No Glory in Captivity: Remembering the Bataan Death March

“I don’t think there’s any glory in being a prisoner of war, and I’d made up my mind, when it looked desperate …I told everybody: ‘I’m not going to march in the prison camp. If I have to die, I’m going to die in the attempt or I’ll die free. But, I’m not going to go in prison camp, no glory in being a prisoner.'”
— Leon Beck, Bataan Death March Survivor

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Endless Sun and Pain

In the end, it was just sun and pain—
endless thirst and a staggering trail
of dirty, foul bodies trudging along.

“The Battling Bastards of Bataan,
No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam.”

No lone individuals, just a throng
of once-proud American soldiers
who had surrendered their guns.

“No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces.”

Now dying beneath foreign suns,
beside their Filipino compatriots,
they became mindless, animalistic.

“No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces.”

Herded like oxen, goaded with stick,
from Mariveles to San Fernando,
where they boarded the prison camp train.

“And nobody gives a damn!”

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A Soldier’s Duty to Resist

“We were taught [that] you had a moral, legal, and ethical responsibility if you were ever captured, that you should make an attempt to escape and if that attempt was successful, you had to continue to resist your enemy, until such time as you could rejoin friendly forces. That’s the way it was taught to us, every time they read the Articles of War to us. So, I’ve tried to fulfill that. I enlisted voluntarily and I felt I had a responsibility and I tried to fulfill it.”
— Leon Beck, Bataan Death March Survivor

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The Legacy of the Battling Bastards

“The Battling Bastards of Bataan,
No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn!”
— Frank Hewlett, 1942

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Lou, a Christian grateful for Jesus’ gift to him, was born and raised in the western hills of Maine, then spent 20 plus years wandering the country and world in the United States Air Force. Maine Department of American Legion’s Historian, he is a photographer and stringer for The Maine Trust for Local News, published poet and short story writer who pens faith-based devotionals. He lives in Rumford, Maine. He is author of an anthology of poems based upon his military career entitled: Dimly Seen Through The Mists, and a book of faith-based poems entitled: My Lighthouse In Troubled Times, available through Pen It! Publications. He can be reached at mbsphotog@yahoo.com or his Facebook Page.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.