 He was ordered by Stratton to accept an early release so that he could provide the names of POWs being held by the North Vietnamese and reveal the conditions to which the prisoners were being subjected.After his discharge, Hegdahl was sent to the Paris Peace Talks in 1970 and confronted the North Vietnamese with his first-hand information about the mistreatment of prisoners.After returning to the United States, Hegdahl used his experiences as an instructor at the U.S. Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school at NAS North Island, San Diego.