Nine desperate names scratched on a stone wall.

Maggots squirmed under the toes of emaciated men, the bile always bitter at the backs of their throats. 

"This is it, boys." 

Under the thin layer of grimy skin of each man was a boy who cried out in his sleep, now and for years to come. 

Brothers walked into the barracks one day only to realize that the buddy who drank with them last night was MIA. 

Lying dead in a mud hole,  floating on his back in the ocean, or his ashes blowing in the wind above the clouds. 

"Brace!" 

Feet shuffled to line up before foreign faces.

All eyes to the ground because one look will cost a beating. 

Or worse.

A hell of devils who strived to steal a man's dignity, to force him to his knees and tease him with a lifeline only to snatch it away with bloodied talons.

Always, always fear of the kill-all order. 

"Why you no look at me?" 

The Bird circles, a sadistic nightmare.

Don't even try to break a rule, cross the line, steal food, any resistance, or look at him the wrong way.

He will come at you with a belt, a stick, a bat, tie you to a tree, anything.

Wail with laughter as you bleed. Foam at the mouth at your suffering.

A psychotic array of temper tantrums, visible to rows of prisoners who can clearly see the erotic pleasure melted across his face. 

"Dear Mom and Dad..." 

The promise of sending letters home to worried family, only to find them burned or stuffed into the garbage.

Captors stealing Red Cross packages right in the open, taking food as starving stomachs rumbled with envy and rage.

A wave of defiance, a tide of resistance, emerges.

An underground network of prisoners set on stealing food and disrupting anything and everything. 

Deftly stashing newspapers under dirty bunks and filling pant legs up with rice.

Wrecking train tracks and army supplies. 

"What do you know about Allied positions?" 

Interrogated.

Tortured. 

Stick thin men with bones sharply jutting out with painful angles. 

Starving. 

They are served insignificant amounts of food with little to no protein.

Wracked with dysentery and beriberi.

Men die of starvation, go blind from malnutrition,  or waste away before liberation comes. 

"Do you remember?"

"I don't want to remember." 

Waking from nightmares, screaming, tangled in sweaty sheets.

Drifting alone in a depressed wasteland.

Downing liquor, some men drink themselves to death.

Surrounded by people who will never begin to understand the extent of human suffering that they went through .

Flashbacks causing scenes in casual places; many are still in the hands of the torturers, even if they are free. 

Some find faith in God.

Some try to let go.

Some never move on.

Haunted by their experience as a prisoner of war.

They will never forget.

Neither should we.