Acknowledging a POW's Sacrifice
 

HC - sent this to me and he's not posting as much as he used to here lately. So in behalf of HC and his dedication to our Country's issues - I'm posting it here for all to read. I can relate to the WWII guys and gals as my family had two brother's (Dad and Uncle) serve during this time. Both are gone now but in memory of them and the remaining WWII folks I felt this tribute would mean much to them - as it does for HC and myself.


----- Original Message -----
From: Rick Tavares
To: Rick Tavares
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 4:02 PM
Subject: Acknowledging a POW’s sacrifice


Acknowledging a POW’s sacrifice
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new..._purple_heart/



Decades after their deaths, they are eligible for Purple Heart
By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff | August 2, 2009

EPPING, N.H. - The World War II mess kit still gleams when the sun strikes its aluminum, a treasured family keepsake that bears hundreds of tiny markings chiseled in secret in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

The etchings form a cross, the letters R.I.P., and the date, Dec. 28, 1942: the day when an Epping farmboy, Private Joseph Norman St. Laurent, died in the Philippines after surviving the Bataan Death March, the hell of a prison ship, and a scavenger’s diet of worms, grubs, cats, and monkeys.

If St. Laurent had died in combat, he would have been awarded a Purple Heart, a presidential honor to acknowledge the sacrifices of those killed or wounded while serving with the military. But because he perished in captivity, St. Laurent and 12,000 other US veterans who died in prison camps in World War II never received that recognition.

Now, more than six decades later, the Defense Department has expanded its criteria for the medal to include any POW who died in captivity after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result, in the first ceremony of its kind in the nation, the next-of-kin of many of the 61 prisoners from New Hampshire who died during World War II and the Korean War will gather at the state veterans cemetery Aug. 8 to honor their long-deceased loved ones.

“I feel that they should have gotten the Purple Heart 60 years ago,’’ said Paul St. Laurent, 81, who vividly remembers the day his older brother, one of 11 children, entered the Army Air Corps in December 1940.

To Allan Gavan, one of the organizers, the occasion is a chance to commemorate the sacrifice of prisoners who often suffered brutal mistreatment and deprivation at the hands of their captors.

“We don’t like to cry about it,’’ said Gavan, 85, of Moultonborough, who was captured by German soldiers in October 1944 in France. “We’re just grateful for this kind of recognition for this bunch.’’

Gavan, who has helped spearhead the effort to locate the relatives of slain POWs from New Hampshire, said the suffering of prisoners is no less deserving of notice than the horrors inflicted by combat.

“They gave their lives in the service of their country,’’ Gavan said of the prisoners. “You can be wounded by starving to death, if you will, or by dying from a disease, or by being beheaded or shot’’ while in captivity.

“It doesn’t matter what the cause was,’’ Gavan added. “It just took the government a long time to act on it.’’

The effort to stage the memorial ceremony hit a snag when New Hampshire coordinators ran afoul of a national organization of Purple Heart recipients by making plans to procure the medals and distribute them at the ceremony. Presenting medals without prior individual approval from the Defense Department would have broken the law, said John Leonard, national adjutant of the Military Order of the Purple Heart USA. In the New Hampshire cases, Leonard said, an application for a Purple Heart must be submitted to the appropriate military branch for verification before a medal is awarded.

After Leonard complained to federal officials, the New Hampshire organizers agreed to forgo a presentation of Purple Hearts. Instead, the next-of-kin will receive certificates that acknowledge eligibility for the medal.

So far, relatives of about 35 prisoners have agreed to travel to Boscawen for the service, from as far as Washington state, Arizona, and Texas in the culmination of a labor-intensive, volunteer effort to find dispersed next-of-kin. David Hale, a nephew of Burt Gay of New London, who also was held captive in the Philippines, has donated his uncle’s trumpet for the sounding of taps.

Unanswered questions about POW hardships still weigh heavily on Paul St. Laurent, who last heard from his brother in a letter sent from the Philippines in early April 1942, just before the fall of Bataan and the largest surrender of US forces in history. Details of the notorious death march, in which thousands of captured US and Filipino troops died from exhaustion or arbitrary execution by Japanese soldiers, did not reach the St. Laurent family for years.

Such ignorance was a blessing, Paul St. Laurent said. “I don’t know if my parents could have taken it,’’ he said, thinking back across the decades.

Word of his brother’s captivity did not reach Epping for a full, excruciating year - until April 1943, followed by a telegram a month later that erroneously announced his death.

St. Laurent’s parents, Edmond and Exerina, did not hear the correct details until 1945, when two of their son’s compatriots from Bataan returned to New England after being liberated by the Russians. One of the friends, who died shortly afterward from the effects of captivity, asked his sister to bring the mess kit he had hidden for years to St. Laurent’s family.

The fallen private is buried in Epping, his remains reinterred in 1947 following a stately 2-mile funeral procession. On Aug. 8, in another solemn ceremony, one more honor will be bestowed on St. Laurent and 60 others, the often-overlooked victims of an often-overlooked kind of war.