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Old 11-26-2012, 12:10 AM
Flora Van Orden Flora Van Orden is offline
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When I looked at her signature, I was mentally & emotionally back in Guam in 1945, being home schooled. Dad was the commanding officer of the Naval & MC detachment, trying to find a cure for dengue fever, malaria & all of the other tropical diseases that the men (and dad) had gotten in Samoa & in other areas of the world before & after the war. The Japanese prisoners were there in a compound & they broke out because they wanted to be killed in honor by battle. They attacked our (the CO's) quonset hut & everyone who survived was loaded on a troop ship, whereupon, to a man, they jumped overboard. That was so scary for me, I blocked it out. Mom was on top of a chair, pistol blazing, aiming at the attackers through the cracks in the top of the walls & the roof of the hut. Dad had 2, blazing from the hip, protecting his family as people broke down the front door. My brother, who remembered it, was under a bed.

All this from looking at a signature. She taught me how to write in Guam. One of the Japanese prisoners, Nagaji Sakata, taught me how to paint & draw. His son in Japan now has his paintings. I gave them to the Japanese Embassy in D.C., asked them to find his family, & they did. I'm so grateful that mom & dad both knew how to protect us.
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