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After his capture, Doug Hegdahl quickly decided his best chance of survival was to pretend he had very low intelligence. Though he was physically abused for several days, he eventually convinced his captors that he was harmless and of no value to them. When they asked him to write statements against the United States, Hegdahl agreed but acted as though he couldn’t read or write — a claim the captors found believable. Hoping to turn him to their cause, they even assigned someone to teach him literacy. But after he repeatedly failed to show any progress, they gave up, nicknaming him “The Incredibly Stupid One” and granting him nearly free movement around the camp. With this freedom, and with the help of fellow prisoner Joseph Crecca, a U.S. Air Force officer, Hegdahl memorized the names, capture dates, methods of capture, and personal details of about 256 other prisoners — all set to the tune of the nursery rhyme “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” To this day, Hegdahl can still recite the information. At one point, an intelligence officer asked if he could slow down the recitation to make copying it easier, but Hegdahl replied, “No — it’s like riding a bike: you have to keep moving or you fall off.” During his time in captivity, Hegdahl also managed to disable five enemy trucks by secretly pouring dirt into their fuel tanks.