The Brave Ones

Back in the mid-1990′s, one of the company field trips we went on when I was still working in the Philippines was a trip to Corregidor Island.  According to wikipedia:

Corregidor Island, locally called Isla ng Corregidor, is a lofty island located at the entrance of Manila Bay in southwestern part of Luzon Island in the Philippines. Due to this location, Corregidor was fortified with several coastal artillery and ammunitionmagazines to defend the entrance of Manila Bay and the City of Manila, from attacks by enemy warships in the event of war.

During World War II, Corregidor played an important role during the invasion and liberation of the Philippines from Japanese forces.

The corregidorisland.com website further states:

Also known as “the Rock,” it was a key bastion of the Allies during the war. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines in December 1941, the military force under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur carried out a delaying action at Bataan. Corregidor became the headquarters of the Allied forces and also the seat of the Philippine Commonwealth government. It was from Corregidor that Philippine President Manuel Quezon and General MacArthur left for Australia in February 1942, leaving behind Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright in command.

Although Bataan fell on April 9, 1942, the Philippine and American forces held out at Corregidor for 27 days against great odds. On May 6, 1942, their rations depleted, the Allied forces were forced to surrender Corregidor to Lt. Gen. Homma Masaharu of the Japanese Imperial Army after having successfully halted the Japanese advance on Australia. It was only two years and ten months later in March 1945 when the Allied forces under the command of General MacArthur recaptured Corregidor … making good his promise to return to the Philippines.

 

At the time I went to Corregidor, I had an idea of its role in history.  So I was excited to see firsthand all the buildings, the ruins, the tunnels and all the structures on the island.  But the most memorable part of the trip for me was the Pacific War Memorial.

As I walked through this picturesque place, all of a sudden I became quiet.  I had to sit down because I was overcome with so many emotions.  This was the first war memorial I had ever been to, & it made history concrete for me in a way I didn’t expect.  It’s one thing to read about these things in a history book, and vastly different when you visit an actual site.  I was speechless and had to fight back tears at the stark realization that there were millions who died & sacrificed  during World War II for our freedom and that the world would be a much different place had the Axis powers prevailed.

Since then I cannot help but have an enormous feeling of pride & respect for our men & women in uniform.  To paraphrase the last line of the American national anthem, the US is indeed “the land of the free, because of the brave.”