[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 22973]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    HONORING THE MILITARY SERVICE OF STAFF SERGEANT WAYNE CARRINGER

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. HEATH SHULER

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Sunday, September 28, 2008

  Mr. SHULER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and service 
of Staff Sergeant Wayne Carringer of Robbinsville, North Carolina, a 
courageous and highly decorated World War II veteran who was held for 
almost three and a half years as a prisoner of war.
  Staff Sgt. Carringer enlisted in the Army in September of 1939. He 
survived what has become known as the Bataan Death March, the march 
from Mariveles to San Fernando where the soldiers, already malnourished 
and weak, were brutally tortured or killed by the Japanese.
  At the end of the march, the soldiers were transported to Camp 
O'Dell, which Staff Sgt. Carringer has described as a death factory. He 
was placed into the Zero Ward, the building where the Japanese put the 
soldiers that were expected to die. Eventually, he was moved to work in 
the Japanese coal mines, where he endured starvation, malnutrition, 
torture, beatings, solitary confinement, malaria and slave labor. His 
weight plummeted to what he estimated was 80 to 85 pounds. After living 
as a prisoner of war for almost three and a half years, he emerged from 
captivity after the end of the war to find that the government had 
declared him dead in 1943. Staff Sgt. Carringer attributes his survival 
of the horrendous experience to his faith in God, and said that the 
experience increased his appreciation for his country and in his fellow 
man.
  Every day we enjoy freedoms made possible by this heroic man and the 
thousands of other members of our military who have risked or given 
their lives to protect us, to ensure that the United States remains the 
land of the free and the home of the brave.
  I ask my colleagues to join me today in recognizing the bravery and 
sacrifice of Staff Sgt. Wayne Carringer, and to thank him for defending 
and preserving the freedoms that each of us enjoys today.

                          ____________________