Posted on 10/19/2012 8:46:00 PM PDT by Rabin
More than 250,000 Filipinos fought for the United States during the war and were promised equal treatment as American veterans after the war. Weeks after Obama took office in 2009, Congress approved a stimulus package that included one-time payments of $15,000 to Filipino veterans in the United States and $9,000 to those living in the Philippines. Obama's administration yesterday created a working group to look into the plight of Filipino veterans.... presidential assistant Chris Lu.
(Excerpt) Read more at asianewsnet.net ...
Rab.
They draw full pay and pay NO income tax UNTIL right before they retire, they take citizenship process to collect Soc. Sec. Hmmmm.
My Father was a combat veteran of WWII and I don’t think he got anything except a few medals of the type everyone got.
I suppose he could have gone to college on the GI bill but that was not possible with a wife and 5 children. He was just a plain American tho.
Some of the Filipinos fought very well but they were also fighting for their own country.
They fought to free their country. That and the blood shed by our men to free their country is payment enough. Go make your own gravy train.
My wife’s grandfather was a filipino scout in the war. He said he never wanted money from the US army. He’s been dead a long time. I wonder how many are left to pay?
Have a real link to the story? Yours leads to the homepage of that site.
Here is a link to the story in Stars and Stripes: http://www.stripes.com/mobile/news/us/obama-tasks-group-to-review-filipino-war-veterans-claims-1.193685
There were more Philippine soldiers that died on the Bataan Death March than American soldiers. Many of the Philippine soldiers had less than 6 months of training before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the entire Philippine Army, about 100,000 men was put into US Federal Service when we declared war on Japan. Thus they were as much on active duty as my uncles who were in the National Guard and federalized in 1940.
An experpt from the article: More than 250,000 Filipinos fought for the United States during the war and were promised equal treatment as American veterans after the war.
But in 1946, the U.S. Congress enacted the Rescission Act that took away full recognition of the Filipinos and stripped them of their benefits, leaving bitterness in the former colony and decades of campaigning to change U.S. policy.
I have seen figures that said the Philippino Army and Scouts lost 40,000 men on the Bataan Death March and in the slave labor/death camps.
The survivors deserve what was promised to them.
Also, over a million Filippino civilians were murdered by the Japanese occupiers, many because they helped American escaped POWS get away from the Japanese.
The Filippino people are our good friends and paid a heavy price to help us in WW2.
Also had a PHILCAG unit in So. Vietnam, which, while more a civic action (built roads, wells, schools, etc)., they took both KIA and WIAs from the communists.
“They fought to free their country.”
They did that 40 years before (against Americans, when they were sold to us by Spain), and lost. In WWII they were an American possession.
Mad Max,
thank you for the additional information and justification for their case.
Mad Max,
thank you for the additional information and justification for their case.
Kearny, The Philippines had commonwealth status in 1940-41 and were to become a totally independent country in 1946. Unlike Great Britain after WWII, which resisted independence for some of its colonies, mosted noted what became India and Pakistan, the US DID NOT RE-NEG on its pre-war promise of independence in 1946, and it happened on schedule.
I understand.
The Filipinos who fought in WWII were fighting for an American commonwealth.
And their ultimate independence, something they would not have had as part of the Japanese “Co-prosperity sphere.”
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