Professor Greg Jackson

The tank commander later recalls the officer swinging his samurai sword, trying to cut heads off, I assume.

Just ducking away at just the right minute, Lester avoids decapitation by mere inches.

He's struck in the back with a huge gash by his left shoulder blade.

The tank commander continues on, leaning mightily on two friends, the black-haired, bearded, and soft-spoken Walter Wally Seagoy and the blonde-haired, blue-eyed loudmouth Bob Ronge, a duo known to everyone as the Meatball Twins on account of their Italian heritage.

And they've got to hold Lester up.

Everyone knows that falling means certain death.

The meatball twins manage to maneuver their tank commander to a medic who uses a needle and thread to sew him up and try to stop the bleeding.

They carry him for the next two miles.

And so, the overheated, underfed, dehydrated, makeshift stitched and dried blood covered Lester Tenney continues on for the total 90 mile march.

I wish I could tell you that Lester, Wally, and Bob make it home safely.

Well, Lester will survive.

He'll go on to become a university professor and advocate for POWs, desperately pushing for the Japanese government to acknowledge and apologize officially for what he and his fellow soldiers endured.

As for the Meatball Twins, to quote Lester once more, Seagoy and Bronge saved my life.

I only wish I could save theirs.

Both men will die of dysentery before the end of the war.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

It's still summer 1942, and this death march isn't over.

In fact, its brutality can be even worse than what Lester described.

It's around 12 noon, April 12, 1942.

28-year-old Captain Pedro L. Felix and some 1,500 Filipino officers and soldiers from the 91st Division are at a junction of jungle roads in the foothills of Mount Samak, just past the bridge that the Japanese forced them to build this very morning at gunpoint.