Tim McGraw wrote:

Bataan Death March, 

My Mom, who is 93, told me this story years ago. Mom had driven her black Jaguar sports car from Kansas City up to southern Minnesota to visit her relatives. Mom told me the oil light came on somewhere in Iowa, so she pulled into a gas station. The mechanic looked under the hood and told my Mom that he didn’t have a clue how to fix the British car.

My Mom drove on to southern Minnesota with no problems.

Mom stayed in Minneapolis and drove out to the small towns of her relatives. There, she found out that her Uncle Scrubby had died. Mom told me that Uncle Scrubby was a good guy. He was always kind. They called him Scrubby because he was short.

Uncle Scrubby had joined the Army before WWII. He was in the regular Army and stationed in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded. His company surrendered to the Japs and then had to endure the Bataan Death March. 

Uncle Scrubby spent WWII in a Japanese POW camp outside of Manila. I think the fact that he was short and needed fewer calories of food to live kept him alive. 

After the war, Scrubby was shipped home. His widow told my Mom that Uncle Scrubby was a skeleton. He slowly put on weight and went to work in the small town.

Scrubby’s widow told my Mom that every night for over 60 years after the war, Scrubby would scream in his sleep.