Inside a storage building at the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum in Casper are powerful expressions of the torture and pain of a former Wyoming soldier’s five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
His artwork is dark, intense, emotional and heartbreaking. It’s also powerfully healing for the soldier-artist and those who share his experiences — however distantly removed — through it.
In one piece, the black background hosts yellow, green and red images, scary looking creatures with teeth, skeletal animals and a curled eel-like monster.
This is just one of many examples of artwork by the late U.S. Army Maj. Theodore “Ted” Gostas, and most express an environment no one wants to imagine.
“He portrays the very intensity of his experience,” said John Woodward, museum director. “His is just an incredible story. Coming back from something that very few of us could even think to experience, and then he makes his art and begins to heal himself, and then works to better other people.”
Inside the museum, a small tribute to Gostas is encased in glass. The Cheyenne man served as an Army intelligence officer and was captured in 1968 during the infamous Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Upon his release in 1973, the demons of the horror and trauma inflicted upon him during five excruciating years as a POW had to be dealt with.
He turned to artistic expression, and for years before his death in 2023, Gostas was a spokesman and advocate for veterans and their families, as well as an example of someone who overcame the horrors of war — but never forgot them.
University Of Wyoming Graduate
Gostas was born Dec. 13, 1938, in Butte, Montana. His family moved to Nebraska and then Cheyenne, where he graduated high school in 1957. He enrolled at the University of Wyoming the following year and joined the ROTC. The future soldier majored in English literature and minored in history.
In 1960, Gostas married Johanna Ludecke of Sheridan. Upon graduation from UW in 1961, he received his commission as a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
“That period of time is when the United States was getting more involved in Vietnam and he was trained as an intelligence officer,” Woodward said. “In 1967, he was (assigned) to Vietnam and was actively supporting the South Vietnamese Army.”
The young officer first attended infantry school, and then the U.S. Army Intelligence School for Counter Insurgency Training. He was sent to foreign language school, where he studied German. Gostas first served as a German interpreter with U.S. Army-Europe in West Germany from April 1964 to March 1967.
After being deployed to South Vietnam, he became an intelligence officer with the 135th Military Intelligence Battalion of the 525th Military Intelligence Group beginning in April 1967.
Gostas wrote about heading to the war with others on the plane to Southeast Asia.
“The officers and enlisted men were crowded together on the plane,” he wrote. “And going to Vietnam was going to take a long time. So, from Oakland we flew to Seattle and deplaned. We all went together into the same bar and drank at the same tables and did not hear the word ‘Sir’ very often. It was as if we had a sudden group awareness that some, perhaps all of us, might not return.”
Monsters and skeletons on black background are expressions from Wyoming POW Ted Gostas existence in solitary confinement for most of his time in Vietnam. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A drawing at the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum in Casper by Wyoming POW and artist Ted Gostas depicts a man in solitary confinement. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The self-published book “Prisoner” was written during POW Ted Gostas’ recuperation leave in Wyoming following his POW experience. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
His Capture
When the North Vietnamese launched their surprise attack on the South on Jan. 30, 1968, Gostas, then a captain, was stationed in the former capital of Vietnam, Hue. He described the experience during an address at a POW and missing in action remembrance ceremony at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, in 2019.
“I had 10 days left in my tour when I was captured in February of 1968,” he said.
Gostas told the gathering he decided to burn all the classified documents he had in a fireplace while bullets flew around them. “They came up the stairs, tied our hands behind our back with piano wire and led us off [to the jungle]. From then on it was absolute hell.”
Because his name had been published in the Stars and Stripes newspaper as an intelligence officer, the North Vietnamese singled him out for specific interrogation and treatment.
He told the Casper Star-Tribune in a June 14, 2015, interview that during the initial march away from Hue, he was kicked in the head trying to climb out of a pit of prisoners to breathe fresh air. He also was put in the back of truck, its tailgate held shut with a chain. Gostas fell asleep, got tangled in the chain, fell out of the truck and was dragged along, bouncing on his head.
Once at a prison camp he was tortured, hung with ropes and forced to drink putrid water, his own urine and eat rancid food that would give him thousands of hookworms. Lice crawled over his body and his teeth became abscessed. The poison affected his heart. He was often told he would be shot; the Vietnamese would even give him cloth targets to wear.
“My psychiatrist considered me the most tortured prisoner of war in the Vietnam War,” he told the Star-Tribune. “I was the highest-ranking intelligence officer captured. And (I had) the worst attitude. I laughed at everything. Even when they were killing me I was laughing, because I was crazy. I went completely ka-flooey in prison.”
His Release
Miraculously, despite all the torture and mistreatment, Gostas survived. After he was released March 16, 1973, he spent several weeks in a Denver hospital.
His experiences as a POW affected his relationships with family, which included three children. Gostas and his wife, who advocated during his captivity for POWs and his release, separated and then divorced. He remarried a few years later.
Gostas, the English major, turned to writing and art to deal with the damage inflicted on his soul.
“I would get to the point where I’d think someone was coming to stick a bayonet in my neck, and I’d pull out some good paper, a good pen and I’d start to draw and draw,” he’s quoted as saying in his obituary.
Gostas self-published a book of poems and drawings titled “Prisoner” written during his initial convalescent leave in Wyoming. He donated profits from the book to veterans’ causes. He told an Indianapolis Star reporter for a Aug. 18, 1974, story that when the “questions grow too intense” and the “answers too painful,” he would hand people the book and say, “Here, read it.”
The Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum has a copy of Gostas’ book on display and continues to show a few of his paintings and drawings.
“I don’t know if anyone has a full idea of how much art he produced, but it was his way to not only help himself, but call attention to the plight of those POWs and those service members,” Woodward said. “He would often donate his pieces of artwork to other nonprofits or organizations to help raise funds for veterans in the Cheyenne area and other places.”
Former POW Ted Gostas depicts a firefight using helicopters in Vietnam. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Right: A poster from one of Ted Gostas’ art shows is on display at the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum. Right: An intense red, black and gray painting depicting someone in solitary confinement by Wyoming POW Ted Gostas. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Ted Gostas used art as a means to heal himself. A painting, “Hue City – Moment of PTSD” shows the horrors during his time of capture by the North Vietnamese. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Sharing His Art
And those paintings scream the raw emotion and torture he endured across his five years as a POW.
Woodward said Gostas had exhibitions in the late 1970s and ’80s all over the United States.
“We have a poster here from his exhibit in Appleton, Wisconsin. He had other exhibitions in different spots across the U.S.,” he said. “We have a small collection of his art here donated from a gentleman who had been a close associate of Mr. Gostas in his life.”
For his service, Gostas was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart with two Oak Leaf clusters. His official commendation reads:
“His ceaseless efforts by a continuous showing of resistance to an enemy who ignored all international agreements on treatment of prisoners of war, in the extremely adverse conditions of the communist prisons of Southeast Asia, demonstrated his professional competence, unwavering devotion and loyalty to his country. Despite the harsh treatment through his long years of incarceration, this American continued to perform his duties in a clearly exceptional manner which reflected great credit upon himself and the United States Army.”
In 2002, Gostas was among those invited to carry the Olympic torch from Greece for part of its journey across Wyoming on Day 55 of the trek across the U.S. to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.
Gostas died Jan. 31, 2023. His obituary states that he “took his last breaths with loved ones by his side and flamenco music filling the room. In his last moments on Earth, there was no fear, no anxiety and finally no more pain.”
Woodward said the museum continues to display a part of Gostas’ story because he represents Vietnam veterans, many who were mistreated in their own country after their return from war.
“It was something we worked on in later years to rectify,” Woodward said, adding he also believes Gostas’ perseverance through his torture and then his recovery and advocacy later in life is worth remembering.
“His military service left a lasting mark on him, a lasting wound that continued with him for the rest of his life and (he) used that art not only to better himself, but to better other veterans,” he said. “(Gostas) continued to be a leader and to help others. And I think that is an important lesson to take away from his exhibit and his collection.”
Contact Dale Killingbeck at dale@cowboystatedaily.com
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
