Chapter 5

The press began to arrive at the estate shortly before the appointed hour. Ginny was pleased to see that two of the network-affiliated Los Angeles television stations had sent out film crews. Moreover, in addition to the usual motion-picture industry reporters, there were a few from the regular news desks.

Chairs had been set up on the pool terrace for the conference. A rostrum with a microphone was set up in front. Taking her position there, Ginny opened the session. "Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. I am Marcia Matthews," she said with a warm smile. "The reason for this press conference has nothing to do with motion pictures, but a great deal to do with me. As many of you know, my real name is Virginia Cameron, known to my friends as Ginny. I'm a newcomer here to Hollywood. In fact, aside from believing myself to have been incredibly lucky, I'm still not sure how I got here.

"Before arriving in Hollywood, I was an officer in the Army serving in Vietnam. Over five years ago I was captured by the enemy when a helicopter in which I was traveling was forced down. I was held in a prisoner-of-war camp for over a year. Near the end of my stay I met a person who I want you all to meet today."

Ginny paused, backed away from the rostrum and stood with her head up straight. Only then did the reporters realize there were tears flowing in twin streams from her eyes. Then she said, "Before I continue, though, I am going to do something I have never done before. I am going to rely on your discretion about what you see and how you might use what you see and hear here today. Of course, the news judgment is entirely in your hands. I cannot and will not stop you from using it in any way you see fit. I have been candid with you in the past," she said with a warm smile, "and you have never let me down. I am counting on you again today."

Ginny took a deep breath and continued, "Now for the 'first'. I am going to pass out the first nude pictures ever taken of me. In a sense they are pornographic — what they depict is obscene. I will come back to that after you have a chance to see them."

Then she passed out full-color photographs of herself — front and side views — taken in the hospital immediately following her rescue from the POW camp and return to Saigon. All that was recognizable as Virginia Cameron was the hair color and the intense emerald-green eyes.

Mike Chapman, as a plastic surgeon, could recognize Ginny in the pictures but even he gasped.

"That's sort of how I looked when I first met the person I referred to earlier," Ginny continued, "Except, thanks to her, I weighed about five pounds more in the pictures than when the two of us first met."

Looking around the group of reporters she asked rhetorically, "Are these pictures pornographic? I think they are. They certainly depict man's inhumanity to man. But God knows I was not in a sexy pose. In fact, it's no pose at all. Although it's been quite awhile since I saw these photos last, I can still remember when they were taken. The photographer wasn't sure I could even stand up unsupported. I could. At any rate, after I was released from the hospital, I slowly regained my weight, and then — as we love to say here in Hollywood — the rest is history.

"Now I want to tell you about the other person. Her name is Susan Jennings. While I was waiting for you to arrive, I was thinking about my remarks, and so I was trying to think of appropriate words to describe my relationship to her."

Ginny's eyes were flowing with tears now and her voice broke, but she recovered enough to continue, "All I could come up with was a line from the Gospel of St. John: 'Greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for a friend.' Well," Ginny continued while using every ounce of her remaining willpower to continue to speak, "I guess Susan must be my friend. She literally laid down her life to save mine. Susan, would you please come up here?"

Susan walked up to the front of the area and joined Ginny. Rick brought up a chair for her to sit on since Mike had urged her to remain seated as much as possible. "This is Susan Jennings," Ginny Cameron continued. "When I first met her, I was literally hours away from death. I remember vividly what happened next. Susan had traded her bra to a guard for food bars. The bars were taken from Red Cross parcels we were supposed to get but never did.

"You see, the way things worked in the camp was that girls traded their clothing for food. When there was no more clothing, they traded their bodies. A couple of us were probably fools. We decided it was better to go hungry.

"I am here to tell you that starving to death is not a pleasant way to go. I didn't go the sex route. When I realized I was going to die and changed my mind, it was too late. By then I no longer had a body left to sell. Since all the prisoners were in the same boat — starving — it was live and let live. Or, more accurately, die and let die. The only way someone could help another was by going without.

"That is exactly what Susan Jennings did for her entire stay in that prison camp. She went without so that other prisoners might survive. To put it into perspective, I was imprisoned there for more than a year, while Susan was there less than three months. Nonetheless, when we were rescued, she weighed even less than I did. On the other hand, there were probably at least fifty more prisoners still alive than there would have been without her."

Although tears were still flowing, Ginny had now regained control. Standing up as straight as she could with her shoulders back and her tits upthrust she looked incredibly beautiful. The news people were all hanging on her words. Clearly, this was a very different Hollywood press conference.

"On that first day, Susan Jennings brought a nutrition bar over to me. She fed it to me a tiny piece at a time. She just put a tiny piece in my mouth, let it melt, and then did it again. She continued until the bar was all gone. Susan saved my life. And there was so much more. One day Susan took on thirty camp guards sexually one right after the other. Why? To get some medicine to try to save the lives of some of our dying men.

"Finally, there was the last day. The guards ordered us to assemble in the center of the compound. I never did know why. At any rate, I fell trying to get up. The guard indicated I was to get ten lashes with his bullwhip. My thought was that at least it would be a faster death than starvation. But the next thing I knew, Susan's body was extended over mine, covering it. She was doing what amounted to a pushup to keep her weight off me. I could hear the whip crack and slice into her body.

"After five lashes the guard ordered her to turn over. Then she bridged her body — sort of an upside-down pushup — and held it while the whip cut into her five more times. She cringed at the cuts but didn't fall on me as the whip sliced into her flesh. Meanwhile, I was below her with the blood from her back dripping onto my body. When it was all over, she was ordered to be crucified!"

Now Ginny's eyes were blazing with an emerald fire. The TV cameras were rolling and the still photographers were taking their pictures. Ginny looked like an Amazon warrior at that moment. "You heard me right. Crucified! Sue looked at the cross and knew it was for her. She gave me the last item of her clothing, the shirt off her back, with the comment that she wouldn't be needing it any more.

"They hung her from the cross. They did not nail her to it the way the Romans did it two thousand years ago. They tied her to it. For reasons I won't go into, it is just as lethal with rope. That was the last time I saw Susan Jennings until this morning," Ginny concluded. The tears were now uncontrolled but she was able to gasp out, "She was hanging on that cross, dying for me!"

Ginny took a couple of deep breaths to try to regain control. Then she reached below the rostrum, pulled out a khaki uniform shirt and opened it out. "I found this in the back of one of my drawers today," she said. "It is the shirt Susan Jennings was wearing that day. You can even read the name inside the collar, neatly stenciled in indelible ink, JENNINGS. This morning I found something else I had never noticed before."

Opening the shirt, she spread it over the front of the rostrum so the reporters could see more clearly and pointed out marks on the shirt that appeared to be rust stains. "These look like rust stains, don't they?" she asked. "They are not. It is Susan's blood. It dripped off her back onto me as I lay on the ground beneath her. Then it must have been soaked up by Susan's shirt when I put it on as she was being hung on the cross."

Turning to Susan she said quietly, "Sue, please take off all your clothes."

Without a moment's hesitation, Susan dropped her skirt, shrugged off her blouse and stood before the group completely naked. There was an audible gasp as the reporters and cameramen saw the vivid scars crisscrossing her body. "You see the scars from that bullwhip," Ginny continued. "I am asking if there is a photographer here today who can photograph her body better than that sailor was able to photograph mine in Saigon.

"You see, beginning tomorrow, Susan will have a series of operations to try to erase those scars. But I don't want them forgotten. There is some unfinished business here. I heard gasps from many of you when you first saw Susan's body. I don't know if you were reacting to the scars, to her emaciated condition, or to both. You see, Susan Jennings is the reason I invited you all out here today. There are a number of unanswered questions. I will list some and my friends will add to the list.

"First, why is she still scarred? Why wasn't she cared for in a naval hospital after she was rescued? We just learned today that she was dismissed from the service. That is the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge but applicable to officers. How, when, where, and for what reason was she court-martialed? Only a general court-martial can order dismissal, but we cannot find out anything. Keep in mind, the record of trial is a public document. Why is it hidden?"

Turning to her side where Mike was now waiting she continued, "I would like my fiancé, Mike Chapman, to speak to you. As some of you may know, Mike is a plastic surgeon practicing here in Los Angeles."

One of the reporters asked, "Is this Dr. Michael Chapman?" When Ginny nodded agreement, the reporter spoke for the benefit of his colleagues, "For those of you who may not know it, Dr. Chapman is generally regarded as the finest plastic surgeon in Southern California, and many believe he is the finest in the world. Doctor?"

"Thank you very much. With my surgical team I am going to begin operating on Susan Jennings tomorrow. I can't tell you how long the whole process will take nor how successful it will ultimately turn out to be. But we are going to try like hell. On the other hand, I will also say that this surgery should have been undertaken years ago, almost immediately upon her release. What should have happened was she should have been physically built up from her starvation and then operated on. The probability of successful surgery was much greater then than it is now."