Bataan Death March survivor learns to overcome deep anger when he has a Japanese-American student in class
Ben Steele hated the young man as soon as he saw him.
The man's almond-shaped eyes, dark hair and olive skin -- Steele had seen those Asian facial features before.
He saw that face when he watched Japanese soldiers behead sick men begging for water, run over stumbling prisoners with tanks and split his comrades' skulls with rifle butts.
"Men died like flies," Steele says. "I thought for a while I would never make it."
Steele, now 91, is one of the last survivors of the Bataan Death March.
During World War II, the Japanese army forced American and Filipino prisoners of war on a march so horrific that the Japanese commander was later executed for war crimes.
Steele returned home to Montana after the war to teach, but he still had something to learn.
When he saw a young Japanese-American student seated in his class one day, he felt both anger and anguish....
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The man's almond-shaped eyes, dark hair and olive skin -- Steele had seen those Asian facial features before.
He saw that face when he watched Japanese soldiers behead sick men begging for water, run over stumbling prisoners with tanks and split his comrades' skulls with rifle butts.
"Men died like flies," Steele says. "I thought for a while I would never make it."
Steele, now 91, is one of the last survivors of the Bataan Death March.
During World War II, the Japanese army forced American and Filipino prisoners of war on a march so horrific that the Japanese commander was later executed for war crimes.
Steele returned home to Montana after the war to teach, but he still had something to learn.
When he saw a young Japanese-American student seated in his class one day, he felt both anger and anguish....