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v^ni^i *x, ucau ncnuciumc aware oi me repon ana 11sviuiumuea un ragf mo/For a POW, Christmas is just ‘another day of living hell’By J.SUTER KEGG Contributing WriterCUMBERLAND - The dream of peace for every American who served in the armed forces during the past four wars in which the United States was an active participant turned into a horrible nightmare for combat military personnel on Christmas Day, the one day when peace andgoodwill toward men are,traditionally, supposed to prevail. For veterans held as prisoners of war during those conflicts, Christmas was “just another day of living hell.”It is estimated that 142,000 U.S. service men and women were held as prisoners of World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the conflict in Vietnam, and the government has been awarding newly designed medals to those who survived the atrocities inflicted on them by their captors.Although the song, “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas,” wasn’t written until 1951, the words would have been meaningless to American prisoners during the two World Wars. First of all, it didn’t look anything like Christmas inside POW camps and the part of the song, “everywhere you go,” would have been inconsequential because the barbed-wire barricades made sure that our suffering heroes weren’t going anywhere.Starvation diets reduced once-brawny physiques to reprehensible skeletons and instilled in a majority of these proud Americans venomous ill will toward the barbarous enemy.The long-overdue medals received by prisoners of war over the past year prompted Frost-burg’s Matthew B. Skidmore to request the Cumberland Sunday Times-News to print never-before-told stories of ex-POWs in Western Maryland. “Most people in our area, including many veterans, don’t realize the degree of brutality to which our POWs were subjected,’’ hesaid. Skidmore, a combat veteran of World War II, is slated to become the American Legion’s Maryland commander in 1992.A chapter of American Ex-Prisoners of War Inc. (Maryland West) is active in Allegany and Garrett counties but not all of the ex-POWs from here are members. Some prefer to put that span of their lives in limbo, refusing to discuss their humiliating experiences of inhumane treatment — beating, torture, slave labor and starvation — at the hands of their captors.The periods of imprisonment endured by those interviewed for this story varied from 45 months to three days. One of them, Lavange Edward Davis, who resides at 951 Seton Drive, had the misfortune to have been a POW in two conflicts, World War II and the Korean War, one of the few Americans ever to suffer double ignominy. Thirty-eight of his 45 months were spent in Korea.Ex-POWs who suffered from a multiplicity of deficiencies and infective diseases for a long period of time with little or no medication are now, as a result, experiencing serious medical problems. Among the aftereffects of their ordeals are (1) faulty memory and difficulty in concentration, (2) nervousness, irritability, restlessness, (3) fatigue, (4) traumatic dreams, (5) headaches, (6) depression, (7) moodiness, (8) loss of initiative, (9) feeling of insufficiency, (10) shunning large turnouts of people.Damon Wright of LaVale, who played a key role in the institution of the Maryland West Ex-POW Chapter, typifies the severity of KZ Syndrome, German for concentration camp, with which ex-POWs suffer. He has been reliving his experiences as a World War II prisoner of the Japanese for 42 months, suffering flashbacks day and night. For a period of two weeks recently, he was un-(Continued On Page C20)TWICE A POW —Lavange Edward Davis of Cumberland was a prisoner of war during World War II and the Korean War. He is one of few Americans to have had the misfortune to be a prisoner of war twice.
Newspaper Details
Cumberland Sunday Times News
Cumberland, Maryland, US
Sun, Dec 10, 1989
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 28 Jul 2020
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