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| -Obits- |
| Veteran Says Goodbye To Phillipino Who Saved His Life |
| 2008-12-09 |
| Eleven days after his emotional reunion with a Filipino man who helped save his life during World War II, American veteran James Carrington died quietly Sunday at the Destrehan nursing home where he resided. He was 88. One of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers imprisoned by the Japanese after the fall of the island of Corregidor, Mr. Carrington, a Marine who grew up in New Orleans, escaped from the notorious Bilibid Prison and was given refuge by a group of Filipinos in a passing horse cart. He later help lead guerrilla fighters based in a mountain hideout who created havoc for the Japanese military before American forces retook the Philippines. Mr. Carrington's son, James Carrington Jr., said he believes his father rallied in recent weeks to stay alive for a Thanksgiving week visit from Jesus Gonzalez, a native of the Philippines now living in Vancouver. "It took every bit of strength he had," the veteran's son said. "It kept him alive, in my opinion. That's all he was looking forward to." Gonzalez, who was 11 years old at the time, was among those who hid Mr. Carrington after the Marine scaled a prison wall in April 1944. His older brother was later arrested by Japanese soldiers for his role in the episode and is believed to have been executed. Gonzalez's daughter Valerie, a musician who lives in New Jersey, had tracked down the ailing former Marine after her father, a retired engineer, recalled a cigarette lighter left behind by Mr. Carrington that bore his name. Mr. Carrington had visited with Jesus and Valerie Gonzalez, along with immediate members of his own family, for a few days prior to Thanksgiving Day. He died Sunday morning at the Ormond Nursing and Care Center. "I'm very glad that we made the effort to go and see him," Jesus Gonzalez said Monday from Canada. "I didn't expect that it would be the last one with him. It was such a joyful moment with me to have met him at last after all those years. I'll see him again somewhere, somehow, up in heaven perhaps. He was a great man. He did a great service to the United States and to the Philippines." Mr. Carrington, a former Warren Easton student, left high school to join the Marines in 1939. After the war, the man who had been dubbed the "Cajun guerrilla" made a living as an excavating contractor, and he and his wife, Joyce, raised two children in Harahan. A Marine honor guard will participate in the burial ceremony. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #3 God bless him.... |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2008-12-09 23:28 |
| #2 Louisiana grows some good people too. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2008-12-09 22:22 |
| #1 "A cigarette lighter ... that bore his [Carrington's] name] > HMMMMMMM....Guam long ago??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-12-09 19:30 |