POW Recognition Day
* The president has declared April 9 Prisoner of War Recognition Day, honoring all former POWs. On this date 56 years ago, American and Filipino troops surrendered in the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippine Islands.
We American defenders of Bataan and Corregidor are the forgotten legionnaires--forgotten and abandoned by our generation of Americans. We were declared expendable in 1942.
To add insult, younger generations of Americans don’t even know we exist. Why? Nobody told them!
Veterans’ organizations such as the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars rarely remember or note in their yearly calendars two dates so memorable to us: April 9 and May 6, 1942, the dates of our surrender in Bataan and Corregidor.
What has happened? The current generations are not taught their history in schools today. The forgotten legionnaires, who were among the very first Americans to battle an enemy in 1941, mean nothing to the Americans of today.
I thank the teachers of Ventura County who invite me to lecture the students about my experience during World War II and POW confinement.
So, my fellow Americans, if on April 9 you meet one of these forgotten legionnaires or a former POW from some other war, give a salute.
MANUEL ENERIZ
Camarillo
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