This is a man's war story.

I realize this blog is backwards. This is a description of what it is, just so you don't think you stumbled upon some angsty young 20 something's personal diary.

Years ago, my grandfather Hance Rogers had a friend named Tommy Harrell. They knew each other as young men in Tennessee and traveled the Virginia tidewater area selling Bibles. Harrell, being a man of the good book, was ever known in my family as Thumper Harrell. He died of Lou Gherig's disease in the 1970s, but not before writing about his experiences in World War Two.

This manuscript was given to my grandfather. My grandmother, who was mentally ill, squirreled it away somewhere in the depths of the house and we only found it again about a month ago.

It is entirely dictated to a nurse who typed it on a typewriter and I have taken it upon myself to type the entire thing up and share it.

All misspellings and grammatical errors are kept. I have done NO editing.

So...

there you go.

End.

So that's it. I hope you all found it interesting!

CHAPTER NINE

Chapter IX

In the next few months, I began to gradually improve so far as my body chemistry and mental alertness is concerned. My disease had progressed to the point that I was unable to move from the neck down and required constant nursing care. My wife used a chairbed and slept in my room so that she could attend me during the night. Not being able to read, I began to search for some means to occupy some of my time. With the help of my nurses, I began to collect knives. Gradually my knife collecting became widely known, and I even had one man who came from Florence, Alabama, in his private helicopter to see me about knives. On my son’s twenty- third birthday I gave him about three hundred knives.

For fear that I would not live until my birthday or until Christmas, I celebrated my November the 27^th birthday in September by giving gifts to every employee in the hospital and receiving gifts from my family and friends. Needless to say, when the true dates rolled around, I was accused of celebrating twice so that I might receive two sets of gifts.

By this time my son had entered medical school; and during visits home, I enjoyed many conversations with him.

His definition of success was particularly impressive to me. He believed to be successful you must have contributed something to your fellow man that would not have been contributed had you not lived. During the fall vacation of 1974, he met one of the nurses’ aides who was staying with me. She was a first year nursing student at our state university. It didn’t take them long to decide that they wanted to spend their lives together. They were married in March of 1975. When it was decided that one of the receptions was to be held at the hoe of my family doctor, I knew that being my friend, he would not be offended if I had my own reception also. I borrowed a large punch bowl, had a huge wedding cake baked and made arrangements for one of my nurses to act as hostess. Even the wedding party came by and had punch and cake at my reception.

As my general health improved, so did my attitude; and I began to send out to local restaurants for food and invite guests for dinner. The doctors never failed to examine me twice each day and when they would stand up and take their stethoscope out of their ears, “Disgusting, isn’t it?” It seemed unreal that a man that looked as healthy as I and could put away as uch food would be unable to move a muscle. The entire time the nursing staff, routinely, turns me every two hours so that I don’t have a sore spot on my body.

As I began to tire of collecting knives, I tried various other things from porcelain to Indian jewelry. Since I am a compulsive giver, these hobbies didn’t last long because I gave away so much that I couldn’t keep enough money to replace what I gave away. I have managed to keep so busy that I haven’t had time to reflect upon my condition.

When you become a long term patient, you realize how lax you were in going to see your friends when the situations were reversed. I found some of the explanations so ridiculous that they were amusing. One man, whom I had considered a friend, who had not been to visit me in two years, explained that the reason that he had not been here was that he had been to a convention in Atlanta. Another said, after one year and a half, that he had had a cold and was afraid that I might catch it. I wondered if I sounded the same to my friends when I tried to justify not having visited them.

I began to feel that there was a slight possibility that I might live until my son graduated from medical school which at the beginning I thought was an impossible wish. I stopped updating my holidays and began to feel so secure in my status- quo that I began even to make plans involving some future date. Sudeenly my heart began to develop premature ventricular contractions, and they began to feed me intravenously. My fever rose, and I developed pneumonia. Bedside nursing care was provided around the clock. This was as if some unseen power was saying, “Hold it, fellow, you’re getting a little too big, and I must do this to make you understand that by only the grace of God; you are still alive, and you should not become too proud of the results of your own determination and the miracle of medicine.” In a few days my fever subsided, my heart and lungs went back to their regular abnormalities, and once again I became part of the hospital routine but with renewed gratitude for the privilege of living.

I have heard so many dying statements. Most of them seemed to be statements justifying death. “Father, Mother, Sister, Brother Son or Daughter are waiting for me in heaven,” but this is not true. They are happy, they don’t need us. “I’m ready to go today.” This may be true, but this doesn’t matter. When we’re ready doesn’t count. When God’s ready we’ll go. I believe that as long as we have responsibilities to fulfill we are not ready.

And as I lay here day after day knowing that tomorrow can really be no different, I realize that the beginning and the end is always the same. It is like the front and back covers of a book; they are always similar but what is different are the pages between.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Chapter VIII

We returned home and back to our job responsibilities. For the next few days, I would sit alone in my office and take inventory of my life and try to make some plan out of what future I had. I started off with the idea of taking one day at a time without regard to the future, and I found that this makes tomorrow nothing to lok forward. I learned from a Buddist friend of mine that religion was not only a faith but a away of life and that one complemented the other. I tried to practice this; and in so doing, I found my life so full of love and warmth of friends that I had little time for resentment and self- pity. I began to feel sorry for people living on limited time who spoil what time they have left by being miserable.

I reported to my superiors exactly what my prognosis was, and by this time my hands had begun to gradually lose their strength. The president of y company told me that as far as he was concerned, I could keep my hospital until they brought me in on a stretcher.

For some time I had noticed that when I would go under an overpass, it would take the form of strange arches and sharp steeples. Cars began to pass me that I wouldn’t notice until they were by. The condition became gradually worse until I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist. While examining my eyes, he asked me to read what letters I could see on the chart with my right eye. I asked him what chart; he asked me how many fingers he was showing me on one hand, and I couldn’t even see his hand. With my left eye, I was much better; I still couldn’t read any letters, but I did count his fingers. He diagnoses my problem as some rare eye disease that there was no known cause or cure for and declared me legally blind and informed me that there was no lens that would help me to see better.

By August of 1972, the disease had progressed until I couldn’t hold a pen to sign my name, and the muscle facicullations had spread all over my body. One day after using the restroom, I had to call one of my lab men in to assist me in arranging my clothes. At last the time had come. I had always felt that the head of any organization should be its strength and never its weakness. I gave notice and retired September the 1^st, 1972.

We again went to Mayo Clinic where dye was inserted in my bloodstream and colored pictures taken of my retina, showing the right one completely destroyed by scar tissue and the left one partially destroyed. They again concurred with the diagnosis and said that it had nothing to do with my muscle disease. Since I had always enjoyed reading and had expected to watch television to pass some of the many hours that I knew was to be my fte, this new adversity was a little hard to take.

My body chemistry had become out of balance and had made food that I had always liked become tasteless; this became increasingly worse until there were only a very few things that I could force myself to eat. Before I became too weak to walk at all, I persuaded my wife that we should make a trip. Not having been to Europe, we decided to go to Madrid, Spain. We stayed a week and the weather was miserable. We didn’t particularly enjoy it, but we enjoyed being together; and it gave us something to talk about later, so it was worth it.

As the days and weeks passed, I began to get weaker and weaker until it became necessary that we get someone to stay with me while my wife was on duty at the hospital. My son had graduated from Vanderbilt and because of the difficulty of getting into medical school, worked at the hospital for a year before being accepted. His being at home did a lot toward making my condition more acceptable. Friends came by daily, and it seemed that providence was so designed that my ways would be easier.

During this time I began to find a strange peace with solitude. About once a week my friends would come by and take me to the lake. I would take my foloding chair, my drink and some kind of food and have them take me to some inaccessible gravel bar and leave me. I would stay there from early afternoon until ten or eleven o’clock at night. Everytime I would hear a motor boat, I would hope it wasn’t them. I could never understand how I could love to be with friends so much and yet enjoy complete solitude.

My legs became so weak that it became necessary to use a wheelchair or a walker. One morning as I started to shave, I can remember standing in the bathroom preparing to do so; and the next thing I knew I was in the hospital emergency room having my head sewn up. For the next few weeks, things are rather fuzzy in my memory. I can remember that I was kept in the hospital for a few days because of concussion and returned home. My wife tells me that on the morning of May the 5^th, 1974, she was unable to awaken me. We lived next door to our hospital chief of staff, and she immediately got in touch with him. When he failed to revive me, I was sent to the V.A. Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. I vaguely remember being taken out of the ambulance at the hospital; then I lost consciousness again.

The next nine or ten days were filled with a terror such in all of my war years, I never experienced before. All experiences were so real to me that I recognized my wife, my family and my friends but had created a situation that had instilled into me a mortal fear. I thought that I was lying underneath the Veterans Administration Hospital where all of their trucks and vehicles were parked. I had overheard a male medical technician telling a group of nurses aides that I was to be killed. I was to be taken on the interstate highway and thrown out of an automobile traveling at the speed of one hundred miles an hour. None of the nurses would talk to me when I cried to tell them. I would beg my wife and my brother-in-law to please take me out of there because they were going to kill me. They would, of course, try to placate me and convince me it was my imagination, but nothing was ever so clear in my life. When the technician would come for any purpose I would try to offer him whatever I could possibly get not to do this thing. He, as the nurses, would act as if he hadn’t heard me at all. My wife would cry because she was helpless. I hope I never experience this sort of thing again. After what seemed days, I again lapsed into unconsciousness.

A strange thing happened later, a man died in the hospital that I was in, and his wife told me that never again to let them put him in intensive care in the V.A. Hospital because when he was there, they threatened to kill him.

When things finally became clear to me, I found that I had a tracheostomy tube and was permanently attached to a respirator. The neurologist that I was assigned to said that my unconsciousness was caused by narcotic poisoning. I was breathing in oxygen, but my pulmonary muscles had gotten so weak they were not forcing out the carbon dioxide. It was so tiring upon my wife to stay in Nashville and to commute back to Smithville to take care of personal responsibilities that I kept asking that I be allowed to go back to DeKalb General Hospital. When my family doctor and my former employer heard of my request, even though the hospital was not equipped to take care of me, they provided this equipment and asked that I be transferred. My wife was disturbed over the fact that my insurance only covered fifty-nine days of hospitalization. My neurologist told her that it saddened him to say so; but she need not worry about that, I would not be alive in fifty- nine days. That was two years and nine months ago. You see this doctor had forgotten to take into account what love and tender care under the direction of God can do to statistics. On June the 6^th I was returned to DeKalb General Hospital.

I often think about the little simple things that would ake our lives more libable, if we would only take time to reflect. For instance, one f the first things we learn in school is that the word “like” is to be used in connection with inanimate objects and the word “love” is applicable to living things. As we grow older, we forget this and not only do we stop using the word love, but it begins to take on erroneous interpretations; and we are even embarrassed to use it. I have no reservations, and I find no other way to describe my feeling for the dedication that my nurses, my doctors and friends have shown toward me in these years of complete incapacitation.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Chapter VII

Good fortune smiled at me and mybusiness steadily grew and in less than two years it was necessary for me to hire someone. The Internal Revenue Department had concentrated investigations in my old hometown of Woodbury and a section known as Center Hill Lake region. I began working this section at the request of some old friends and due to the courtesy shown me by most of the Internal Revenue Agents, my successes resulted in it begin necessary in spending about half my time in this area.

I built a log cabin at the foot of a mountain in DeKalb County and when working this area, we would stay there. I became more and more attached to farm folk. I particularly liked to set around the molasses mill when they would work all night and the men would gather to tell strange stories that they always knew really happened because they knew whom it happened to. There was one old fellow that I enjoyed more than most. He had read a great deal and even through he had no education, he knew a little bit about everything. His heart was so big that he would stop in the road to allow a rog to jump to safety. When it would come time to carry his hogs to market, he would go out and talk to them and tell them how sorry he was that it was necessary to have fed them so well and take them to be slaughtered.

I became so attached to country life that I enlarged the log cabin into a comfortable country home, and gave my Nashville accounts to my employee and moved permanently. My wife was very definite in her objections, but, as always, accepted the move. Our son began school in Smithville, Tennessee, in August of 1957 and from then until 1968 were years that were comfortable and happy. I had managed to get myself elected to the county court and became quite active in various civic affairs. My son had begun to be active in athletics and we became avid high school sports fans.

I had been requested by local doctors to spend part of my time managing a small hospital in town. One morning, I went to their office explaining to them that I felt very badly and that the evening before I had a sudden spell of weakness. They ran an E.K.G. and immediately called an ambulance and sent me to Nashville where I was placed in intensive care. They wouldn’t let me wait for my wife to go with me, and I was sent down without an attendant. O the way down there I kept thinking that no one should die alone, so I got up and made my way to the front of the ambulance and asked the driver if I could set with him. When we got to the hospital, I thanked the driver and jumped out of the front seat, went into the hospital and stood in line at the admitting desk. I thought we were going to have another heart patient when the lady asked me if she could help me, and I told her my doctor had sent me there with a heart attack. They lost no time in getting me into a wheelchair and up to intensive care. My health improved steadily, and in about two weeks I was back recuperating in my old hospital among my friends.

After I had begun to assume some of my old duties, the doctors’ office called and asked that I meet with them in their office. A corporation was being formed with headquarters in Nashville to be privately financed and dedicated entirely to health care. The corporation had offered to build a new hospital in our town if the doctors would close up the old hospital and support it. They had recommended that I be employed as administrator and the corporate officers had asked that I be sent to Nashville for an interview. This was in December of 1968 and at the time the total corporate structure consisted of four or five dedicated men, three or four hospitals and an old residential building with one secretary. And may I without going further say that in the years to follow, I was never asked for any reason to ever sacrifice patient care.

I had always felt loyalty to anyplace that I was employed, but here was something new added to be a part from the time the first spade of ground was turned until the facility was completed. My staff, my hospital and my corporation became such a part of my life that I resented any and all criticism. The corporate growth became fantastic. It operated hospitals all over the world and maintained the reputation of providing quality health care.

In the beginning I was embarrassed when salesmen called because I knew very little medical terminology, and I very quickly learned that you could get into trouble trying to fake it. But in a surprisingly short time; I began to look forward to their visits and began to feel that I had finally found what I had been looking for all my life.

My son graduated from high school and had entered Vanderbilt University with the expectations of preparing for medical school. My wife said that I was a hospital administrator, and our son was going to be a doctor, and to make sure that she knew what was being said; she decided she would go to a practical nursing school. I would have never had the determination that she exhibited in finishing school. Most of the students were younger and did not have to adjust back to study habits that she had not found occasion to use in thirty years. But finish she did. Again, like my wife she insisted she be given the eleven to seven shift because she was needed there, and she did not want the employees to think she was given special privileges by being offered other shifts. During the months to follow, I spent most of my nights at the hospital. About three o’clock in the morning, I would go to all my night employees, find out how they liked their eggs, don my apron and invite them all, a few at a time, for an early breakfast. Of course, you don’t ever know what is being said when you’re not around, but this close association never seemed to destroy and employer-employee relationship.

One evening while at a medical meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I was visiting with a doctor friend of mine in his room. The room was was hot and I had removed my coat and since it was late in April, I was wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt. While I was talking to the doctor, I noticed that he kept watching my arm. After a few moments he said, “Tommy, how long has your muscle been twitching?” Not really having noticed before the muscle in my left arm was twitching ever so slightly as your eyelid will sometimes do, I replied that I hadn’t noticed, and that I didn’t know how long it had been doing that. He suggested that I go see a neurologist as soon as possible. When I returned to Smithville, I called a Nashville neurologist and made an appointment to check into the hospital for tests. These tests were EMG’s and spinal taps. The spinal taps left me with such a headache that I really wasn’t too concerned with the diagnosis. I left the Nashville hospital with the doctor trying to tell me that a headache after a spinal puncture was imagination. After I got back to the hospital in Smithville, the report came in and since I was the administrator, I took the liberty of reading it. I forgave him in regard to our little argument when I saw the referred to me as courtly instead of obese. His diagnosis was amytrophic lateral sclerosis. Until this day, I don’t know whether I consciously rejected the idea or whether I really didn’t actually understand the seriousness of it. My brother and nephew, who both are doctors, suggested that I get a second opinion. There was a friend in our corporate office who knew a neurologist at Mayo Clinic and suggested that I go there. My wife and I flew to Rochester that weekend. Being in Rochester is a fascinating experience. Sitting in the coffee shop at the hotel, it is unusual to hear English spoken among the customers. This place truly is the assembly place of the world’s ills. We checked into the admitting desk of Mayo Clinic and were given an identification slip to the Neurology Section. Upon presenting this to the girl at the esk, we were requested to report back Monday morning.

Monday morning we were given to understand that I would be examined for nothing except my reasons for being there. I began a series of tests that were so intensive that by Friday I was completely exhausted. My wife and I returned to the lobby for the Neurological Department and awaited a call to the office of the Director of my neurological team. I must admit that upon being called, I waited in the doctor’s office with apprehension. His first words were, “The diagnosis was correct.” I asked what my prognosis was and he said, “Zero.” “How much time do I have left?” “From one to three years.” During this exchange, apprehension left me; and I thought to myself that this was the second time around. I had faced death before and when I was told that my time was limited, I was left with a strange feeling of inevitability. I could only feel sorry for my wife who must face the increasing responsibility of a dying man.

CHAPTER SIX

Chapter VI

As we taxied to a stop before a large crowd, I looked forward to stepping out of the plane with apprehension. It seemed almost as if I was entering a world I was no longer a part of. We were immediately placed in ambulances or military automobiles whichever the need dictated and driven directly to Letterman General Hospital. For the next two or three days we underwent exhaustive physical examinations. Those of us who were found to be free of contagious diseases were allowed almost complete freedom. Never has a city been so receptive and so grateful as San Francisco. We were issued medallions upon which were written “San Francisco Welcomes Bataan Heroes”. We could pay for nothing even the taxi fares were paid by the city. The first time I went to town I was completely lost. I wandered into a barber shop, had my shoes shined, went to a show, left before it was over and just wandered up and down the streets. I finally caught a cab and told him to take me to Chinatown. At the first Chinese restaurant I dismissed my cab, went in and ordered the biggest bowl of rice in the house. Having gotten my feet wet in the transition from prisoner to a complete freedom, I caught a cab back to the hospital. We began to go to town in groups and became increasingly brave in accepting our newfound freedom. In fact, we began to abuse it so that I am sure the hospital staff was glad to see us go.

My orders came through; I was being transferred to Thayer Hospital near my home in Nashville, Tennessee. This was in early 1945 and the Japanese had not surrendered; our group of twenty- four were the only prisoners that had actually been returned to the United States. In 1945, the most popular mode of travel was by train. As we started our journey across country, the conductor looked me up and said that he had gotten a wire from the President of the railroad that I was on the train and that he was to make my trip as pleasant and comfortable as possible. I was immediately assigned a stateroom and for the rest of the trip given anything I asked for. I thought I was particularly popular with the passengers and later on I found out why. Before I started my trip, I had been given a case of cigarettes which contained fifty cartons and not knowing that cigarettes were at a premium when anybody asked me for one, I gave them a package.

As the train rolled into Nashville it was about two o’clock in the morning. Standing on the platform waiting for me were two people that meant more to me than anybody else in the world, the girl I had loved since I was eighteen and my mother. My sister was there and, of course, she I also loved. I was so happy that after we had exhausted our public greeting and convinced each other of how good it was to be home that I had let y girl catch a taxi and go home by herself at three o’clock in the morning. I was the first Japanese prisoner to return to Tennessee and since the war was still going on, an object of curiosity and patriotism. On my first Sunday morning; my picture came out with a three column spread on the Sunday paper. After that things went from sad to the ridiculous. There was a carload of girls who came from Ward Belmont that wanted to show me Nashville. Even though I had worked at Western Union and knew every pig path in the city, I spent the day on tour. I received letters that I couldn’t believe. I think the most difficult thing that I had to do was to write mothers who wrote m, desperately seeking some word of a son that was missing in action. I learned that my mother was informed that I was missing in action the day that Bataan fell and listed as such until over a year later when I was on a list of prisoners furnished by the Japanese to the American government. We were allowed to send three cards the entire time we were prisoners; but they were pre-typed and they said, “My health is: bad, fair, good.” And they surely knew that we would not worry our families by saying our health was bad.

After being home about a week, I received a notice from the draft board that I mist register for the draft. Now I wasn’t trying to be contrary, but I felt like that a man with a stiff leg who had just been out of a three year Japanese prison camp should not have to be in a hurry to register for the draft. But I was wrong. I found out at last that I was back in the good old U.S.A., for in a few days here came a United States Marshal after me for failing to register. I suggested to him that it might be best that I get discharged before I registered because if I was drafted they might get me for being A.W.O.L., from the hospital. After much confused conversation, they decided that someone had made a big mistake and that I could wait until after I was discharged and then to make sure I registered for the draft. I put them on notice immediately that I was going to be a conscientious objector.

On April the Fourteenth I was discharged from Thayer Hospital. When we look back on our lives, there are so many little chance things that happen that change the entire direction of our lives you feel that had it not been for any one of these, your lie would have been entirely different. I was sitting at a restaurant in Nashville when I noticed two men in a booth across from me. I had not purchased any civilian clothes since I had just gotten my discharge, and I still had my uniform on with all my ribbons. One of the men, very distinguished looking grey-headed man, spoke to his waitress and she came over and asked me if I would join their table. The men introduced themselves, and the grey-headed man was a Mr. Atkinson whom I learned later was a former United States Congressman and State Attorney General. Here began a friendship that made me forever grateful for the privilege of having known this wonderful man.

One day while I was visiting his law office, he asked me if I would be interested in either the Secret Service or the Internal Revenue Service. After learning that the Internal Revenue Service started you out at fifty dollars more than the Secret Service, I decided I would try this. I was sworn in the next day. This was during a time that most all jobs with the government were by political appointment. These jobs now require civil service examinations and have definite educational prerequisites. While with the Internal Revenue, I learned that most of the antagonism shown the bureau was the natural rebellion against any kind of authority plus the inability of the agent to show the taxpayer consideration. In the seven years that I was with the Internal Revenue Department and in contrast to all of the stories that were circulated, our instructions were always to compute taxes to the benefit of taxpayers.

In the close association with Mr. Atkinson I met Dr. King Vivian who was pastor of McKendress Church in Nashville. Mr. Atkinson often told me that when Dr. Vivian was in his office, he felt that there were three present, he, Dr. Vivian and God.

My wife and I were married September the First 1945 by Dr. King Vivian with Mr. Atkinson as best man and immediately left for Gatlinburg for our honeymoon. My wife was very unhappy over the fact that a reporter from Knoxville followed around taking pictures. I was so happy I wouldn’t have cared if they’d sold tickets.

Within the next two years we had settled down into the routine of the day to day living. I began to have a growing dissatisfaction with my job. It seemed that I was never in a position to help someone and that my contacts always resulted in leaving a financial hardship or an unhappy person. I had been wanting to go back to law school, so, on the spur of the moment, I resigned. I entered law school at Vanderbilt in 1947, ut here again I found myself dissatisfied. My wife had stopped work and even through we had some income, I decided to back to the Internal Revenue Service. Rather than go back to the Tennessee District, Florida sounded like an interesting place to live. I had a brother who had been practicing medicine there for several years. Here again was one of those chance happenings that changed our future lives. We were on our way to check a possible job at West Palm Beach and had to stop for the night at Orlando. The next morning I called the Chief to let him know that we were in Florida, and he asked me where we were. When we said Orlando, he suggested that we stay there. We stayed there for seven years and Orlando still, to us, is the garden spot of Florida.

On October the Fourteenth 1951 our existence was justified. Our son was born, as we carried him home from the hospital and I looked at him in his mother’s arms, I thought to myself, “Without a doubt that is the prettiest baby that was ever born.” I was grateful for every little thing in the course of my life that had given me direction to this place and time. As he began to grow, I would push him to town in his buggy. People would say, “He sure is a pretty baby,” and I’d say, “He sure is, isn’t he?” My wife would tell me that I shouldn’t say that. This I couldn’t understand because I thought so too.

Again I began to feel so badly about our tax structure that I began to develop ulcers from carrying other peoples’ problems home with me at night. Finally in 1954 I could take it no longer and we moved back to Nashville, Tennessee, where I went into the private tax business.

CHAPTER FIVE

Chapter V

As we rolled back into Bilibid, it seemed as if we were returning home. Even through war experiences there were mostly unpleasant, thirty- five years later I can close my eyes and see every detail of every building in the compound.

This time there was quite a bit of change in the Japanese guards. No longer were we slapped around for not bowing to them, but we even began to see an occasional gold toothed grin. This change of attitude plus underground rumors, convinced us that Americans were on their way. We still saw an occasional American plane, but otherwise things began to settle back into the old routine.

I think one of the most amazing things that I can remember is the old naval Chief Petty Officer and the old Master Sergeant who sat and watched the kitchen all day. The cooking was done in the open with only a covered top and open on all sides. The Japanese allowed the cooks to use two dippers to serve with. One was known as the “big dipper,” and the other one the “little dipper.” The old Master Sergeant would say, “Well, it looks like the big dipper tonight.” And the Chief would say, “Naw, it’s the little dipper,”. They would argue until mealtime about what size dipper they were going to sue. At that time there seemed to be nothing unusual about two old service men, covered with tattoos, sitting around exchanging menus.

Rumors persisted that Americans had landed in Southern Luzan. We heard that a company of rangers had gone in behind the Japanese lines and brought out the prisoners still left in Cabanatuan. Two or three days later we were assembled with the Japanese. The Japanese Major in charge of the camp informed us tha they were ebing assigned duties elsewhere and that they appreciated our cooperation since we had been their prisoners. They left us the key to the rice storage house and advised us not to leave the prison until we were contacted by American military.

That night the streets surrounding our prison seemed to be alive with tanks and the sound of war. The next day everything was so quiet that we began to wonder what had happened. Some of us were sitting on the grass not far from a boarded window in the prison wall when we heard a voice, “Hey, who’s in there?” Man, was that a good sound! We all shouted back in unison. They beat the boards off from outside. The uniforms had changed; the rifles had changed; they looked like men from Mars, but, they sure looked good.

They came in and immediately took off their packs and began to pull out rations. One of them gave me a small can of bacon grease, and I carried it back to my building thinking I would put it on my rice that evening. It still hadn’t occurred to me that I no longer had to eat rice. Field kitchens were immediately set up in the prison compound and cooks assigned twenty- four hours a day with orders to cook not only what we wanted but as much as we wanted. It was unbelievable what some of us managed to put away.

I was sitting at the field kitchen when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Before the war I had a Philippino who shined my shoes and pressed my uniform and did anything that I might ask him to do; and when the war started, somewhere along the line Jose’ and I became separated. Here he was as if the last three years had never been. He told me that during the war the Japanese had killed his wife and children. We heard that the Americans were bringing Japanese prisoners into the compound next door to the one we were in, and I asked Jose’ to go with me to see them. While going over Jose’ explained to me that helped me to realize why the Japanese soldiers seemed to fight with a suicidal verocity. When the Americans liberated us, they also liberated about a hundred Japanese who were being held prisoner as punishment for being captured. As we entered the other compound, a truckload of Japanese prisoners were being brought in. I don’t think I have ever seen a more ragged, bloodier group broken arms, head wounds, broken noses and numerous other wounds. As I was looking them over, I was thinking, “Oh yea, you dirty slobs, now you know how it feels.” I heard someone beside me say, “Poor devils.” I turned and looked at Jose’. He suddenly had taken on stature. Instead of the “houseboy” he was a forty-five year old adult who was showing me what true compassion really was I looked back at the Japanese prisoners, and all I could see was the pathetic site of beaten men. My mind went back to the beginning of our capture when a Japanese Major strutted up and down in front of a group of wounded American prisoners, and I hated him for it. Here I was doing the same thing that he had done.

We were confined to Bilibid proper for three days because the fighting within the city was so intense that it was not safe. The Japanese were fighting from building to building. One night we were awakened quite late and loaded into trucks and carried just outside the city. In the early morning we were loaded back up and moved into Bilibid. While interrogating a Japanese prisoner, they learned that the sewer system in the prison had been heavily mined, and that evidently the Japanese were waiting until theyfound a concentration of American troops in there before setting them off. They got us out, and with the help of the prisoners had picked up all the mines. This story was never authenticated but having no other explanation, we accepted it as true.

I suppose that according to most everyone one of the most outstanding experience that we should have had been when we stood at the foot of our sleeping pads and shok McArthur’s hand. It would have been, had it no been for the fact that he was surrounded with about ten guys with automatic rifles; and his famous “return” was filmed with him wading ashore smoking his corncob pipe three days after the beach head and not a Jap within a hundred miles. Part of us were flown to the Island Leyte where a camps was being maintained. It was at this camp that we were finally issued new clothing, new shoes and supplies that made us feel like we were again part of itall. During the few days that we remained in this camp, we began to adjust to having what we wanted to eat and to complete freedom. We were near the village of Tacloban where we spent many hours for no other reason except that we knew we could. After about a week there were twenty-four of us selected, all being amputees or severely handicapped as I was with a stiff leg. We were loaded on an old converted C-47 and started on a long trip back home. As I watched the islands fade away through the glass, I could not help but think, “Mabuhay and Republica Filipinas”, long live the Republic of the Philippines. About a thousand miles away from land, at a point of no return, one of our engines began to cough. Since all of us were afraid we would step off the plane and break our necks before we got home even without this engine trouble, the nurse went around and gave us all a shot. The pilot proved worthy of his responsibilities and after an overnight stop on some island, we glided smoothly down to a landing in San Francisco, California.