Notable Passings

Collectors Edition

BETTY TENNEY, WIFE OF LESTER TENNEY

This past December Betty Tenney (106) passed away at her home in Carlsbad, California. She was married for 57 years to Lester Tenney who was the last National Commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor. He negotiated with the Japanese government in 2009 for a decade-long program of expiatory (atonement) trips to Japan for former POWs and their relatives. He was the author of the well-received memoir My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March (2000).
Betty's Obituary Page where you can leave a memory for her family is HERE. 

STANLEY FALK, AUTHOR OF BATAAN: THE MARCH OF DEATH.
In April, Dr. Stanley Falk (99), the prominent historian of the POW experience in the Philippines, passed away. Falk served in MacArthur's GHQ in Tokyo and later as Chief Historian, US Air Force, and then as Deputy Chief Historian for Southeast Asia, US Army Center of Military History. He was an inspiration, mentor and adviser to me.

Among the many books he wrote or contributed to are: Bataan: The March of Death, Liberation of the Philippines, American Patriots: MIS in the War Against Japan, and Foo : A Japanese-American Prisoner of the Rising Sun.

Stanley's Obituary Page where you can leave a memory for his family is HERE. 

requiescat in pace

Memorial Day, May 25, 2026

 Ode for Memorial Day

By Paul Laurence Dunbar

1869

Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,

    Done is the summons of bugle and drum.

Softly and sweetly the sky overarches,

    Shelt’ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.

Dark were the days of the country’s derangement,

    Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,

But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement

    God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.

O’er the expanse of our mighty dominions,

    Sweeping away to the uttermost parts,

Peace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,

    Bringeth her message of joy to our hearts.

Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,

    What did it cost for our fathers to gain!

Bought at the price of the heart’s dearest treasure,

    Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;

Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,

    Slaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;

Born where the heroes and martyrs were dying,

    Torn by the fury of bullet and shell.

Ah, but the day is past: silent the rattle,

    And the confusion that followed the fight.

Peace to the heroes who died in the battle,

    Martyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!

Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,

    Out of the dust and the dimness of death,

Burst into blossoms of glory eternal

    Flowers that sweeten the world with their breath.

Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion

    Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;

Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean

    Leaps into beauty and fullness of life.

So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,

    And with the flag flashing high in the sun,

Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels

    Which their unfaltering valor has won!

🇺🇸

The annual proclamation of the president of the United States

May 22, 2026