There's a big ######ing difference between volunteering to play a part in a production where you know the guy on the other end has no malice towards you and can't do anything physically damaging to you, and getting rolled up by an enemy that knows his actions will never see the light of day, and is acting on emotions.
There's a big difference between hearing "boots" for 24hrs and hearing it for 24 days. There's a big difference between knowing you'll be done in 24hrs and not knowing if it'll ever end. There's a big difference between having the option to call for a medic and having it all instantly stop, and not.
Don't compare it to SERE.
I think that if you were rolled up by the North Koreans for an indefinite period and they were constrained to only using waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, confining spaces, mild beatings, etc., etc., you wouldn't have quite the rosy outlook that you had on the bus ride out to the SERE camp.
It may not be bamboo shoots under your fingernails and broken bones, but it's a pretty common theme among guys who have been through that stuff that the psychological approaches were the worst.
I have only this to say: Anybody saying "I'm not opposed to doing what had to be done" better not also think, "god damn savages" next time one of our guys shows up in a propaganda video and loses his head or is clearly not being treated well. It was convenient for our enemies to exploit their good fortune of having rolled up one of ours, and it's no different than when the tables were turned and we decided to act similarly.