Bataan Memorial Death March
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. – “This is so genuine and dignified. Everyone seems to be here for one purpose, and that is overwhelming for me.”
The voice of 90-year-old Ben Skardon, a retired colonel, began to waver as he spoke of the nearly 4,400 people – including himself – who gathered Sunday in the New Mexico desert to take part in the 19th annual Bataan Memorial Death March.
“There is a lot of emotion on my part,” he said.
Skardon is a survivor of the original march in 1942, during which tens of thousands of U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war were forced by Japanese troops to make a grueling 60-mile trek from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps in the northern Philippines while being subjected to physical abuse, starvation and even murder.
The memorial march was 26.2 miles and included participants from all 50 states and every branch of the armed forces. Waves of servicemembers, grouped together in five-person teams and sometimes battery-sized elements, walked with rucksacks on their backs filled with water, energy bars, extra socks and sheets of blister-soothing moleskin. Some wore buttons, ribbons and T-shirts in remembrance of a friend or relative who died in the march.
Sgt. 1st Class Gary Hollar, a career counselor, formed a team of Soldiers from his unit, the Region 9 Army Reserve Career Division in Kansas. He and his team had been discussing the idea of participating in the march for a few years but kept putting it off.
“Then we said, ‘We’re not getting any younger, so we might as well do it,” said Hollar near the five-mile mark of the route. “It was a goal we wanted to accomplish before we got out of the military (and) we knew it was going to be a challenge.”
Marine Cpl. Ryan Dion, from the Wounded Warrior Regiment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., takes off his prosthetic leg and rests near the five-mile mark of the memorial march.
The event was timed, compelling some participants to keep a brisk pace for most of the way, even when the route took them uphill and through long stretches of loose sand. Not even one-fourth of the way done, Hollar and his team said their ultimate goal was just to finish. He also lauded the veterans of wars past and said honoring them was the true intent of his team.
“Everything that has taken place before our generation has put us where we are today,” said Hollar. “(Veterans) made history and made a path for us to follow.”
In what has become a rising trend in the past few years, several wounded servicemembers traveled from around the country to meet the challenge offered by the march, including a team of Marines from the Wounded Warrior Regiment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
“You’ve just got to watch yourself and not push yourself too much,” said Marine Cpl. Ryan Dion, who lost part of his right leg after being hit by a missile last April while on guard duty in Fallujah, Iraq.
Dion’s team, Semper Fi, had to take breaks every three or four miles to rest and drink water. Massaging his leg and coating it with a layer of moisture-resistant spray, Dion said he was inspired to see others with similar injuries making the trek.
“I used to be really into hiking and trailing,” he said. “Since my injury, I had it in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t be able to do anything like this, (but) it’s motivating to see someone who went through the same thing as me being able to accomplish something like this.”
Kevin Pannell, a former Army specialist, was serving in Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division in Sadr City, Iraq. In 2004, he lost parts of both legs – above the knee on the left side – after getting hit by two grenades while on a foot patrol. He came to the march last year but had to drop out near the halfway point because he was “unprepared and paced (himself) way too fast.”
This year, Pannell brought a friend to walk the route with him and made stops every two to three miles. He became the highest-level amputee ever to complete the march.
“This was 95 percent paying homage to the Bataan survivors and 5 percent pushing myself to see if I could do it,” said Pannell.