I’d like to introduce you to one of the most incredible and inspirational people you will EVER meet.
Several years back, my parents relocated to a quiet neighborhood in Clemson, South Carolina. They soon realized that the neighbor in the house directly across the street was no ordinary man. It was a man with an unbelievable story. I recently got to sit down and chat with him.
Col. Beverly Skardon, known lovingly simply as “Ben” to those who know him, is one of the few remaining survivors of the Bataan Death March of World War II. The Bataan Death March is the name given to the 66-mile forced march of tens of thousands of American soldiers captured by the Japanese on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines in 1942.
The Japanese felt it was beneath a solider to ever surrender, so they viewed these captured men as something lower than human. This mindset allowed them to commit unspeakably brutal acts against them as they were forced to march through the sweltering heat.
Not many survived this ordeal. Of those that did, not many are alive today. Of those that are, there is only one who completes an annual 8.5 mile hike through the New Mexico desert in remembrance of the tragedy: Col. Ben.
Training for this event is year-round for Ben. He can be seen cruising through the neighborhood every single day in preparation. He will turn 100 in 2017, but has no plans to stop. There isn’t an ounce of quit in this man.
Sometimes his training even takes him over to a trail my dad built through an unused wooded area nearby, which he has dedicated to Ben:
The Bataan Memorial Death March and Ben's story are so special, in fact, that 60 Minutes Sports ran a special on Ben and why he does the march. I highly recommend it to anyone reading this, and here is a link where it can be found:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/NDSMediaArchiveBucket/SHOW/20160607/73B4B834-2E3C-488A-8A37-76E405A6FA0F.mp4
If you do not want to click away from Steemit at that link, here is another version of Ben's survival story told in his own words:
Ben is still sharp as a tack, too. My dad joins him a couple nights a week for a glass of sippin’ whiskey in his living room, what Ben likes to call his “med-cin”. Before I got ill on my recent trip, I got a chance to sit down and join him.
Ben is always interested to hear about my Scandinavian adventures when I see him. “Quisling”, he says this time, referring to the infamous Norwegian traitor who sided with the Nazis when Norway was occupied during the war. This is not something you want to be called in Norway.
He wants to know how Norway reacted to being occupied. The Norwegian Resistance Movement is quite famous and heralded as a critical effort in the fight against the spread of Nazi ideals. The movement was also significant in preventing Hitler from gaining access to atomic weaponry, as the Norwegians famously sabotaged a plant capable of producing heavy water, one of the necessary ingredients for production of an atom bomb.
Ben wants to hear more, so I think I can entertain him with tales of Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who led the first successful expedition to the South Pole.
Have you heard of Amundsen?, I offer.
The explorer?, Ben snaps back before proceeding to describe the very expedition I was just going to tell him about. Nearly 100 and you can’t slip a thing past him. What a guy.
There is one thing that continues to stump us, however. If you can help me figure it out, the Colonel will be forever grateful to you. In the years after the war, Ben was put on various assignments in Europe. When I see him, he swears to me that, on a sailing expedition departing from the UK and ending in St. Petersburg, that they traveled through a very even, symmetrical, man-made canal. For the life of me, I cannot imagine where it is, even though I have no doubt whatsoever that he knows what he is talking about. So if you think you know, please leave me a comment.
The time eventually comes for us to make our way back across the street and let the Colonel wind down his evening.
This was a memorable night for me, Ben says in reference to the engaging conversation we had. And I think that might just be one of the best compliments I’ve ever received!
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