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News & Events
Former
Prisoner of War to Highlight SPC Salute to Veterans
November 11
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2, 2005
CONTACT: Roland Ruiz, Director of Public Relations,
St. Philip's College
210/531-4851
rruiz@accd.edu
A
former prisoner of war and survivor of the Bataan
Death March, U.S. Army Pvt. Joseph Lajzer, will deliver
the keynote address at a St. Philip's College Salute
to Veterans Friday, Nov. 11 at 10 a.m. in the Heritage
Room on the main campus. The program, presented by
the St. Philip’s College Office of Veterans
Affairs in observance of Veterans Day, will honor
the men and women who have served in the armed forces,
including reservists and active military personnel
past and present. The event is free and open to the
public and all veterans are encouraged to wear their
uniforms.
At age
87, Lajzer is one of a dwindling number of men still
alive to tell what it was like to endure life in a
Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. He is the author of
3.6 Years of Hell in Japanese Prisoner of War Camps
1942-1945, in which he recounts the 1942 Bataan Death
March. Lajzer, originally a member of the 753rd Medium
Tank Batallion at Fort Knox, Kentucky, volunteered
to join the 192nd Tank Batallion at Camp Polk, Louisiana
in 1941, and was assigned for overseas duty with Company
B. He arrived in the Philippine Islands two weeks
before the attack on Pearl Harbor and eventually was
taken as a prisoner of war. Lajzer was held in Camp
O'Donnell in the Philippines and also later imprisoned
at Cabanatuan, Lipa Batangas, Camp Murphy, and Bilibid
Prison. He left the Philippines on the "hell
ship" Benju Maru and as part of his imprisonment,
spent 38 days in the hull of the ship on the way to
Formosa where only three of 15 ships made it. On September
6, 1945, the U.S. Navy landed on the island of Formosa,
and the POWs were liberated.
St. Philip’s
College, one of the Alamo Community Colleges serving
the greater Bexar County region, is a comprehensive
community college designated as both a Historically
Black College and a Hispanic Serving Institution.
St. Philip’s College is accredited by the Commission
on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges
and Schools.
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