Bataan Walk Brings Record Turnout
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
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''I've been waiting for you,'' 80-year-old North Carolina vet John Mims, a former POW, said over and over as he greeted participants at the finish line of the 14th annual Bataan Memorial Death March. ''God bless you.''
''Thank you so much, sir, for all you did,'' responded New Mexico National Guardsman Travis Roth of Albuquerque, as he finished the race.
A sense of mutual respect pervaded ceremonies at White Sands Missile Range, where an estimated 4,200 marchers and runners — a record turnout — set off at dawn in a tribute that mixed words with toil and sweat.
Participants competed as individuals or in five-member teams, in military and nonmilitary divisions. Those in military categories were required to wear full battle dress uniforms, including boots.
Those in the ''heavy divisions'' hauled 35-pound rucksacks over a 26.2-mile course that wound through desert trails, rose in elevation from 4,100 to 5,300 feet, and crossed a particularly sandy, half-mile-long stretch about the 20-mile mark.
But a weary Lt. Col. Richard Kirk, who is based at Fort Bliss in El Paso, noted after the walk that there was ''plenty of TLC out there on the course,'' including 13 water stations stocked with Gatorade and four first-aid stations.
Kirk called the marathon trek a ''tribute to the sacrifice'' of the original troops who suffered the Bataan march in 1942 and later brutal Japanese POW camps — a trial Kirk called ''the ultimate test of stamina and endurance.''
American and Filipino troops on the Bataan peninsula surrendered under siege to the Japanese on April 9, 1942. In the nightmarish days that followed, the Japanese forced an estimated 70,000 American and Filipino troops, already suffering from dwindling food rations, to march 65 miles without food, water or medical attention to prison camps. Those who collapsed along the way were shot or bayoneted to death.
About 1,800 New Mexicans, members of the 200th Coast Artillery, National Guard, were among the surrendered troops.
For those who survived the death march, more than three years in POW or labor camps followed.
Several dozen WWII vets, who referred to themselves as the ''Battling Bastards of Bataan,'' greeted the marchers Sunday before the 6:30 a.m. start of the race was signaled with a cannon blast.
The march, which has steadily grown since it was started by an ROTC cadet at New Mexico State University, drew competing teams from England, Germany and Canada and participants from across the country.
With age, the numbers of Bataan vets dwindle year by year. Before the start of the race, White Sands Missile Range spokesman Larry Furrow read the names of 16 vets, members of the New Mexico chapters of American Prisoners of War, Bataan Veterans, who died over the past year.
At the end of the day, during awards ceremonies, Furrow summoned the remaining Bataan vets forward for recognition before assembled troops and marchers.
''They like to think of us as heroes,'' said 82-year-old vet Winston Shillito, who grew up in the Las Cruces area. Shillito, a prisoner of war for three years, last made the memorial march five years ago, at the age of 77.
''We didn't consider ourselves heroes. We were caught in a situation that we couldn't help. We did what we had to do.''