Post 1945
Why did some survive?
Ward Redshaw
The young fellows from homes they'd never been away from - when they didn't have anything to hang on to, they died and we called it bamboo-itis. They could have anything you want, you could give them anything you want and they just died. The initial number of people who died were the young fellows, 18 years old, 19, 20, 21.

When you're homeless and helpless in prison camp you have to go in your inner strength and my inner strength was the Lord's Prayer. A simple thing. I was raised in a strict religious environment where God was the supreme one and I never doubted him for being there. You have to have that kind of belief in something to go through prison camp. I lived for 30 days at a time. Those people who said the Americans can't be here for two or three years or whatever. "We just haven't got a chance." I just stayed with my 30 days and I'd come up to the end of that and I'd go to another 30 days. I'd always be optimistic and use my prayers. God help you if you're in the same condition.

Lorenzo Banegas
I had the will to keep on going. I still didn't think I was going to die. They bombed us and I just gave myself to God and I said "God, if it is your will for me to live, I'll live. If it's your will for me to die, I'll die." That helped me a lot.

David Johns
[I was] just determined to get home again. I always had faith that I'd make it. I always felt that they'd never kill me. They'd never work me to death. They might shoot me, but they'd never work me to death. I was brought up in a ranch on Silver City and I was used to hard work since I was a kid.

[on sickness] You got over it or died. They had what they called the zero ward. If you weren't able to work and got down real sick they'd put you in the zero ward. You either crawled out of there or walked out or got carried out.

Effects after the war
Ruben Flores
I will be sleeping at night; I'll wake up at night and have nightmares, every time I talk about this. Still, after 50 years. Others took to drinking because of that. They never forgot that treatment they got during their imprisonment. There's a lot of them. I don't think there's anybody that will ever forget what we went through. I don't care how happy you are, you come back to it. You might have a good time all night and tomorrow you go back to thinking to what you went through.

I don't think I could prepare a young person [going to war] but just say go and fight for your country. People ask me, "How do you get along with the Japanese? Do you like them?"

I don't have any animosity toward the Japanese. The only ones I don't really like and those ones I don't care to see are the ones who beat me up. They didn't have to be as cruel as they were. The rest of them were just fighting for their country like we were fighting for ours.

Ward Redshaw
[I] finally got married and settled down but it left me for many years. I stayed in the Army and did very well but it made me as a martinet to the family.

I was mean to my wife one time then in my next mood I'd be out. I'd be happy go lucky, which has all been explained by my psychiatrist. But it was difficult for them to live with me. I was hyperactive and really I didn't get any help until after I was out of the service and I slowed down. I got into the VA services. Turned out that I have PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] which can manifest itself in many different ways. I never abused my family but I sure gave them a hell of a time with my tongue.

Today I have a high startle index. I had a mental problem for many years that was unrecognized and it is just unbelievable that I did no more harm than I did.

I had to get that spirit out of me when I got back. No matter where I have gone people spoke admiringly that I was a prisoner of war of the Japanese rather than of the Vietnam era later, which was a lot, lot different. So I never had anybody tell me that I was a deserter which quite often happened with the Vietnam POWs.

So I came out of it all right but all through my life in prison camp and afterwards I've had nothing but wonderful people and family who have supported me in trying to lead a normal life. I can now look back and say that I did not lead a normal life for many years because of the POW [period]. The first 15 years after getting out my dreams were spectacular. [I] was in a jeep and driving it and my left hand tires were on a path and my right ones were in air and I'd fall over.

It was always things like that and [I'd be] run over by railroad train and things like that. That happened for many years. In August they came back. I've had a lot of really terrible dreams. The help I got was really needed and much appreciated. And I can quite see how a person not getting help just can't make it in the world.