SEMPER FI
Norm
Posted on 04/11/2002 3:40:20 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Published Thursday
11, 2002
Michelle Malkin: Filipinos stand with America
BY MICHELLE MALKIN
WASHINGTON - To your average Howard Stern fan, the Philippines is a carnival land of shoe-crazy, dog-eating jungle dwellers who are a perennial source of cheap jokes.
Some Americans know better. Just ask the thousands of surviving U.S. soldiers who fought with Filipinos against the Japanese during World War II. Many returned to the Philippines to mark the 60th anniversary of the fall of Bataan and the commencement of the Bataan Death March.
"Despite our bittersweet memories, we still see the Philippines as our second home," wrote death-march survivor Steve Raymond in a series on his return to the country for The Tampa Tribune.
Veterans from both countries, says retired Maj. Richard M. Gordon, a death-march survivor, share a common belief that "freedom is not free." Gordon is a member of "Battling Bastards of Bataan," an organization that reminds us "that the precepts of courage, devotion to duty and sacrifice displayed by the men and women of Bataan, both Filipino and American, have not and will not become outmoded."
As many of our so-called allies go wobbly in the war on terror, it's worth remembering who in the world stood shoulder to shoulder with us in the past - and who walks the talk today.
More than 100,000 Filipino soldiers (including my maternal grandfather) under Gen. Douglas MacArthur joined the battle against the Japanese. Thousands more Filipinos took up arms as guerrillas, providing intelligence to MacArthur's forces and rescuing downed U.S. airmen.
On April 9, 1942, 76,000 Filipino and American soldiers had to surrender to Japanese troops at Bataan. For the next 10 days, in insufferable heat, the Japanese marched the prisoners 65 miles through jungles and on to concentration camps at Cabanatuan.
Japanese soldiers committed atrocities against their white and brown captives - from cigarette burns to water and food deprivation, bayonet stabbings, fatal beatings and decapitation. Some 25,000 Filipinos and 2,500 Americans died behind barbed wire. By war's end, more than 1.1 million Filipinos, soldiers and civilians alike, had sacrificed their lives.
"In the defense of Bataan from February to April 1942, the cause to which you were called was the defense of the freedom of the United States and the Philippines," U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardo noted in a speech last month to march survivors. "Sixty years later, our governments, our two peoples and our soldiers once again stand shoulder to shoulder in that same cause. This time the enemy is not a racist, militarist aggressor empire but international terrorism born of hate, ignorance, fanaticism, corruption and poverty."
In the native language of the Philippines, the word for that willingness to bear a shared burden, side by side, is balikatan. It describes the spirit that united U.S. and Filipino heroes who suffered and died together six decades ago. It is also the code name of the joint military exercise now being held in the southern Philippines where rebels tied to al-Qaida have held two American missionaries more than 10 months.
Both countries have their naysayers and nitpickers - intellectual elites, media critics, politicians and celebrities who oppose any military intervention. But among ordinary citizens, there is overwhelming support for Operation Balikatan. Polls show 85 percent of Filipinos support U.S. assistance to defeat the rebels. A recent New York Times report described a scene in the city of Zamboanga that bears repeating:
"Under a hot morning sun, nearly 2,000 residents turned out - grandmothers, students, government employees, the unemployed. They sang and prayed, waving Philippine and American flags and placards. It was the largest rally here in many years, residents said.
"After two hours, the rally was over. It ended with a long line of men and women on the platform, many in baseball caps, including one with the New York Yankees logo, leading the demonstrators in a song. With their arms in the air, swaying, the demonstrators sang 'America the Beautiful.' All the verses."
That's balikatan. Would that we knew more of it here at home.
Bump for that! Malkin isn't as flamboyant as Ann, but she sure does make some great points.
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