Pass HR 760, the Filipino Veterans Equity Act NOW!

I got into it a little the other day with a buddy over whether Filipino WWII veterans should be considered for increased benefits or not. The conversation came up because of a current bill titled House Resolution 760, called the Filipino Veterans Equity Act. He doesn’t have anything against the old WWII guys, but my "misguided friend" feels that only American citizen U.S. veterans should have first crack at what little of the VA benefit pie is available.

In one way, I understand one of his beefs. He argues that the Philippines does very little for the few thousands of these aging fellows that are still left, and he says these guys ARE, after all, Filipino citizens.

(At one time I believe the WCC (war claims commission) counted 2 or 3 million of "them," as having served under the direction of the US military, until they decided to stop counting in the late 1940s when the numbers got "too high").

The old WWII vets here are paid a scant 5000 pesos a month (about $111) by their own government. Yet the Charge d’ Affairs to the United States, Carlos D. Sorreta, had the temerity to “testify” to our Congress:

“Mr. Chairman, the Philippine Government and the Filipino people continue to maintain that the Filipino soldiers who fought and served under the US Army during WWII specifically during the period July 1941 to October 1945, are US veterans under then existing US laws and are entitled to all benefits due a US veteran. We make this call based on assertions that are supported by clear facts and historical records.

We therefore welcome the filing and urge the passage of HR760 and its companion bill in the Senate, S57, into law, to restore veterans’ benefits that were removed by PL79-301 (the Rescission Act of 1940).”

Part of what upsets me about this Philippine official chiding and lecturing our government is that its not like we’ve done nothing for these guys. In the past the American government handed over several millions in dollars to the Philippine government for the benefaction of their WWII vets. I’d love to see exactly where all that money went over the years. Government accounting being what it is here, or isn’t, I don’t think the advocates of the old veterans would be very happy with what they’d find.

Aside from the question of what was done with all those millions meant exclusively for these honorable old WWII vets and my resentment at the scolding given to the US congress by a representative of “the steward” of those funds, I am STILL completely IN FAVOR OF the passage of this bill—and the sooner the better.

I wrote an earlier post about an entirely different issue concerning "Justice for WWII Filipino Vets." Unfortunately, HR 760 will do nothing to fix this even more serious problem. In a nutshell, there are veterans who did not feel it necessary to get “counted” by the War Claims Commission (WCC) canvassers when they crisscrossed the Philippines back in 1946 and thereabouts. These veterans KNEW they had served; after all, they had (and have) their discharges signed by American officers, their wounds and battle experiences were still fresh in their minds and on their bodies, and they didn’t see the need to find a WCC “bean counter” to report to. All most of them wanted to do was to get on with their lives. The result is that many who actually served are not considered veterans no matter how much documentation they have since the US VA insists that ONLY their inclusion on the WCC list constitutes US veterans status. It’s the most ridiculous, dishonest, and unjust thing I can think of. In fact, it’s much worse even than the injustices supposed to be corrected by HR 760.

On the HR 760 topic, here’s a little more background: For the vets who qualified for disability compensation and medical assistance, the VA has a clinic for them in Pasay, Manila; and actually, a clinic has been in place here for them since the end of WWII. To qualify for those disability and medical benefits, they needed to show that their medical conditions directly resulted from their active duty service—easier said than done I’m here to say. The rest of them would have to use the Philippine veteran’s hospitals as they got older and sicklier, and that, I think, is where the bulk of the monies are supposed to have been spent (or more likely squandered) that I spoke of above.

And now the crux of HR 760: Currently, the only WWII Filipino veterans being paid any US VA monies are the ones disabled by service-connected conditions. Those are the guys who were able to show that they had illnesses or wounds resulting from their service as I describe in the preceding paragraph above. What HR 760 is supposed to do is to provide “war pensions” to ALL WWII Filipino veterans. Even so, our congress only wants to pay them less than half of what we pay US veterans for the same sort of pension.

So, why should we pay these guys their pensions? Well, looking at the history and circumstances of how these fellows happened to serve is the best way to argue for them. I’ll provide an example of how one of my best friends, Baldomero, happened to find himself in the uniform of the United States Army of the Far East. He was recruited in spite of his tender age of 16, the recruiter having instructed him to lie about his birth date to prevent problems. It was September 1941--the Japanese invasion was just over two months away. Baldomero and his mates were put through a rigorously concentrated training course because his American officers and sergeants knew that war was just over the horizon.

Now, mind you, these fellows weren’t asked to serve in the Philippine Commonwealth Army; they served as soldiers for the US Army. Their commander was THE MAN himself, General Douglas Macarthur. These young Filipinos had put their full trust into the hands of arguably the most qualified and famous American military man alive. Looking ahead, if they had known they were being asked to serve in a half-assed delaying operation, which is what FDR had in mind for these guys all along, including the thousands of American troops serving alongside them, I’m sure most of them would have had second thoughts about signing on to serve, but serve they did.

I won’t go into the horrible events of the 4-month siege of Bataan (Dec 41-April 42), and the subsequent “Death March,” all of which involved bitter fighting and ghastly suffering; but these guys DID their duty. In fact, compared to the weak showing of the Brits and Aussies at Singapore, these inexperienced young Filipinos and their American mates fought the battle-hardened troops from Japan to a standstill. They only surrendered after their food and ammo ran out, and even at that, they had to be ordered to surrender. Just the same, Filipinos continued to voluntarily join and fight on as guerillas under American control, even knowing that if they were captured that it meant immediate execution, if they were lucky that is.

By comparison, I have assisted US veterans to obtain their much larger pension after they had done almost no real service at all, at least compared to what some of these Filipino vets went through. To qualify for a pension an American veteran must have served 90 days during a “period of war.” Notice that it says “served” and “period of war;” it doesn’t mean they needed to have fought in a war zone or to have even been part of even an iota of warfare. I assisted one US vet who was in for a total of 4 months and was discharged because of a medical problem, yet this man is now receiving a pension for the rest of his life. Why is this fellow any more deserving of that benefit than one of these Filipino U.S. war vets?

The sponsors of HR 760 and its senate counterpart are all democrats, mostly out of Hawaii, California and Guam. I’m ashamed to say that Republicans have turned this into a partisan issue. They say they are against the bill based on “higher priorities” and are doing their part in squashing the bill by holding up this important piece of legislation from passage. All I can say is that lately Republicans have been doing a lot of idiotic things like this and I’ve just about had enough. I’ve mostly voted Republican since 1976, and if I find that one of my legislators doesn’t support this bill then my vote will definitely go elsewhere. Hey you guys, if you want my continued support then you need to start backing the “right” horses, and there is nothing more “right” than this one.

Speaking of priorities, the youngest Filipino WWII vet that I know is over 80 years old. They are dropping like flies and soon bills like HR 760 will be moot. Is that what the opponents of this crucial legislation want—to continue to stall until the last of these US veterans are gone? And by the way, these guys ARE US veterans; that is according to the VA’s own regulations, which describe them as such. It’s time to start treating them like the rest of us U.S. vets, and right the wrongs of the past. This bill would make a nice start.

Historical "Explosion" in the Gym

Sometimes I get a little too smug and reactionary for my own good. Today, in the gym, my friend, Saul, and I were giving each other a good-natured ribbing, as usual. I challenged him to go two days without using the F word, at least while he’s around me. About then one of his drinking buddies from Canada came in. Turns out, his name is Rob from Ottawa.

Shaking hands, I told him about my own connections to Canada. My mom was born in Toronto and we still have cousins there. On my dad’s side, we have family that was forced off their Toronto farmstead by the Brits (Tories) after they hung my triple great grandfather, Samuel Lount, in 1838 for treason.

Rob kicked in, almost with a snarl, that he had family killed also, only by Americans way back when. Now that sounded interesting to me so I pressed him a little for details. He said it was during the border skirmishes of the War of 1812.

“Interesting,” I told him, “my family name changed a little because of that war. Originally, our last name, which is Scottish in origin, was spelled with an “i,” but after we beat the British, in a swell of patriotism one of my ancestors changed the “i” to an “a” after “America.””

Rob could have cared less. “You didn’t win that war, we did—the British.”

Oh my! Fighting words! I practically exploded on him. Before I knew it, I was only a foot away from him, full of challenge and ready to debate.

“How can you possibly say the United States lost the War of 1812? We fought the Brits to a standstill,” I let him know vociferously.

To his credit, Rob didn’t back down and came back at me. “Well, we invaded (notice the “we?”) your soil and burned down your capital. Of course we won the war.”

I was having none of that… “Sure, they burned down the White House, but we ended up defeating that same British force as they marched on Baltimore. Hell, we killed their commander!

(“The Star Spangled Banner,” penned by Francis Scott Key, was written on a British ship during an attempt by those same “dastardly” English to force the capitulation of Baltimore by bombardment from the sea, which also failed, just like the British attempt to attack over land.)

I couldn’t help myself; I ranted on: “You know Rob, the English forced that war on us. They were upset that their sailors were deserting in huge numbers during their war with France whenever their ships made port in the U.S.. To teach us a lesson, they forced hundreds, maybe thousands of American sailors into “service” onto their navy and mercantile ships. It was a case of the Americans standing up to British bullying. They were basically enslaving our people on their ships. Damn, it was piracy man!”

Saul was getting a little uneasy with my tirade and tried to get me to ease up a little, but I wasn’t ready to calm down. I continued…

“Rob, ever hear of the Battle of New Orleans? Now THOSE particular British troops had just come across the Atlantic after beating the pants off of Napoleon. So, naturally, they were feeling their oats and THAT was their mistake—they underestimated us! Andrew Jackson smashed those overconfident Redbellies and threw them all back into the Gulf of Mexico.”

Saul was still trying to calm me down a little, “Phil, Phil…”

I kept at it, “To say the British won the War of 1812 is to re-write history man! WE won that war dude. Google it Rob.”

Rob, ever calm but looking a little hard-pressed, answered me in a placative manner, “Well, no one ever really wins in any war…”

I snorted, “Yah, Yah, right! If you say so…”

I started feeling a little foolish and began to think maybe I need to increase my meds by a dose or two. Later on, I approached him in a calmer manner and we talked of “normal” things. Still, I think he’s a bit leery of me now. I need to watch that.

Nevertheless, I was curious about his claim that the Brits won the War of 1812. Rob is a schoolteacher, he’s not an uneducated fellow, and so I did a little more research on what I thought was a very weird assertion. I mean, MAYBE I AM wrong... Sure enough, I found that Canadian history books actually claim that the Canadians and British defeated the Americans in that war! Ah Hah!

The reason they teach this quirky (or maybe not so quirky) account of the past is that at the beginning of the war the inexperienced and unprofessional American militia, mostly recruited from the unenthusiastic Northeast--lacking decent leadership and armed with poor weapons while dependent on even poorer logistics--were indeed forced into retreat. So, the fact that the half-hearted American attempt to invade Canadian territory WAS beaten back is THE reason Canadians teach and believe what they do concerning the result of the War of 1812.

Not yet knowing any of the above, but wanting to offer an olive branch, I endeavored to engage Rob in some less hostile conversation. I asked him if he’d ever heard of the Canadian Rebellion of 1837 in Toronto. He never had, and so has never heard of my triple great grandfather Samuel Lount, a good man who was found guilty of treason and hung by the Brits in 1838.

His last words on the gallows were, “"Be of good courage boys, I am not ashamed of anything I've done, I trust in God, and I'm going to die like a man."

Hmmm. Well, obviously Rob is an Anglophile, so I suppose it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to concentrate too much on some of the more distasteful aspects of past English rule in Canada, or that of their loyalist partners.

Funny what can come of a seemingly innocent meeting between two North Americans in a neutral location, such as a gym in Angeles City.

(Incidentally, in a way, Rob was right. By all accounts, the Treaty of Ghent basically reestablished status quo borders from before the beginning of the war, and The Brits agreed to stop fomenting and supporting the Indians against American settlers moving west. Their war with France was over and so they had already stopped kidnapping our sailors.

Even more interesting for me though, is that the War of 1812 caused a surge of nationalism in both Canada and the United States. No wonder Canadians teach their children that they won that war. In an important way, THEY did. If things had gone differently, there is a good chance that Canadians would be speaking American today! (grin)

But seriously, at the time, most Americans (like my name-changing forebears) felt a great sense of pride in having bested so often during that war the world’s most powerful armed force, and for the SECOND time, by TWO different generations!)

A "Real" Hero vs. a "Reel" One

This year marks the 100^th anniversary of John Wayne’s birth. It was also 100 years ago that my Uncle Bud was born. Both men were contemporaries, but by age only; because based on what they did with their lives during the 2^nd World War, they had very little else in common.

I was thumbing through a VFW magazine the other day and came upon a full-page advertisement for a product featuring John Wayne; I think it was for a commemorative knife or a plaque or something. The gist of the ad was that Wayne is perhaps the most famous and beloved of all our American heroes. Thing is, I just don’t see him that way, although I very much used to.

I remember the exact day that John Wayne died of cancer on June 11, 1979. I remember it so well because my daughter was born that same night in the wee hours of June 12^th. I was in the marines at the time and I recall how one old master sergeant was actually in tears and stayed in mourning for days, his eyes reddened from weeping at the loss of his “hero.” Just goes to show that some folks really loved and venerated this man. I was always a big fan as well, and I still am, but only of his movies and for his love of country. But as far as him being a figure worthy of hero-worship—for me, no way.

That little mournful marine master sergeant, nicknamed “Mouse” for his diminutive size, would probably have tried to kick my butt had I offered such an opinion to him, but I stick to my guns.

When World War II started for the USA in December of ’41, “The Duke” and my Uncle Bud were 34 years old. John Wayne’s movie studio didn’t want him running off to war the way virtually every other actor on all the film lots were doing; so the story goes that strings were pulled, at least for a while, to keep their biggest star out of uniform by getting him an A-2 draft rating due to his family status. This was not a permanent rating and as the war progressed he could have been drafted.

Age was certainly not a factor; after all, actor Clark Gable was 40 years old when the war started and he served as a tail gunner in combat. Henry Fonda was two years older than Wayne and served in the Navy. James Stewart was a year younger and served in the Air Force as a bomber pilot, accruing 20 missions in the deadly skies over Europe. Dozens of other established film stars also heeded their country’s call, and many saw combat, such as Eddie Albert, already 35 and an established film star at the beginning of the war. At Tarawa with the Navy, Eddie won The Bronze Star as a landing boat skipper after rescuing 70 marines under heavy machine gun fire.

No, big John Wayne, our nation’s most renowned war hero—at least on film—kept putting off “going in.” There was always another movie that needed finishing, and evidently, before he knew it, the war was over.

My Uncle Bud didn’t have a wife and family or an “important film career” to keep him out of the service. Nope, he was just a single guy, a humble electrician. His claim to fame was that he wired hundreds of Michigan homes and farms in Sanilac County during the “electrification” projects of the 1930s and 40s.

Not long after the war started Bud was drafted. With his years of experience as a skilled electrician he probably could have gotten a technical job; but no, he volunteered for glider infantry, specifically as a glider pilot with the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment. He very nearly didn’t survive the hazardous training, but he earned his wings and headed to England in preparation for the invasion of Europe.

Ever watch the movie “Saving Private Ryan?” There is a part in it where Tom Hank’s squad passes through a field of crashed gliders and scores of dead and wounded glider infantrymen. That might have been Bud’s outfit. He survived the June 6^th D-Day glider landings into France and subsequent combat, as well as the September landings and fighting in Holland during the Market Garden campaign. As a sergeant, once he landed his glider, he became a normal infantry squad leader, guiding his men in combat.

Bud’s string ran out on Dec 20, 1944 in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. On December 18^th he and his men had been hurriedly trucked into the crossroads town of Bastogne given the task of holding off thousands of Germans during a surprise attack called “The Battle of the Bulge.” Two days later he was killed in a defensive fighting position, also known as a “fox hole,” in the pine forests just outside of the town. A tiny piece of shrapnel pierced his spine, killing him instantly. At least that’s what the sergeant told my great grandmother when he came to Kingston escorting Bud’s body back home to Michigan. During the burial ceremony, that battle-hardened sergeant wept unashamedly saying his last goodbye with a final salute to his friend, my uncle.

Actually—“The Duke”—John Wayne, went through the rest of his life feeling enormous guilt that he had never found the time, or perhaps the courage, to serve. In fact, he sought the rest of his life to honor men like my uncle by representing them in the best possible light on the silver screen. Wayne did a marvelous job accomplishing that because he turned out to be the best military recruiter that never served.

Before I fully knew who my Uncle Bud was and what he had done in the war, I KNEW who John Wayne was, and I joined the Marines just like countless others seeking to be just like him. So, whenever I see “The Duke” on screen “acting” like a war hero, NOW I am reminded of my Uncle Bud, a “real” war hero versus the “reel” one that was John Wayne.

Somehow, I don't think Bud would have held it against him, so neither will I. May they both rest in peace and never be forgotten, ESPECIALLY my Uncle Bud, a real hero.