Servicemen who survived prisoner of war camps 60 or 70 years ago are fading away, which is why the local chapter of former POWs no longer has enough veterans to stay in business.
But the memories of what these men endured remain vivid, as a recent Columbian story about three World War II POWs indicated.
A conversation with Wade Minor and Dale Bowlin, both 86, and 90-year-old Gene Liggett showed that some of those experiences can stay with a person forever.
Another great example of that was provided by a member of their group who died a few months ago.
Don Barton spent three years as a POW during the Korean War. Some of his experiences came flooding back during the 2008 Olympic Games in China.
In a 2008 interview, Barton told a Columbian reporter that he and his fellow POWs had been forced to sing the national anthems of China and North Korea every day before they could eat dinner. More than 50 years later, he still remembered the words.
So, when Barton watched telecasts of the Beijing Olympics and heard the Chinese national anthem sung, he sometimes sang along … although not fondly, added Barton, who died in May at age 77.
“I don’t know,” he told the reporter. “I guess it brings back a lot of memories.”
Willie’s words
A different sort of sporting anthem was part of a December news story that had a Vancouver angle.
It involved the death of Don Meredith, a former NFL quarterback who became a TV star for his irreverent approach as a “Monday Night Football” analyst.
His trademark line came when the game was no longer in doubt, and Meredith would start crooning, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over …”
The song was written by his pal Willie Nelson — a fellow Texan and a Vancouver radio personality during the 1950s.
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
