturday, Dec. 1, and Monday, Dec. 3, at 7:30 p.m. at the Farmington Arts Center, 120 S. Main. Tickets are gone, but Connors said seats might become available.
Her music and more information about the event can be found online at coriconnors.com.
Correction: An earlier version incorrectly stated retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Jay Hess lives in Bountiful. He lives in Farmington.