Full article:https://www.abqjournal.com/1182474?u...box=1528469766
One of the few remaining Battling *******s of Bataan
Sgt. Ralph Rodriguez Jr., who served as a medic during World War II and survived the Bataan Death March, died Saturday at 100.
Rodriguez and the 75,000 exhausted American and Philippine troops were then forced to walk 65 miles to prison camps.
“It was just the beginning of inhumane treatment, or, as my father used to say, subhuman treatment,” his daughter said.
Many of those who fell behind were either left to die or were bayoneted.
The name of Ralph Rodriguez Jr. is engraved at the Bataan Memorial Park in Albuquerque.
Rodriguez ended up at Camp O’Donnell before being transferred to Cabanatuan, where he spent the rest of the war until he was liberated in January 1945.
As a medic, his daughter said, he took it upon himself to tend to the mistreated and ill the best he could without any medical supplies.
He also kept handwritten records of fallen comrades, who died of starvation, regular beatings and tropical diseases.
He read a Bible he found and planted a papaya tree.
Those activities could be done when he wasn’t eating rancid rice and fish heads or being forced into manual labor.
“He’s carrying sacks of rice on his back that weigh 100 pounds, and he weighs less than that,” Mona Lisa said. “They were completely emaciated.”
After nearly three years as a prisoner of war, he was liberated and returned to New Mexico in 1945.
One of the few remaining Battling *******s of Bataan
Sgt. Ralph Rodriguez Jr., who served as a medic during World War II and survived the Bataan Death March, died Saturday at 100.
Rodriguez and the 75,000 exhausted American and Philippine troops were then forced to walk 65 miles to prison camps.
“It was just the beginning of inhumane treatment, or, as my father used to say, subhuman treatment,” his daughter said.
Many of those who fell behind were either left to die or were bayoneted.
The name of Ralph Rodriguez Jr. is engraved at the Bataan Memorial Park in Albuquerque.
Rodriguez ended up at Camp O’Donnell before being transferred to Cabanatuan, where he spent the rest of the war until he was liberated in January 1945.
As a medic, his daughter said, he took it upon himself to tend to the mistreated and ill the best he could without any medical supplies.
He also kept handwritten records of fallen comrades, who died of starvation, regular beatings and tropical diseases.
He read a Bible he found and planted a papaya tree.
Those activities could be done when he wasn’t eating rancid rice and fish heads or being forced into manual labor.
“He’s carrying sacks of rice on his back that weigh 100 pounds, and he weighs less than that,” Mona Lisa said. “They were completely emaciated.”
After nearly three years as a prisoner of war, he was liberated and returned to New Mexico in 1945.
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