U.S.A.
April 17, 2017
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
Filipino Bataan Death March survivors mark 75th anniversary
By Janie Har
The Associated Press
AP Photo/Eric Risberg
AP Photo/File
S
AN FRANCISCO — Ramon
Regalado was starving and sick
with malaria when he slipped away
from his Japanese captors during the
infamous 1942 Bataan Death March in the
Philippines, escaping a brutal trudge
through a steamy jungle that killed
hundreds of Americans and thousands of
Filipinos who fought for the U.S. during
World War II.
The former wartime machine-gun
operator joined a dwindling band of
veterans of the war in San Francisco’s
Presidio to honor the soldiers who died on
the march and those who made it to a
prisoner of war camp only to die there.
They commemorated the mostly Filipino
soldiers who held off Japanese forces in the
Philippines for three months without
supplies of food or ammunition before a
U.S. Army major general surrendered
75,000 troops to Japan on April 9, 1942.
Few Americans are aware of the
Filipinos who were starving as they
relentlessly fended off the more powerful
and well-supplied Japanese forces, said
Cecilia Gaerlan, executive director of the
Berkeley, California-based Bataan Legacy
Historical Society organizing the event at
the former military fort.
“Despite fighting without any air
support and without any reinforcement,
they disrupted the timetable of the
Imperial Japanese army,” she said. “That
was their major role, to perform a delaying
action. And they did that beyond expecta-
tions.”
More than 250,000 Filipino soldiers
served in World War II, when the Philip-
pines was a U.S. territory. But after the
war ended, President Harry Truman
signed laws that stripped away promises
of benefits and citizenship for Filipino
veterans.
Only recently have they won back some
concessions and acknowledgment, in-
cluding the nation’s highest civilian honor,
the Congressional Gold Medal. The
veterans also received lump-sum pay-
ments as part of the 2009 stimulus law.
An estimated 18,000 Filipino veterans of
World War II are still alive and living in
the U.S.
Tens of thousands of Filipino and U.S.
troops were forced on the 65-mile march
and Gaerlan said as many as 650
Americans and 10,000 Filipinos died in the
stifling heat and at the hands of Japanese
soldiers who shot, bayonetted, or beat
soldiers who fell or stopped for water.
More than 80 percent of those forced on
the march were Filipino.
After they arrived at a prison camp set
up at Camp O’Donnell, she said, an
additional 1,600 Americans and 20,000
Filipinos died from dysentery, starvation,
and disease.
Gaerlan grew up knowing that her
father, Luis Gaerlan Jr., had been in a
wartime march in which a lot of people had
died. But he rarely spoke about it or he
would re-enact it with rat-a-tat-tat sound
DEATH MARCH REMEMBRANCE. In this
1942 file photo (top), American and Filipino prisoners
of war captured by the Japanese are shown at the
start of the Bataan Death March after the surrender of
Bataan on April 9 during World War II, near Mariveles
in the Philippines. Hundreds of American soldiers and
thousands of Filipinos died along the way. In the bot-
tom photo, survivor Ramon Regalado looks over a
map showing where he marched, with Cecilia Gaerlan
outside his home in El Cerrito, California. Survivors of
the infamous march marked the anniversary in San
Francisco with speeches and a 21-gun battery salute
to the thousands who died.
effects for the guns that made her laugh.
She started researching the march in
2011 and tried to elicit more details from
her father. He broke down crying, telling
her that some men were so desperate that
they killed themselves. Others wrote
goodbye letters to their relatives during
the march.
“And he said he was starting to write his
farewell letter, because a lot of men did
that, and I asked him, ‘Well, were you
going to take your own life?” she said. “And
he didn’t answer.”
Gaerlan’s father died in 2014 at age 94.
She successfully lobbied California last
year to mandate teaching details of the
battle and march in high schools.
She also collects march veterans’ stories
before they die, including the memories of
99-year-old Regalado, who lives in the San
Francisco suburb of El Cerrito.
When the war broke out, Regalado was a
member of the Philippine Scouts, a
military branch of the U.S. Army for
Filipino soldiers.
He and two other soldiers were assigned
to feed horses during the march and
slipped away when guards were not
watching them, Regalado said.
A farmer took in the three, even though
the penalty for doing so was death. All
were sick with malaria. Only Regalado
survived.
He went on to join a guerrilla resistance
movement against the Japanese and
moved in 1950 to the San Francisco Bay
Area to work for the U.S. military.
Regalado credits his survival and long
life to his high morale.
While being cared for by the farmer, he
recalls telling himself: “I’m not going to
die.”
Lawyer says dragged passenger lost two teeth and broke his nose
By Don Babwin and Sara Burnett
The Associated Press
C
HICAGO — The passenger dragged
from a United Airlines flight lost two
front teeth and suffered a broken nose
and a concussion, his lawyer said, accusing the
airline industry of having “bullied” its
customers for far too long.
“Are we going to continue to be treated like
cattle?” attorney Thomas Demetrio asked.
The passenger, Dr. David Dao, has been
released from a hospital but will need recon-
structive surgery, Demetrio said at a news
conference, appearing alongside one of Dao’s
children. Dao was not there.
The 69-year-old physician from Elizabeth-
town, Kentucky, was removed by police from
the United Express flight at Chicago’s O’Hare
Airport after refusing to give up his seat on the
full plane to make room for four airline
employees.
Cellphone video of him being pulled down the
aisle on his back and footage of his bloody face
have created a public-relations nightmare for
United.
One of Dao’s five children, Crystal Pepper,
said the family was “horrified, shocked, and
sickened” by what happened. She said it was
made worse by the fact that it was caught on
video.
For Dao, who came to the U.S. after fleeing
Vietnam by boat in 1975 when Saigon fell, being
dragged off the plane “was more horrifying and
harrowing than what he experienced in leaving
Vietnam,” Demetrio said.
Demetrio, who indicated Dao is going to sue,
said the industry has long “bullied” passengers
by overbooking flights and then bumping
people, and “it took something like this to get a
conversation going.”
“I hope he becomes a poster child for all of us.
Someone’s got to,” the lawyer said.
Early on, United CEO Oscar Munoz added to
the furor when he apologized for the incident
but accused Dao of being belligerent. Later,
Munoz offered a more emphatic mea culpa,
saying, “No one should ever be mistreated this
way.”
He promised to review the airline’s policies to
make sure something like that never happens
again, and said United will no longer use police
to remove bumped passengers. The airline also
said all passengers on the flight would get a
refund.
In a statement issued immediately after the
news conference, United insisted that Munoz
and the airline called Dao numerous times to
apologize. Munoz himself said he had left a
message for Dao.
But Demetrio said neither Dao nor his family
had heard from United.
Demetrio said his client accepts the apology.
But the attorney questioned its sincerity,
suggesting United acted because it was taking a
PR “beating.”
The attorney was unable to say precisely how
Dao was injured. Dao didn’t remember exactly
what occurred because of the concussion he
suffered, Demetrio said.
Pepper said her father and mother had been
travelling from California to Louisville,
Kentucky, and had caught a connecting flight at
O’Hare. After what happened, Dao “has no
interest in ever seeing an airplane” and will
probably be driven to Kentucky, Demetrio said.
United had selected Dao and three other
passengers at random for removal from the
plane after unsuccessfully offering $800 in
travel vouchers and a hotel stay to customers
willing to give up their seats.
The three officers who removed Dao have
been suspended from their jobs at the Chicago
Aviation Department.
At a city council committee hearing,
aldermen ripped into officials from United and
the department about the episode.
“There are no excuses,” alderman Michael
Zalewski said.
John Slater, a United vice president, said
that bumping passengers to accommodate
airline employees happens infrequently, and
that federal guidelines requiring rest for crew
members made it necessary to get the
employees on the flight to Louisville.
The Aviation Department’s roughly 300
officers guard the city’s two main airports but
are not part of the regular Chicago police force,
receive less training, and cannot carry guns
inside the terminals.
“To be quite frank, Chicago employees should
not be doing the dirty work for the friendly skies
airline,” said alderman Ed Burke, who played
video of Dao being removed.
Aviation commissioner Ginger Evans told the
committee that the officers had the authority to
board the flight but that what happened on the
plane is being investigated.
My Turn:
Refuge from war
Continued from page 6
these stories with the portrayals
of the original interviews
performed by teen actors. Each
performance is followed by a
panel discussion with former
refugees. In collaboration with
Sophorn Cheang of the IRCO Asian
Family Center and Coi Vu of the
Multnomah County Library,
Refugee Dreams Revisited is being
featured at three Multnomah
County libraries. The shows take
place at 2:00pm on May 28 at the
North Portland Library, at 4:00pm
on June 11 at the Central Library,
and at 4:00pm on June 17 at
Midland Library. The project
closes June 24 at 2:00pm with
a celebration at IRCO, located at
10301 N.E. Glisan Street in
Portland. To learn more
about the events, visit
<www.mediarites.org>.
TALKING STORY IN
ASIAN AMERICA
n Polo
Polo’s “Talking Story”
column will return soon.