Survivor: Who will you honor?

Michael Jackson made an album called "Survivor."

Bert Bank was 94 years old and a survivor of The Bataan Death March in WWII.

They both just met their Maker.

What was the Bataan Death March?

78,000 prisoners were taken captive in the Philippines by the Japanese and forced to march over a 100 miles in the tropical heat. Beheadings, cut throats and casual shootings were the more common and merciful actions - compared to bayonet stabbings, rapes, disembowelments, numerous rifle butt beatings and a deliberate refusal to allow the prisoners food or water while keeping them continually marching for nearly a week (for the slowest survivors like General Jacob Vass) in tropical heat. Falling down or inability to continue moving was tantamount to a death sentence, as was any degree of protest or expression of displeasure.

Prisoners were attacked for assisting someone failing due to weakness, or for no apparent reason whatsoever. Strings of Japanese trucks were known to drive over anyone who fell. Riders in vehicles would casually stick out a rifle bayonet and cut a string of throats in the lines of men marching alongside the road. Accounts of being forcibly marched for five to six days with no food and a single sip of water are in postwar archives including filmed reports

78,000 started the march. 54,000 finished it. Out of the 54,000 who made it to the POW camp, 1 out of every 6 died by the end of the war. For those who survived, the average body weight loss was about 35%. So if a man weighed 150 lbs when it began, he weighed about 98 lbs when it was over.

Later he wrote about his experience as a Bataan Death March survivor in his book “Back From the Living Dead.”

Thank you Mr. Bank. I appreciate what you did.

Today I choose to honor you.