Posted 1:05 am Saturday, September 17, 2011
Bataan Death March Survivor Awarded With Capitol Flag
By DAYNA WORCHEL
Staff Writer
Staff Writer
Oliver "Red" Allen stood with the aid of a walker as U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert presented him with an American flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol.
Friday was national POW/MIA day, and Gohmert, along with Mayor Barbara Bass had come to honor prisoners of war and those who still are missing in action.
Allen, 90, whispered something to Gohmert as his wife, Mildred Allen, presented the representative with a copy of a book she wrote about her husband's experiences on the Bataan Death March of 1942 in the Philippines.
"Did you hear what he just said?" Gohmert, in amazement, asked the assembled crowd for the special ceremony at the Atria Copeland Senior Living Center.
"He said that he wished he could have done more," Gohmert said. He presented the folded U.S. flag to Allen on "behalf of a grateful nation" to applause.
The Bataan Death March began on April 10, 1942, when the Japanese assembled about 78,000 prisoners, including 12,000 U.S. prisoners and 66,000 Filipinos, according to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force museum website.
The men suffered and were not given food or water on the march, which lasted for about six days and 65 miles, according to the website. The marchers were beaten with rifle butts, shot or bayoneted without reason by their captors.
In Mrs. Allen's book "Abandoned on Bataan: One Man's Story of Survival," she detailed her husband's experiences as he marched and spent time in a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines.
"He weighed 90 pounds when he got out of the prison camp," Mrs. Allen, 84, said, adding that her husband was not a large man to start.
Allen was imprisoned for 3 1/2 years, first in the tropics, then in Siberia, Mrs. Allen said.
"He kept moving to the front of the line -- he had no food and was given just enough water to keep him going," she said.
The two married in 1947 after he left the service, and they have two sons who live in Tyler, Dr. Tim Allen and Danny Allen, Mrs. Allen said.
"When someone fails to understand inhumanity, they are destined to repeat it," Gohmert told the audience.
The congressman praised first responders, including the military, firefighters and police, and said he was proud to see how the American public was so much more supportive of those who serve and protect the citizenry.
Mayor Bass praised those who served in the military and said she woke up every day to "thank God for living in this land of opportunity."
Karl Little, of the Andrews Behavioral Center's Green Zone, led a flag-folding ceremony with Greg Wind, a Green Zone volunteer, in which they stated the meaning of each of the 12 folds of the American flag as they folded it into a triangle.
Little, along with some current military service members and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7211, then performed a POW table ceremony next to the podium where Gohmert and Mayor Bass spoke. They placed a white tablecloth on a bare, round table, with a red rose and plate, which contained a lemon and salt.
Little said the table represented the prisoner of war, held alone, while the white table cloth represented purity of motive and the lemon and salt represented the bitterness and tears of those who loved and missed the prisoner of war. A Bible represented faith; a candle represented illumination toward the way home; and an empty chair represented the missing soldier.
"Let us remember our comrades -- may God forever watch over them," Little said.
