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Here, I'm assuming "teaching" means helping a student learn more about a subject, gain enthusiasm for it, and also helping him learn how to study the subject on his own. (Helping him become self-sufficient.)It's difficult for at least five reasons:1. Each student is unique. In order for a unique student to learn from a teacher, that teacher must form a unique relationship with that student. Which means he must pay close attention to the student, ask the him lots of questions, gain the his trust, and learn what motivates him. He must tailor his approach to meet specific students' needs.Institutional problems, such as large-class-sizes make this challenging, and many teachers are additionally challenged by laziness, lack of ability, and lack of creative thinking. Some use the institutional challenges as an excuse to forgo problem-solving. They say, "I simply can't give individual attention when I'm forced to teach large classes," rather than, "It's vital that I give individual attention no matter how large my class size is, so how can I possibly do it? I'm going to find a way or 'die trying.'"But even if it's "not the teacher's fault," it's still a reason why teaching is so difficult.And I've seen lots of teachers in small classes behave the same way as teachers in large classes. Sadly, a teacher with three students is often just-as-inclined to use just one teaching method as is a teacher saddled with two-hundred-students. Too many teach the way they know how and don't research new methods. Then they blame students for "not getting it" when their teaching methods fail. "I worked hard teaching him; he refused to learn..."Good teachers are constantly researching and experimenting, even when their current techniques work. They assume there's always a better way.Teaching, when done well, is a massively creative act. I currently work more often as a computer programmer than as a teacher, and it forces me into daily, intense problems solving. I simply can't rely today on what I learned yesterday. I must lie awake at night, trying to figure out algorithms or my programs simply don't work. And they can't not work. I'll get fired if they don't.Alas, it's rare to find teachers willing to do that: teachers who lie awake at night thinking, "Everything I've done to help Melissa learn has failed, but it's imperative that she learn! So what can I do? Hmm...."I don't have the "out" of blaming the computer. If there's a problem, I must take full responsibility for it. As a teacher, blaming the student is a constant temptation.Here's the best thing I've every read about programming, and it should (but too often doesn't) apply to teaching, too:I no longer equate thinking I'm right about something with actually being right about it.It's now very easy for me to entertain the thought that I may be wrong even when I feel pretty strongly that I'm right. Even if I've been quite forceful about something I believe, I'm able to back down very quickly in the face of contradicting evidence. I have no embarrassment about admitting that I was wrong about something.-- http://www.stackprinter.com/export?service=stackoverflow&question=168805&printer=false&linktohome=trueWhen I used to teach regularly, I would rethink my approaches even when things were going well. For instance, even when I taught the same class over and over, I refused to reuse charts. I would re-draw the charts before each class. What I found, to my surprise, initially, was that charts I thought were "fine the way they were" would steadily improve as I revised them, even without me trying to improve them.I hate the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Always fix it, whether it's broke or not.2. Effective teaching requires subduing the ego, and that's very hard for almost all people. It takes dedication, an ability to try again and again after failure, and a "religious" belief that ego must be subdued.When teaching, it's very easy to worry about things like, "What if the students know more than I do?" or "What if I can't answer a question? I'll look stupid!" Those are both natural, human concerns, but neither of them focuses on the student. And they both tend to motivate the teacher towards deceptive, anti-educational behavior, such as a pretense of knowledge and a dismissal of difficult questions.Many teachers feel as if they are masters rather than servants, which is ass-backwards. A good teacher knows he serves his students. His job isn't to parent them or discipline them. He may need to play disciplinarian at times, so that the classroom environment is conductive to learning, but it's easy for teachers to forget that this isn't the job. Too many fall in the pattern of playing disciplinarian over and over rather than working their hardest to change their approach (or the environment) so that the problem doesn't keep occurring.I'll say this one more time and then quit, hoping you'll take it as a given: some environmental issues may not be a teacher's fault. There's only so much one person can do in (for instance) an inner-city school where many kids are malnourished, shell-shocked, and abused. But regardless of where blame is placed, this sort of thing makes teaching hard.3. Good teachers discard baggage from their own education and think hard about all received wisdom and tradition, questioning the validity of each "that's just the way it is" practice. We are all affected by tradition, so this is very hard to do. One must neither blindly accept a tradition nor reject it, just to be different. One must painstakingly evaluate each one.Even knowing what to examine is hard, because we don't think of most traditions as traditions. We don't remember learning them. They're just things we do and have always done without examining them. There are also ones that seem to make "common sense," which is dangerous, because common sense is extremely prone to confirmation bias.A good teacher must assume he's a victim of confirmation bias (and work to overcome it). Most people refuse to make that assumption about themselves (see point #2), assuming everyone else experiences confirmation bias but they are exceptions.I'm talking about traditions like ...- Grades are useful.- Homework is useful.- Lectures are useful.- Textbooks are useful.- Some students simply can't learn.- Some things can't be taught.- Students must be forced to study if they won't do so willingly.- It's inappropriate for a student to read a comic book in class.- I had to do it when I was a kid, so why shouldn't they?- It's not fair for some students to get away with coasting while others are doing hard work.See Marcus Geduld's answer to Why do we get frustrated when learning something?By the way, knowing a one-sentence argument for something does not count as having really examined it. For instance, you haven't proved that "homework is useful" because "When I was a kid, I learned a lot from my homework." You need to understand that there's decades of complex argumentation and research behind both pro and anti homework stances. Try not to accept pithy, common-sensical sophistry as true exploration!4. Schools, parents, and society throw a huge number of obstacles at teachers, generally trying to manipulate them into doing anything other than what I mentioned at the start of this post: "helping a student learn more about a subject, gain enthusiasm for the it, and also helping him learn how to study the subject on his own."These obstacles include conflicting goals, such as "good grades," "getting into college," "preparation for corporate careers," unexamined (but enforced) traditions ("it's just the way we do things"), suffocating bureaucracy, and career issues, such as low pay and lack-of job security.5. Teachers must be knowledgable about their subject(s), teaching methods, communication skills, leadership techniques, and psychology. And they must continually study these things for their entire careers. Most aren't willing (or able) to do this. It's a big load on-top-of classroom work and home life.I would sum all this up by saying that there's no way to be a casual good teacher. You can't "just show up." It's not that kind of profession. You can be a good, smart, caring person and still fail because you think of teaching as a profession instead of as a "calling."Useful Resources:- Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture: Kirsten Olson, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Parker J. Palmer: 9780807749555: Amazon.com: Books- Amazon.com: Alfie Kohn: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle- [Free PDF, and a great read.] http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdfBook version: A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form: Paul Lockhart, Keith Devlin: 9781934137178: Amazon.com: Books- How Children Fail (Classics in Child Development): John Holt: 9780201484021: Amazon.com: Books- Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood: A. S. Neill, Albert Lamb: 9780312141370: Amazon.com: Books- Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas: Seymour A. Papert: 9780465046744: Amazon.com: Books

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the crime rate on South Korea’s Jeju Island had grown exponentially every year since 2002, when visa restrictions were lifted for Mainland Chinese. According to the Joong Ang Daily, by 2013, over 130 crimes had been committed on the island by Chinese tourists. Within two years, the crime rate had doubled. Before you start pointing your fingers at Chinese tourists, ask yourself how serious is jaywalking? Yes, it isn’t safe, and nor is it legal, but should the misdemeanor offense be included with felonies such as murder, robbery, and assault?In 2016, the population of Jeju Island was over 675,000. It was home to 18,000 foreigners and 8,000 illegal Chinese immigrants. Supposedly, a crime wave had hit the island, with 70 percent of all crimes committed by Chinese tourists. Media reports failed to mention that Jeju authorities include jaywalking in their annual crime statistics. According to the Korean Herald, “Among the 347 (crimes), 132 were people nabbed for violating traffic rules, 67 for assault, 50 for robbery, and 32 with intellectual crimes." When you crunch the numbers, that’s not exactly a crime wave.There's always at least one extreme example of a tourist behaving inappropriately. For example, a 51-year old man from Mainland China stabbed a Korean woman to death in a church while she was praying. He told authorities that he killed her because he thought she looked like his ex-wife.Source:Chinese man gets 25 years for murdering Korean woman in Jeju churchAt a luxury safari lodge in Kenya, a male Chinese tour guide stabbed a woman to death and critically wounded her husband in front of their two children after they refused his request to give up their table.Cops: Safari guide kills tourist for picking wrong seatTaiwan News reported that Chinese hotel guests have a reputation for stealing toilet paper holders, TVs, and beds. American tourists are also notorious for stealing or damaging hotel property, but how many have tried to steal a bed? I’m disappointed that I never tried to steal one when I was younger. If I were to do it, I would throw the mattress and bed frame from my the balcony of my room and have a friend waiting below with a truck. I can’t think of a better way.Source:60% of Chinese tourists steal items from Japanese hotel rooms: Fuji Television | Taiwan News(Tangent: I had three friends who thought it would be fun to take LSD at a Sheraton Hotel in Houston, Texas. About an hour after the acid took over, they carried a Coca-Cola vending machine from a lobby area to their 25t- floor suite. Ricky, whose father was a regional VP for Sheraton, was convinced it would make a “kaleidoscopic explosion” when it landed in the parking lot.This was also the explanation that Ricky gave Houston police officers when they arrived at his suite roughly 10 minutes after the vending machine landed on a Volkswagen.)Chinese tourists breaking rules ‘all over the place’ in BoracayBadly behaved Chinese tourists are back in BoracayBeaches, streets, and airport terminals covered with trash are meant to invoke negative sentiment toward Mainland Chinese tourists. The way I see it such images are positive as they indicate that money has been spent, which fuels the local economy. Beaches in Japan have a trash problem, which the country has blamed on their aging population and not Chinese tourists.(Source: Japan deploys robots to tackle beaches strewn with plastic wasteIn 2013, Mainland Chinese tourists made over 80 million trips worldwide. China’s National Tourism Administration published a tourist behavior guide. The 64-page booklet included helpful tips such as “Don’t spit phlegm or gum, throw litter, urinate or defecate wherever you feel like it. Don’t cough, sneeze, or pick your nose or teeth in front of others.”When Wang Yang was a deputy prime minister, he reminded Chinese tourists that they were ambassadors for their country’s image and should, "consciously obey social and public order and social morality, respect the local religions and customs, pay attention to their words and public behavior, especially in the international environment, protect tourism resources, and protect the environment.”In 2010, a Chinese tourist took a photo of “Ding Jinhao was here,” which had been scrawled in Chinese on a wall inside Egypt’s Luxor Temple. The photo was uploaded on Chinese social media and went viral, sparking national outrage, and would later make international headlines. I’ve been suspicious of this story since it first broke because the defacement in question had happened a few years before it gained international attention.Why was “Ding Jinhao was here” singled out when other examples could have been used? During the media hailstorm, Egypt’s ministry of antiquities said the damage was “superficial” and that it would be repaired. The story added to the anti-Chinese tourist narrative that foreign media was fostering. It also provided China the opportunity to apologize to Egypt on the global stage.Source: Chinese schoolboy, 15, exposed as Egypt’s ancient temple graffitiThe hysteria that accompanied the defacement was a marketing campaign for China-Egypt relations and the Luxor Temple. Since when do other countries shame their citizens when they deface another country’s antiquities? I had never heard of the Luxor Temple prior to the story. I also know that I won’t forget it even though I’m without a clear understanding of its historical significance. But the truth is, Americans could care less how their fellow countrymen behave when they travel abroad. For the Americans reading this, did it bother you when two US college students killed an Italian police officer in Rome last year?Source: Egypt sees surging number of Chinese touristsIn June 2018, two Chinese women at a restaurant in Japan were asked to leave because the manager thought they were messy eaters. The women who were kicked out, contacted Chinese media, who first broke the story, which was picked up South China Morning Post.‘Please just go’: thumbs down after Chinese tourists asked to leave Osaka restaurant‘Please just go’: Chinese tourists asked to leave Osaka restaurantGratuityTipping in Mainland China is not customary. European restaurants have made adjustments to safeguard their waitstaff and bartenders from being stiffed by tourists by including gratuity in their bills.A study on the tipping habits of Chinese tourists in the US published in the Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Management (Vol. 4 (2), December 2016) found that they usually tipped roughly 6 percent.Excerpt:“Chinese tourists were asked about the total amount of bill (without tip) in their most recent dining experiences and the amount of the tip paid. Among 211 respondents, 93.4% of respondents claimed that they tipped most of the time when dining at restaurants in the United States, and the average tip percentage was 5.30%.”Source: Study on tipping habits among Chinese tourists in the US: (PDF file):https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj8ye3Fu9zpAhWiCjQIHc3TDvkQFjAKegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpdfs.semanticscholar.org%2Fdf21%2F748222ccf8baa0ef88fc5dbb8c4c591bfc47.pdf&usg=AOvVaw06w--U0PxSLHHFAlPUKB2dPersonalAt a sports bar in Arcadia, California, I witnessed a Mainland Chinese woman throw a tantrum after she was told that she couldn’t use her coupon for a free order of french fries ($2.39) because it had expired. She demanded to speak with the manager. She accused the establishment of being racist, paid her bill, stiffed her waitress, and drove off in a Lexus SUV. Later that evening, I spoke with the woman who had served the Chinese lady and asked if such behavior was uncommon among local Chinese patrons, and she said, unfortunately, it wasn’t.In 2011, during China’s Autumn Festival holiday, I went on a Mediterranean cruise with my ex-wife Xin and two of her clients, Dong and Zhao, who also brought their spouses. I was the de-facto tour guide for six wealthy Mainland Chinese tourists. The group was usually low maintenance when it came to all things related to food as each couple packed a suitcase with instant noodles and a portable water heater.In the US, bars and restaurants will swipe a guest’s credit card beforehand to ensure they have money to cover their bill or to make sure they’ll pay it. When this is done, and you check your credit card, it looks like it has been charged twice. This practice is unheard of in China. While we were having dinner, Xin and Dong received credit card alerts on their smartphones. When they noticed that the charges for the purchases they had made earlier that day were appearing twice on their credit cards, they went into a state of shock. They were convinced that the ship was ripping them off.When Xin and Dong finished eating, they rushed to their cabins intent on resolving this non-issue. The first thing Xin did was call the front reception desk. After holding for a minute, her call was answered and she immediately shouted, “I need to speak with the captain!” The cruise ship had roughly 3,000 passengers. As a quick aside, if you never go on a commercial cruise, you’ll be fine. It’s a travel experience designed for those who prefer to see the world the same way they visit a zoo.When security personnel arrived at our cabin, they asked Xin why she wanted to speak with the captain. After she explained her concerns about her credit card being charged twice for each purchase, the look on their faces was priceless. It was a first for them. I went outside on the deck to smoke a few cigarettes and get some peace and quiet. Life is too short to spend it with someone who thinks you’re an idiot.The ship’s casino made the cruise more difficult to endure. It was how I imagined a Chuck E Cheese’s would be if it offered a gambling room for parents who didn’t want to spend time with their children while they celebrated their birthdays. The way Xin and Dong played roulette, the last thing you would have thought was that they were multi-millionaires. When they won $5, they would get excited as if it meant they would be able to eat the next day. When I was up $100, they marveled at the accomplishment as if I had special powers that allowed me to see into the future.Before our cruise departed, we spent two days in Barcelona, Spain. During our first night, Dong’s husband, Pang, announced he was in the mood for fish. Xin asked me to find a seafood restaurant with a nice view.While we were seated at our table trying, Xin and her clients spent 15 minutes trying to decide what they wanted to eat. The problem was that they didn’t trust the photos of the fish featured in the menu. Seafood restaurants in China showcase their fish so guests can select which one they want to eat. This method isn’t foolproof. How would one know if the fish they selected is the same one they’re eating? It wouldn’t be difficult for a chef to prepare a lesser quality fish while out of view from the customer who ordered it, and then return the fish to the same tank so a different guest could choose it.Xin asked me to ask our waiter if he could bring the uncooked fish to our table so they could look at them and make their selections.“Are you fucking serious?” I asked.Xin detested the “f” word. I could have hit a pedestrian with a car, and she wouldn’t have been nearly as bothered.“Tell the waiter,” she snapped.The restaurant was crowded. Our waiter wasn’t happy, but he obliged the request. Ten minutes later, three waiters, each one carrying a large tray with fish, approached our table.Everyone in the restaurant stopped eating and looked at our table. I could feel people staring at us. I desperately craved a shot of whiskey.I ordered a dozen oysters and a rare steak. I also had six glasses of red wine and two whiskeys (neat).The fish they ordered was good, but to be honest, everything tasted the same. Our bill was roughly $1,000. Fortunately, a 20 percent gratuity had been included. Had it not, Xin would have given our waiter $7. As she once quipped, “Waiters don’t do anything but carry plates.”I dined with this same group at restaurants in France, Italy, Spain, Maldives, and Sicily, and not once did I hear them say “thank you” to a restaurant employee. Collectively, they were horrible tippers.Xin would get furious when I tipped the standard amount. I could never understand why she would get bent out of shape over 10 Euros. Is this what it means to be wealthy? She would spend upwards of $30,000 on luxury items in one shopping spree. When we were in San Francisco, she spent $450 on a round trip taxi ride to an outlet mall. Our cab driver said it was the largest cab fare of his career. When he dropped us off at our hotel, he insisted that I take a picture of him and Xin.During the last two years of our marriage, Xin and I rarely ate together when we traveled. It was a preferable arrangement as I would often meet people seated next to me when I dined alone. I like to talk with strangers. I have this recurring nightmare that one day this will be against the law.While visiting Paris, me, Xin, and her son, Sebastian, ate at one of those standard French restaurants. Xin and Sebastian didn’t like French, Italian, Indian, German, or Mexican food. In France, Sebastian’s taste buds never ventured beyond fries and escargot. Xin would usually order a bowl of French onion soup. When they finished eating, they would leave me alone to finish my meal and go back to our hotel room.Sebastian was forced to entertain himself because his mother didn’t allow him to bring his iPad. Out of boredom, Sebastian stuck a piece of sourdough bread on the end of his fork and held it over the candle that was in the middle of our table as if he was roasting a marshmallow over a campfire. Strictly for cosmetic purposes, I told him he shouldn’t do that as it wasn’t safe nor was it considerate to our fellow diners. My words proved futile, as I knew they would before they left my mouth. Unsurprisingly, his mother wasn’t concerned, at least not enough to make him stop. She appeared to be interested in learning more about how bread burns when it is held over an open flame.The waiter hurriedly walked to our table and extinguished the bread by taking the fork out of Sebastian’s hand and dropping it in a glass of water. If I had done the same, Xin would have called the police and had me arrested for assault. Sebastian apologized, but he wasn’t sorry. As he often reminded me, those who weren’t as wealthy as his mommy were slaves.The relationship Chinese tourists have had with the Louvre Museum in Paris has been a troubled one. By 2018, almost ten percent of the Louvre museum’s annual visitors were from Mainland China, and yet Mandarin or Cantonese audio guides were unavailable. Are you familiar with the expression “read between the lines”?In 2013, Chinese gangs were caught selling counterfeit Louvre tickets to Chinese tourists.Source: Paris’s Louvre falls victim to Chinese fake ticket scamParis’s Louvre falls victim to Chinese fake ticket scamThe biggest story was in 2015 when supposedly Mainland Chinese tourists were defecating outside the museum. Chinese signs were placed around the museum that said defecating in public was prohibited. But where was the evidence? I visited the Louvre in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2017, and did not see a Chinese tourist, or any tourists, relieving themselves on museum grounds.I found one video on YouTube that captures a man using the bathroom outside while standing across the street from the Louvre, but his ethnicity is not revealed.The supposed uptick in feces could have been the result of a city ignoring its homeless population.In the UK, The Sun ran a story about a Chinese woman defecating in public in Monterey Park, Los Angeles County. In an example of one Chinese person shaming another, the story had first appeared on the website 洛杉矶华人资讯网 - 洛杉矶本地的华人信息分享交流平台, a Chinese-run business and social platform based in Los Angeles.Source:Un-bowel-ievable! Woman caught pooing on grass verge outside gated house (2015)Un-bowel-ievable! Woman caught pooing on grass verge outside gated houseWhen I was in Milan, Dong and her husband asked me to go shopping with them. We were at a Gucci store where Dong took photos of a few clothing items so she could show them to one of her friends in Zhejiang Province to see if she needed anything. The store’s manager informed Dong that photography was prohibited because the clothes were new and unavailable online. The manager instructed Dong to delete the photos from her phone, and that’s when Pang stepped in, and a shouting match ensued.Pang was 6’3, slender, and in good shape for a man in his mid-50’s. He exercised every day. It also helped that he didn’t smoke or drink much. He wasn’t without his vices, which were sex-related. He would often say vile and sexually inappropriate things when we had dinner together. When talked about sex, Xin would refuse to tell me what he said. I couldn’t understand him, but judging Xin’s reactions, it was always lewd.Dong was holding roughly $5,000 worth of clothes that she was ready to purchase, but instead threw them on the floor. Pang was prepared to fight the manager.When the commotion began, I was sitting in a chair on the other side of the store. I hurried over and stood between Pang and the manager. Had the two of them fought, the manager would have lost.Xin and I vacationed in Honolulu twice, and both trips were not enjoyable. By then, our marriage had hit a point where it was over, but neither of us was ready to hit the eject button.She would spend the day shopping and afterward visit an indoor shooting range located above a few luxury stores. I usually hung out at the hotel bar and talked with strangers about China. A professor from Brigham Young University (BYU) asked me what the “hotel hooker scene” was like in Shanghai. I thought this was an odd question to ask a stranger. I told him I didn’t have any information on the topic. He asked me for my email, and I said I didn’t have one.When Xin would ask me to join her at the indoor shooting range, I couldn’t help but think of Ernest Hemingway's short story, “The Short and Happy Life of Francis McComber.” I imagined that while where we were shooting .44s, she would “accidentally” discharge the firearm as it was pointed at my head and not the target. Later that same night, as the ink on my death certificate had yet to dry, Xin and her new gun instructor boyfriend would be celebrating at her hotel, enjoying cocaine and champagne while laughing at the photos that they had taken of my dead body with their iPhones.During our second Hawaii visit, Xin purchased $30,000 worth of luxury handbags. She packed them in the same suitcase and then checked the bag on the return flight to Beijing. She had trust issues, but they were inconsistent. I suggested that she carry the bag with her given the value of the goods inside, but she was confident it wouldn’t get lost or stolen.(Off-topic: I had a friend from Seoul who moved to Boston after he was accepted to MIT’s doctoral program. He was off-the-rails smart, but only when it came to Applied Mathematics. He packed $40,000 in one suitcase and checked the bag.When he and his family arrived a Logan Airport, the suitcase that contained the money was missing. His wife had a borderline nervous breakdown and threatened him with divorce. She refused to leave the airport and checked in at a nearby 4-star hotel so she could harass the airline’s baggage claim department until they found their lost luggage.Three weeks later, the airline notified them that they had found their missing suitcase. Apparently, the bag had arrived on the luggage carousel at Logan Airport where it had been mistakenly claimed who by someone who was in a hurry and failed to notice that they had taken the wrong suitcase. The bag was found in the trunk of an Avis rent-a-car in Washington D.C. When the suitcase arrived at my friend’s apartment, his wife was there waiting to receive it. She quickly opened it and to everyone’s surprise, their money was still inside.)A few times when I traveled by plane in China, I witnessed Chinese passengers arguing during mid-flight. It doesn’t require an enlightened or experienced traveler to understand that engaging in a shouting match 35,000 feet above sea level is a bad idea. Given the nature of the arguments, the people involved acted as if they weren’t on a plane. As a general rule, when flying, one should remain seated and quiet throughout the flight. If your plane does not crash and you arrive at your destination unharmed, then given the alternative, it was a fantastic flight.The 500 Euro note, aka “The Bin Laden,” was discontinued a few years ago.Xin had several Saran-wrapped packs that she kept in a safe at her home in Beijing. She would break them out when we traveled to Europe. It was understood that I was responsible for changing the bills into smaller denominations. Xin wasn’t sure if the Euro notes were counterfeit, so she thought if an American changed them, nobody would question their authenticity.When Xin and I lived in Arcadia, we did our weekly grocery shopping at a neighborhood Chinese supermarket. She would usually pick up the latest issue of the National Enquirer. Throughout the week, she would ask me what my thoughts were on the fate of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s marriage, or why Bruce Jenner wanted to surgically remove his “little brother” and sell it for $5 million to a Chinese clone laboratory.I had a subscription to the New Yorker. I remember one day when I received the latest issue, I asked Xin if she was familiar with the magazine. When I handed it to her, she looked at it for a minute and said, “This is what people without money like to read.”終

Here’s one. I do not know how to add the PDF of the letter mentioned. I wrote this back in 2010. Thanks…Summer 2010Just thought it poignant on this Memorial Day weekend that I forward to you all a letter I found about a year ago while going through my mother’s papers. This will take some back ground information so you all will know who the author is, my Dad, and what, when, and why it was composed.I apologize for the quality of the PDF. And, the first sentence of the second page has been cut off as my Mom, who copied it, was not ‘hardware savvy’. The dates are correct. It was written before most of us were born.BACKGROUND.My mom was a Captain in the US Army Air Corps. She was part of the 13th Air Wing stationed on Luzon, Philippines prior to the outbreak of WWII. She was an (Texas) Upshur County farm girl who threw a newspaper route after high school to earn the $14.95 tuition for Nurses training at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. The student nurses worked their way through the training as nurses and after three years received their Registered Nurse certificate. This type of training is not available for RN’s anymore as you must have a BS for RN credentials, but, we are talking about Pre WWII Texas. My Mom worked and trained many days in the Parkland Hospital emergency room where, when shot, they took President Kennedy. Unknown to her at the time, this training in the ER would serve her well in the very near future. After gaining her RN, she enlisted in the US Army, went to the then equivalent of OCS (Officers Candidate School) for women and came out a Second Lieutenant making $30 a month. After her OCS graduation, the Army gave her 10 days leave and then sent her to the Philippines. While in Manila, at the Officer’s club one night she met an artillery Captain, Captain Daniel W. Jopling. Mom was an AIR MEDIVAC MASH nurse as popularized by the TV show of the same name. She was one of 16 female, American military personnel assigned to the Philippines under the command of General MacArthur, and upon his departure, General Wainwright. She flew to all US held Philippine air fields and on many occasions came under enemy attack from Japanese air craft. She was one of 16 American females among 30 to 40 thousand US soldiers. Many times she mentioned to me that during the ordeal she was about to endure, patients would grab her arm and ask for forgiveness at merely wanting to touch an American female. So many of these wounded soldiers were touching one for the very last time.To capsulate Moms experience in the Philippines, she and her nurses, she was Chief Nurse, spent their time after the bombing of Pearl Harbor caring for soldiers wounded in combat. The Japanese forces invaded Luzon shortly after the Pearl event and simply pushed the ill equipped and under supplied American forces down the island of Luzon onto the Bataan Peninsula, where she and her nurses escaped to the island of Corregidor. Early in the attack, they were put on ½ rations, then shortly after, ¼ rations. After this, it was eat what you could find. I can remember during many Christmas dinners, Mom would become a bit sullen and recant that the meal we were eating was excellent, but paled in comparison to the Christmas meal she was awarded at the mouth of the Mylantan Tunnel, where the hospital housed on Corregidor Island. The meal was ½ can of military pork and beans with some ketchup. A feast in the midst of the chaos of war. Mom weighed 90 pounds at that time.On Corregidor they stayed and worked in the Mylantan Tunnel until one evening. Abruptly she was ordered to gather her nurses and assemble at the mouth of the tunnel to be evacuated. Under objection, she still had patients in the surgical ward where she would cut them open for surgery and ‘suture’ them back up with communications wire as they had no sutures, she complied as ordered. The 13 nurses were allowed one small bag and the clothes on their backs and all of them climbed aboard a jeep. Yes, all 13 in one vehicle. The jeep was driven down an irrigation ditch and into the sea, then, they swam to an inflatable raft which was staffed by two sailors. The raft was rowed out to another small craft where they were helped aboard. When the Japanese shore batteries saw them, they immediately opened fire at them with shore based cannon. The craft motored out of the light of the city of Manila and out into the choppy waters of Manila bay where they boarded the USS SPEARFISH submarine and it quickly submerged. The submarine, under orders of the Captain, sank to the bottom of Manila Bay where it stayed motionless and silent for the next 23 hours. The SPEARFISH was giving the Imperial Japanese Navy the old Upshur County, Texas version of ‘playing possum’. All other US personnel, military and civilian left ashore that night spent the next 4 years as Japanese Prisoners of War, or, as ‘guests of the Imperil Japanese Army’ as Japanese General Houma referred to them. You can now “GOOGLE” the name USS SPEARFISH and see the microfilm of the Captain’s log. They were declassified in the 1980’s and recently put on the internet. I believe in the log of Patrol #3 the captain describes picking them up and lists their names. Mom’s name at the time was Lucy Wilson. Her name is there. This is a not a story composed to entertain. It is the truth. They stayed submerged for weeks until they could run underneath the Japanese blockade and reach Australia which was in allied hands. During the weeks of the escape all 13 nurses had one bucket of water for all them for drinking and personal cleanliness. The food they ate was what the sailors could share. Many times she mentioned many of these brave men forwent their meals so these women could eat. And yes, many of them asked to hold their hands as this might be their last opportunity to touch an American female. No bunks were available and they slept in shifts atop the engine compartment in the heat. Only when submerged did the diesel engines get shut down the temperature aboard the submarine become reduced. Before her death, Mom took us on a tour of the USS SEAWOLF in Galveston, Texas. The SPEARFISH (SS-190) and SEAWOLF (SS-197) are both the same SARGO class warships. She walked us through the small cramped submarine and showed us the stuffy, hot ‘cabin’ above the engines where they lived and slept during the 17 day trip back to Australia. The SPEARFISH had to stay submerged during daylight as they were in enemy held waters and the slow moving submarine would be an easy target for any well gunned Japanese war ship. At that time, the SPEARFISH made 3 knots ahead speed while submerged. The sub only came up during the night to run the diesel engines long enough to recharge the batteries they would need for forward progress during the next day.For her actions, Mom was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and eight bronze stars, two of which have “V” valor devices, and about 15 other medals. The valor devices are awarded to recipients whose actions earn the Star in combat scenarios. The other medals are too numerous to list here. She had escaped the Japanese with her thirteen nurses. Dad was less fortunate.Dan Jopling of Ft. Sumner, New Mexico, earned a business degree from a college in San Diego, California and joined the New Mexico National Guard because his buddy, and soon to be brother- in-law, had joined. Plus, the extra $3 dollars a month added a tidy sum to the duos beer budget. Dad had a college degree and was able to take a correspondence school mail order course to earn his commission as an officer in the US Army. His soon to be brother in-law, my Uncle Bill Carr had no such degree. Three weeks after receiving his commission, the US Army cancelled this program which was never reinstated. He beat a deadline that unknown to him at the time, played a small role in saving his life. When the clouds of war were darkening over the USA, President Roosevelt called all reservists, National Guard Units and furloughed soldiers back to active duty. My grandfather knew one of the US Army Generals in Albuquerque where Dad had been called to active duty. My grandfather was a tailor and made the generals clothes. This general, as a favor to my Granddad, hired my Dad to be his aide as Dad could take short hand dictation and use a type writer. When his unit, the 200thCoast Artillery, was given orders to go to the Philippines, my Dad objected to the general that he had not received the same orders to go overseas with his buddies. The general questioned my Dad hard on this issue as the General knew the Philippines were in dire danger. If war did break out, there was no way to resupply or remove any expeditionary force that far away from American soil as the USA did not have a suitable naval task force to accomplish such a large and lengthy task. And, President Roosevelt had committed all available war stuffs to the war in Europe. The US Navy, as well as the US Army, was not ready for war. Once deployed and hostilities began, they would be completely cut off and on their own. However, my Dad won his orders to go. So, instead of spending the Second World War in the US drinking beer and training other men to be artillery soldiers, he would fall to the Japanese and be a POW 4 months later. He reported to Luzon at 220 pounds. He was weighed 4 years later in Seoul, South Korea at 85 pounds, but he claimed this was inaccurate because they had been eating peaches dropped to them in 55 gallon drums by US bombers. And, for the first time in 42 months, they had been eating meat. Close to the prison camp was a rice field where as prisoners, the men watched an old North Korean farmer plow his rice field with the help of what my Dad called a Caribou. The starved men dreamed of barbequing the old caribou and eating it. Once liberated, they immediately dispatched a detail to capture the old work horse and bring it into camp for the feast. They were still staying inside the camp as they believed this was the safest place for the men so as to avoid any Japanese Army or Korean civilian reprisals. Unfortunately, no man or group of men had the strength to take an ax and kill the animal. They had to cut the animal’s jugular and let it bleed to death. Once expired, it was butchered, roasted and eaten.It is clear to me, without the atomic bombs being dropped in Japan, the men in this camp would not have survived if the planned, conventional amphibious invasion of Japan by the allies had taken place. Simply, without the two atom bombs being dropped over Japan and the war brought to a swift end, you would not be reading this as I would not be here. Yes the bombs were horrific. ‘WAR IS HELL’. However, the lives saved by these two bombs were mostly American. Never in my life will I believe the use of the atomic bombs was ‘overkill’ of an already defeated foe. One merely needs to review the accounts of the fanaticism of the Japanese Army and civilians during the Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Bougainville campaigns to gain a full appreciation of how this foe could delay the liberation of the prison camps. Dad often mentioned he believed all of the POW’s had about 6 more weeks to live at best. They were given no rations, none. They were given no medical care, none. Many men lost their lives and eyes to conjunctivitis, simple pink eye. 42 months of starvation, lack of water, exposure and heavy labor had taken their toll. Well over eighty per cent of their original task force was dead and of those repatriated, 25% of those men later died in hospital. In contrast, once captured and interred by Hitler’s German Army, the WEHRMACHT, only 3% perished. You can do the math here. Dad was interred with over 40,000 US soldiers.The letter you are about to read was written by Dad and you will see signed by himself and Mom. It shows the signature of “Lucy Jopling” so it must have been written after their marriage. Dad spent 5 years in the hospital in San Francisco after returning to the US and would go AWOL (military for Absent Without Leave) to chase Lucy Wilson around the USA trying to convince her to marry him. This wasn’t easy as the old Upshur County farm girl had clear, hard prerequisites for a spouse and many of the traits demonstrated by Captain Jopling didn’t fit the mold even though he was rich with 4 years back combat pay totaling some $14,000 USD. Many times Mom told me he would give her $100 dollars (three months pay) to return to Big Sandy, Texas by herself only to realize, when she arrived, Captain Jopling had beaten her back to that farm in East Texas to be there when she appeared to continue his soliloquy on the many benefits of becoming his bride. Once, upon convincing him to return to San Francisco to continue his treatment and that she was not ready to marry, he did not call her for three weeks. He had suffered a relapse of Malaria and had been taken delirious and blue by ambulance to the hospital from the Dallas airport. For three weeks, the US ARMY nor Lucy Wilson knew of the whereabouts of Captain Jopling. This event would repeat itself later in her life when, after fathering three children, then Major Jopling disappeared for six weeks in South Korea during the police action there.After their return state side the US Army awarded all POW’s six weeks of leave at any state side hotel. This was totally free. Of course Dad was in the hospital and couldn’t use the benefit. This lasted until the Army started getting liquor bills from the hotels and cancelled the ‘free booze’ portion of the benefit. When Dad did finally convince Lucy to marry, they honeymooned in San Francisco and used this benefit. Two weeks into the honeymoon, Dad had another relapse of malaria and yellow fever. Mom, being a nurse laid out instructions to return to the hospital for treatment. Dad’s response to this idea was that after four years of eating cockroaches that were farmed and collected from camp latrines, crickets, grasshoppers and snakes and crickets captured during work details and dandelions pulled and stuffed into what was left of trousers and shirts to be boiled in seawater to make soup, he was going to enjoy the 6 weeks free time or die. He almost died. After turning blue and delirious from the malaria, Mom called the military hospital and the Army medics came and carted him off to hospital.Standing in that hotel hallway, after the medics had bundled Dad up on the gurney and hauled him down the hall to the elevator, Mom, watching the elevator doors close, began to cry. She was scared. After watching thousands of American soldiers die, after being starved and shot at by Japanese fighters and artillery, Capt. Lucy I. Jopling was filled with fear. Strangely, what caused her tears was the fear of not having a safe, secure place to stay. (with US Army soldiers surrounding her for the previous 4 years, she never felt alone or in any real danger) She would have to leave the hotel as Dad was not there. She had little or no money and Dad was delirious and could not recognize her. She was a thousand miles from the small east Texas farm where her Mother was tending a stroke riddled husband. She had no money to return to the farm and no means to stay and ensure her new husband would live through the night. Upon hearing her sob, a passerby, an employee of the hotel stopped and asked Mom as to the reason for her tears. Mom could only muster one simple sentence. Now, in a full tilt sob and heavy tears, she could only mutter, “I have no place to stay.” This lady, this ‘passerby’ quickly and heartily solved Mom’s problem. “Yes you do honey” quipped the lady. “You’re staying with me. Let’s get your things and get you home and settled right now!” I cannot imagine the humanity of this woman. Mom stayed with this lady for several weeks until Dad had regained his senses and was able to get the paper work through the US Army benefits structure so the US Paymaster would recognize Mom as Dad’s wife. Later, upon having three children and the Jopling’s still living in San Francisco, this lady was called upon many times to baby sit and supervise the Jopling children. I am embarrassed I cannot remember her name. Upon her death in San Francisco in 1973, Mom sent me a check for a few hundred dollars from a law firm in California. This was the final settlement of this lady’s estate. This passerby, this Christian lady working in a hotel in California in1946 who had opened her home to a total stranger had willed all of her earthly belongings to Suzanne, Michele, and Pat Jopling. The sons and daughter of a total stranger she met in a hotel hallway some 25 years earlier.During the time Dad was in the hospital in San Francisco is when I believe this letter was composed. Note the repeated requests to have the letter destroyed as the hospital staff was under strict orders from General MacArthur to censor anything that might show the American people the truth about what their sons AND DAUGHTERS had been through as Japanese POWs. All POW mail was heavily censored before it left the hospital. General MacArthur was tasked to rebuild Japan and he did not want any state side provided political ‘backlash’ to hamper his efforts. If we consider Japan and their position in the world today, I believe we can say the General did his job well. This is only one of the great things this great man did. Upon seeing the Japanese ‘prison camps’ in the Philippines and Japan, the condition of the prisoners, General MacArthur issued clear orders protecting all US Army internees. Those standing orders by the then five star General of the Army protected my Dad the rest of his life. Certainly, going AWOL several times a year was not behavior becoming an Officer of the US Army. General MacArthur had seen war and what war does to men and women. Also, he had seen firsthand what the Japanese had done to his men. In his personal notes after his death, it was discovered one of the General’s remaining life’s ambitions after the War was to see to it that both groups of men would never harm one another again. The killing was over, the atrocities and hatred was to be stopped. He also made sure General Wainwright, who was Dad’s boss on Luzon and who had also suffered as a POW at the hands of General Houma, was on board the USS Missouri for the signing of the surrender by the Japanese. He made sure General Wainwright received a pen from the ceremony. It is very easy to identify General Wainwright in the films of the event. He is the man in the starched khaki uniform that appears three sizes too large for his body as they had no uniform aboard ship small enough to properly fit his emaciated torso.The letter was written to my Mom’s parents as they had not heard from him in quite some time. Also, the “Ag” he refers to is his mother, my grandmother, Agnes Jopling. The “EIGHT BALL” he mentions is the odd, black ball in billiards. Mr. Wata survived the war and was tried and hung for crimes against humanity. Lt. Tachino was killed in action against US forces. General Houma also survived the war and was tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity and hung. The pictures from the US aircraft that sunk the first prison ship Dad was on (Oryoku Maru) are now in the US Library of Congress archive and have been shown on the TV military channel. You can also now “GOOGLE” the name of the ship and see the listing of the men that were put aboard. Dan Jopling, Ft. Sumner, New Mexico is there. The combat photographs from the AVENGER air plan that sunk the ship show the burning sinking ship, men swimming in the water, planes attacking and firing their machine guns at the ship and the Japanese soldiers on the shore firing at the men in the water. And, somewhere in these photographs, is my father.I will refer you to books on Billibid Prison, Cabanatuan Prison, Camp O’Donnell Prison, Japanese Hell Ships, Angels of the Philippines, Corregidor and Bataan Death March and the ship’s logs of USS Spearfish and the Oryoku Maru. My mom and dad are listed as credits in many of these texts as dad was in all of these prisons and ships, he was in the Bataan Death March and mom was a nurse on the Bataan peninsula and on the island of Corregidor during the conflict.Here is the web link to the USS SPEARFISH Captain’s Log. Mom’s name is listed on page 73 of 489 of the microfilm reel, in the third War Patrol. [Original page number -17- of War Patrol 3] I can’t remember, but I believe, in one report in this microfilm reel from the Pacific Theater operations center that was sent back down the chain of command, a rubber stamped signature caught my attention. It was remarkable feed back to the submarine commanders from their commander and it startled me at its stark, clear, aggressive tone. It was stamped W.F. Halsey. [note: W. F. “Bull” Halsey was later to be named Fleet Commander, South Pacific]http://issuu.com/hnsa/docs/ss-190_spearfish?mode=a_pOne last note on Dad’s experience aboard the Oryoku Maru (sunk by American forces as he describes) which I believe shows the brilliance of my mother’s mother, Granny Wilson and my Dad. Soon after Mom had gotten word to Granny the she was not ‘MISSING IN ACTION, PRESUMED DEAD’ as the US Army had reported to Granny, Mom told Granny about Dad and asked if there was any word state side about the internees. Certainly, there had been none, but Granny now had a contact to write to in a vain attempt at obtaining any information about Dad to be passed along to Mom. Mom was still in Australia. My Grandmother (Agnes Jopling) had indeed gotten word via the RED CROSS that Dad was alive and ‘Well’ in Billibid Prison in the Philippines. (Internees were dying at a rate of 500 aday at Billibid) Granny “Ag” had sent information to Granny Wilson as to how best to get ‘Christmas Gifts’ to the internees. I cannot understand the dilemma both women shared. What do you send to men who are Japanese Prisoners of War? Granny Wilson’s answer was as swift and as shrewd as the east Texas farm girl she was. The gift was to be a bottle of vitamins. Unbelievably, at Billibid Prison in the Philippines the bottle of vitamins made it to him. Dad took ½ of one tablet, shared the other ½ with his buddy GAMBLE, (also from New Mexico) and the rest of the vitamins went quickly to the camp hospital. Dad however, saved the bottle and amazingly, this little bottle would later help save his life. Dad’s buddy, Gamble, John D., didn’t make it back to US soil. You can see his name engraved in stone, along with Dad’s, on the Bataan Memorial in Santa Fe, New Mexico.Once aboard the Oryoku Maru and at anchor in Manila Bay, (see Dad’s explanation of the ship), Dad positioned himself close to the hold in an attempt to get air. This was a precarious place to be as the Japanese soldiers would remove the cover and fire their weapons down into the hold of the ship to quiet the men screaming for water and air. Once quieted down and at anchor, he looked down in the hold and saw the bamboo container, two decks down where the water was kept. He removed shoe strings from dead comrades and fashioned a fishing line. At the end of the line, he tied the empty little vitamin bottle and sat by the hold all night dipping water out of the tub and fished it back to his lap where he had a canteen cup. In 8 hours he dipped enough water to fill the canteen cup ½ full of the brackish water and this he shared with this buddy, Gamble, from New Mexico. That night was a rather rough night in Manila bay. As both men attempted to sleep on the hot, horse manure covered steel floor of the deck, his buddy kept rolling with the waves onto Dad and Dad would gently roll him off. The next morning, when the Japanese opened the cover of the hold and Dad’s eyes adjusted to the light, he realized his buddy (Gamble) was dead. Each morning aboard the ship, before the day’s rations were sent down via the ship’s crane, they would lower a flat platform at the end of the crane’s cable. It went to the bottom hold cargo way then would come up to the next stopping at each deck for a few minutes so the living prisoners could fill the platform with the dead so they could be removed from the hold. When the platform was full or it made its way to the top deck, the platform was raised above the ship’s side rail, swung out over board and dumped into the sea. A Japanese style ‘burial at sea’ for the deceased Americans. At first light, when the platform came to the deck where Dad had sat dipping water the previous night, Dad loaded John D. Gamble, onto the platform and said goodbye to his friend of over 20 years and then watched as the platform was lifted up and out of the ships hold. Once the ship was moved to Subic Bay and while on the voyage to Japan, the Japanese no longer allowed the removal of the dead Americans. Simply, they had no means of disposal other than dumping them in the sea. And, they thought this dangerous as an astute allied submarine captain could merely follow the trail of dead bodies to the ship. (see Dad’s explanation of this.) So, during the entire voyage, they had to pile the bodies up in the hold while they decomposed. Also, please note the day’s rations for the men in the hold was a handful of uncooked rice and a handful of brown sugar. No water was rationed.As you will read in the letter, Dad was wounded when the US airplanes sunk the Oryoku Maru. He and about 2,000 US prisoners were aboard. In his letter he will tell you how many of them actually completed the trip to Japan. During this attack he had bomb and deck fragments go through his left hand and lodge in his left cheek just under his left eye. He died with American bullet shrapnel in his face. Thus wounded he had to swim in the sea back to the beach while dodging rifle rounds being shot at them from the Japanese soldiers on the beach. The Japanese thought the men were trying to escape capture instead of trying to escape a sinking ship. I can remember years later while Dad would drive his 4 offspring to sporting events or church, he would grip the car’s steering wheel with his left hand. And, you could clearly see the outline of the three knuckles remaining as the forth knuckle had been blown away by American war planes. These injuries almost cost him his life. Once in Japan, with the arm fully infected and full of puss, he could not bend his elbow or move his fingers. The arm merely stuck out as ‘stiff branch’ at a 30 degree angle form his body. Still, being in this condition, everyday he would volunteer for tree cutting duty outside the camp’s walls. He did so as the tree cutting detail would get back to camp and report for head counts later than any other prison work detail. This was very important. This meant that the soup that was prepared from ‘food items’ (see above) as gathered by the men in the camp would be almost gone and the soup portions saved for the tree cutters was ‘the bottom of the pot’ and this contained more of the ‘solids’ from the soup. Also, the tree cutters brought back more snakes, bugs, leaves and grass to put in the pot. To be ‘approved’ for the detail, the soldiers had to march in front of a Japanese Lieutenant and the American doctor. Either men could force a volunteer to fall out of line and not be allowed to go outside the wire. The Japanese Captain could care less who went. The American doctor was a bit more selective and one day seeing Dad walk with his arm stuck out, told Dad to fall out. Undeterred, Dad simply went to the end of the line and started out again. Again, as he passed in front of the American doctor, the Doctor once again told Dad to fall out and report to the “dispensary”. Dad did so.The dispensary was a grass enclosure where what medical equipment the men made was kept. Scalpels were sharp bamboo shards that were dipped in hot sea water prior to use. Upon reporting, the doctor asked three corps men to hold Dad. He objected and told the doctor he would not fight or pull back from treatment. The doctor told Dad that it was not to restrain him from flinching from pain but to hold him up so when he fainted so he would not fall and injure himself even more. Now agreeing, the three men held Dad by the underarms. The physician took the bamboo scalpel, ‘sterilized’ it in hot sea water and took Dad’s hand in his. He told him that he should remove the middle finger but would leave the final decision on the finger for later. He incised Dad’s wrist and made a cut that went down the back of his hand, around the missing knuckle, up through and around the middle of the palm on the other side of the hand and back up to the wrist. Being thus opened, the doctor clasped Dad’s arm with both his hands under his armpit and squeezed it tightly, then he ‘milked’ the poison out of Dad’s arm down and out through the incision. The doctor did this several times. Yes, Dad fainted and was taken to the infirmary and laid down on one of the grass mats. When he came to, he could move his arm and hand. This saved Dad’s arm, hand, middle finger and assuredly, his life. This physician saved many men’s life’s and limbs over his three and one half year term as a Prison Camp Doctor. He died of malaria 4 months before the 90 year old Japanese Commandant of the camp turned over his sword and surrendered the camp to the ranking allied officer after Japan’s surrender. The Japanese Commandant, as ordered, told the ranking allied officer where he could find the white paint needed to paint the letters “POW” on the roofs of the buildings of the camp, then retired to his office and committed hari-kari. The white letters were to assist allied pilots in locating the POW camps so as to accelerate the relief efforts to the ex-prisoners. The pilots would air drop food stuffs to the men as really, there were none to be obtained outside the confines of the camp, save that one old caribou.I forget how I learned of this incident from Dad. I really can’t remember. But, after the surrender the men started to receive radio messages and then ‘fly by’s’ from US airplanes. Basically they were told to stay put and make do until relief forces could make it to them. Shortly after painting the white “POW” letters on the roofs of their huts, they began to see US planes do low fly bys and ‘wiggle’ their wings at the men in acknowledgement of their being located by allied forces. Dad remembered the glee in seeing the first us airplane in 4 years. The prisoners were amazed at their designs and speed. The final camp he was in was in North Korea by the sea. They were mining coal for the Japanese plants in Japan and they would dig and load the coal onto rail road carts and then push them down to the beach where the coal ships would pick up the coal and take it to Japan. Upon liberation, and seeing US relief planes, the men made larger POW letters on the beach. This was to enhance the fly bys and the dropping of food to the men. Their first drop of food was almost fatal. The men were on the beach fishing when a large US plane flew over and banked. It turned and made a lower pass over the beach and wagged its wings, banked again and made another pass over the men on the beach. They looked up and saw relief packages floating down to them. Chaos erupted on the beach as each man began to trail a package down through the sky in an attempt to be the first to catch one and enjoy its contents. The little dots in the sky became larger and larger as they descended. Finally, upon seeing what was going on, Dad yelled for the men to take cover immediately. They all dove under the coal rail cars just in time to have the “packages’ hit the beach. The ‘packages’ were 55 gallon drums full of peaches. Twenty of them. It would have been a sad testament to live through 42 months of Japanese captivity only to be killed by 55 gallon drum of fruit dropped from the sky. The men ate until they could not walk, literally. That night, they slept on the beach to guard the drums from being stolen as they were too weak to move them. All the men had to sleep standing up as when they laid down, they could not breathe.Today, as I pen this note to you all, we have thirteen new, male and female, heroic soldiers that have given their lives for our freedom at Fort Hood, Texas. Thirteen new heroes resting deep in the loving soil of our Mother State of Texas.Please remember these fallen heroes, and when you can, assist and support those who remain alive in service to us and to our freedom as we know it in American today.May God bless and protect each of them.