Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this week my constituent Caroline Burkhart of Baltimore, MD, is on a historic trip to Japan of remembrance and reconciliation. A guest of the Japanese Government, she will follow the journey of her father, Thomas F. Burkhart, who was a prisoner of war of imperial Japan 75 years ago. Her trip will include a visit to the site of the camp in which her father was held as a POW. At the start of WWII, Lieutenant Burkhart served in the Philippines with the Headquarters Company of the 45th Infantry, Philippine Scouts, an elite U.S. Army unit composed of American officers and Filipino enlisted men. After Japan's December 8, 1941, invasion of the Philippines, his battalion helped defend the withdrawal of American forces on Luzon to the Bataan Peninsula. Barely a month after being promoted to first lieutenant, on January 24, 1942, Lieutenant Burkhart earned a Silver Star for ``Gallantry in Action'' at the Battle of Abucay Hacienda, January 15 to 25, 1942, which maintained the first battle position on Bataan. Sick with malaria, Lieutenant Burkhart was in the open-air general hospital No. 1 near the tip of Bataan when Major General Edward King surrendered the peninsula to Japanese forces on April 9, 1942. Soon thereafter, the patients were taken by truck, boxcar, and foot up to Camp O'Donnell, an overcrowded, makeshift POW camp.…”