[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 66 (Tuesday, April 24, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4915-S4916]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      BATAAN DEATH MARCH SURVIVOR

 Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, this is an article from the April 
20, 2007, Omaha World Herald, ``Bataan Death March Survivor Still 
Beating Odds at 101'' by Joseph Morton:

       When Albert Brown returned home after years in Japanese 
     camps for prisoners of war, a doctor told him to get out and 
     enjoy life while he still could.
       The native of North Platte, Neb., was unlikely to see 50, 
     the doctor told him, given the illnesses, extreme 
     malnutrition and physical abuse he suffered as a POW.
       Brown is 101 now--the oldest living survivor of the Bataan 
     Death March.
       He was recognized by fellow survivors at a Washington 
     conference this week that coincided with the 65th anniversary 
     of the march.
       During the trip, Brown visited with a fellow veteran from 
     North Platte, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. He sat in Hagel's 
     Capitol Hill office, spinning some of the tales he's racked 
     up over an eventful life.
       His darkest stories come from the war.

[[Page S4916]]

       In the late 1930s, Brown--who had been in ROTC in high 
     school and college--got the call from Uncle Sam. He was to 
     leave his Council Bluffs dental practice and report to the 
     Army in two weeks.
       In 1941, when he was 35, Brown was shipped off to the 
     Philippines, not long before the Japanese attacked there. Out 
     of supplies and with no reinforcements in sight, American 
     forces and their Filipino allies surrendered after months of 
     fighting in 1942.
       The exact numbers vary somewhat from account to account, 
     but more than 70,000 American and Filipino soldiers were 
     captured. Overwhelmed with the task of transporting so many 
     prisoners, the Japanese forced them to march north. Disease, 
     thirst, hunger and killings marked the brutal ordeal, which 
     lasted for days.
       Brown recalled being lined up and forced to march with no 
     food and no water. He said local civilians would approach and 
     attempt to throw food to the marchers.
       ``The Japanese would beat the hell out of them,'' he said. 
     ``They'd go over there and take the butt of their rifle and 
     just beat the hell out of those people, girls and boys, that 
     threw stuff in there.''
       Brown also witnessed the beheading of a 17-year-old Marine, 
     who was forced to the ground ``on his hands and knees, and 
     then they took the samurai sword out and severed his head.''
       Brown himself was stabbed.
       ``I started faltering and got to the back of the pack, and 
     then the Japanese (soldier) came up and stuck a bayonet in my 
     fanny and he yelled 'Speed-o!,' and I knew what 'speed-o' 
     meant. I never was at the back of the pack after that.''
       At the prison camps in the Philippines, the violence and 
     the shortages of food, medicine and water continued. Brown 
     recalled how the temperature soared while the tens of 
     thousands of men in camp relied on a single brass faucet for 
     water. Fights would break out over places in line for that 
     spigot, he said.
       ``Every drop in that canteen was your life.''
       Later, Brown was one of the soldiers packed into a ``hell 
     ship'' to camps in Japan and China. He remained a prisoner 
     until the end of the war.
       He suffered numerous health problems as a result of his 
     captivity, even losing his eyesight for a time.
       Brown's memories also wind their way back to his childhood 
     in North Platte. His father, an engineer with Union Pacific 
     Railroad, was killed when a locomotive exploded in 1910.
       The family lived a couple of blocks from William F. 
     ``Buffalo Bill'' Cody. Brown said his family became friends 
     with the former Wild West hero, whom he described as a quiet 
     man who liked to sit on their porch. As a child, Brown 
     recalled, he would sit on Cody's lap and run a hand through 
     his beard.
       ``I don't know whether he liked that or not. Anyway, I kept 
     doing it.''
       The family later moved to Council Bluffs, where Brown 
     attended high school. He went to Creighton University's 
     dental school.
       He was quarterback of Creighton's football team and played 
     as a forward on the basketball team. He received a medallion 
     during the school's centennial celebration in 2005.
       In the years after the war, Brown moved to Hollywood, where 
     he met a number of movie stars, including John Wayne. He said 
     he used to play handball with one of Wayne's sons.
       Brown has retained his sense of humor and likes to throw a 
     sly wink in with many of his jokes. He kidded that, during 
     his trip to the East Coast, he had yet to find a girl to take 
     back to Illinois, where he now lives with his daughter.
       ``I don't tell the girls I'm 102,'' he said, projecting his 
     age to the milestone he'll hit later this year.
       What's left for Brown to do? He suggested to Hagel that 
     perhaps he could be a U.S. senator.
       ``We should make you a senator, and maybe we'd get some 
     things done up here,'' Hagel replied.

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