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To: Lorianne

My cousin endured the Bataan Death March, transport to Japan to work in coal mines, and was liberated early October 1945.

When he went to war he 5’8” 150 pounds; when repatriated he weighed 85 pounds. He died in 1976.

The Japanese have not yet made a proper repayment for their sins in that war. And in my eyes, they never will.


7 posted on 12/05/2014 8:17:21 PM PST by txnativegop (I'm out of ideas about tag lines.)
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To: txnativegop
My cousin endured the Bataan Death March, transport to Japan to work in coal mines, and was liberated early October 1945. When he went to war he 5’8” 150 pounds; when repatriated he weighed 85 pounds. He died in 1976. The Japanese have not yet made a proper repayment for their sins in that war. And in my eyes, they never will.

The Japanese were brutal to defeated soldiers, in the same way they've always been, even during various Japanese civil wars. Unlike the Germans, however, they did not systematically exterminate, like vermin, 12m civilians who weren't fighting them. The Bataan atrocity occurred in large part because Japan was a poor country (1/9 the US GDP per capita, the rough equivalent of Nigeria doing a Pearl Harbor today) punching above its weight militarily. They had a choice between starvation rations for all (their soldiers and POW's) and feeding their soldiers adequately while starving the POW's. They chose to feed their soldiers.

The Germans never had a problem feeding POW's because they were a wealthy nation roughly at parity with the US on a GDP per capita basis. (This was how Germany managed to kill 300K Americans compared to the 100K killed by the Japanese). And yet the Germans felt compelled - on a whim - to exterminate 12 million civilians who were not fighting them or even associated with resistance movements.

18 posted on 12/05/2014 9:03:05 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: txnativegop
7 My cousin endured the Bataan Death March, transport to Japan to work in coal mines, and was liberated early October 1945.

My maternal grandmother had a cousin who also survived the Bataan Death March and a Hell Ship to Japan. He perished there, and his remains were later re-intered at that big military cemetery outside of Manilla, PI.

34 posted on 12/05/2014 11:49:03 PM PST by MacNaughton (" If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." POTUS#16 ALincoln)
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To: txnativegop; Lorianne; 2ndDivisionVet; zot; Interesting Times

A late member of our church was also either a Bataan Death March survivor or was captured on Corregidor and survived as a POW.


40 posted on 12/06/2014 6:58:23 AM PST by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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