IT'S TIME TO REMEMBER TORTURED WAR HEROES.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
You won't find the day highlighted on any calendar, which is a national shame. It should get equal billing with Memorial Day and Veterans Day because it's that important. But it doesn't. Not even close. No, POW/MIA POW/MIA Prisoner Of War/Missing In Action Recognition Day coming up Friday, slides right by with no more than a handful of people taking notice. People like Duncan Wilmore, Vaughn Binzer and the other guys over at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2323 in Granada Hills, which is hosting a candlelight ceremony so the public and all VFW See Video for Windows. posts in the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. can honor former prisoners of war prisoners of war, in international law, persons captured by a belligerent while fighting in the military. International law includes rules on the treatment of prisoners of war but extends protection only to combatants. and those still missing in action. Guys like Dale Stephens, Larry Powell and the other members of the San Fernando Valley Ex-POW Chapter who were fortunate enough to make it home alive. They all remember what day it is, remember all the buddies who were tortured, starved, and died in those POW camps and on the death marches. ``You hope the public will remember them, too, but they don't,'' Stephens said Friday. ``It's a shame. I guess it's partly because they just don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what being a POW was like.'' Maybe, they should. The German interrogators hit fast and hard because the best time to get information out of someone is when they are most afraid - and Stephens and the rest of his Air Force crew on the B-24 bomber were definitely afraid. It was April 1944, and they had been shot down over Germany. They were taken prisoner after parachuting from their burning plane and immediately taken to an interrogation interrogation In criminal law, process of formally and systematically questioning a suspect in order to elicit incriminating responses. The process is largely outside the governance of law, though in the U.S. center. ``They worked us over pretty good physically, breaking my nose,'' Stephens said. But it was the mental torture that was the toughest. Standing at the edge of a trench, facing a firing squad, and being told you were saboteurs, not soldiers, and that you should be ready to die unless you wanted to talk. So, you talked. You gave your interrogators everything you could: your name, rank and serial number. Then you prayed and silently said goodbye to your loved ones loved ones npl → seres mpl queridos loved ones npl → proches mpl et amis chers loved ones love npl . ``They hauled out dossiers on us, where we trained, what outfit we were with,'' Stephens said. ``It was literally shocking the amount of information they had. ``They didn't really expect us to spill our guts because most of us didn't know that much. All they were looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. was verification of the information they already had.'' But all they got from his crew was name, rank and serial number, said Stephens, who was a flight engineer/gunner. ``After threatening to kill us, they took us by boxcars box·car n. 1. A fully enclosed railroad car, typically having sliding side doors, used to transport freight. 2. boxcars Games A pair of sixes on the first throw in craps. Noun 1. to Stalag 17B in Austria,'' he said. ``Forty men standing shoulder to shoulder in an 8-by-10-square-foot area for the four-day trip,'' he said. ``They never let us sit down. It was tortuous tor·tu·ous adj. Having many turns; winding or twisting. tortuous adjective Referring to complexly twisted thing. Cf Tortious. .'' After a year of starvation and beatings in the camp, 4,000 American POWs were forced to march 160 miles west to the German border as the war slowly wound down. ``Hitler wanted to use us as bargaining chips,'' Stephens said. ``If that failed, we were to be executed. ``The weather was brutal and we were fed only once on that two-week march that I can remember - a couple of potatoes and a pinch of salt. The guys who couldn't keep up, you didn't see again. ``But you heard the shots,'' Stephens said. When they reached the border, the Germans didn't have time to build another camp, so the Americans were left to fend for Verb 1. fend for - argue or speak in defense of; "She supported the motion to strike" defend, support argue, reason - present reasons and arguments themselves in the forest as the Allies slowly moved in. ``They didn't have to worry about us escaping because we were all too weak from malnutrition to go anywhere,'' Stephens said. ``If we hadn't been liberated a week or so later we would have all been dead from exposure.'' What was being a POW like? Like going through hell, Stephens and his buddies in the local Ex-POW chapter say. So the vets over at the Granada Hills VFW chapter get to work to make sure that National POW/MIA Recognition Day gets what it deserves. Our attention. ``What these men, and all the POWs and MIAs who didn't make it home did for this country should never be forgotten,'' said Wilmore, commander of the post. The candlelight ceremony begins at 7 p.m. Friday at the Granada Hills Veterans Memorial Park on Chatsworth and Zelzah streets. Stop by and meet some of the men who went to hell and back for us. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Ex-POW Dale Stephens is one of several VFW members preparing for POW/MIA Recognition Day. Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer |
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