Post Script on Gen. Antonio Taguba

Mea culpa. So I relied on my journalist friend's forwarded message (which he got from another person) that Gen. Antonio Taguba has Igorot blood running through his veins. Eh mali pala. Tsk tsk. Trublue was kind enough to point out the error and so I have to write this post script. I did have a female classmate surnamed Taguba from Kalinga but she said her family trace their roots in Mountain Province. But as far as our hero is concerned, he's an Ilocano, period.

I Googled Tomas Taguba, Gen. Taguba's dad, and here's what I found:

After serving in two wars and being captured by the Japanese Imperial Army at Bataan in the Philippines in 1942, Tomas B. Taguba finally has been recognized for his service.

"I don't know what happened," Taguba said after receiving two medals recently from Maj. Gen. James T. Hill, commanding general of the 25th Infantry Division. Taguba's son, Brig. Gen. Antonio Taguba, the U.S. Army's first Filipino-American general officer, observed the ceremony.

"This was a special honor for him and his family," said Gen. Taguba, deputy commander of the 1st Army at Fort Jackson in North Carolina.

Tomas Taguba was 24 when he was inducted into the U.S. Army on Feb. 10, 1942, as a member of the Philippine Scouts.

During the Japanese attack on the Philippines, Taguba was a truck driver assigned to haul ammunition and food supplies to the front lines on Bataan and Corregidor. He was captured by the Japanese when Bataan fell on April 9, 1942.

During the infamous Bataan death march, Taguba escaped, joined the underground movement and avoided being recaptured by the Japanese until U.S. forces returned to the Philippines. He was listed as missing in action for more than three years -- a period spent reporting on Japanese movements in his home province of Isabella, (emphasis mine) he said.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army in July 1945, and rose to the rank of sergeant 1st class before he retired in 1962. During his more than 20 years in the Army, Taguba served in South Korea, Germany and Okinawa, spending his last 17 years as a motor-pool sergeant.

After retiring from the Army, Taguba returned to the service to spend another 17 years at Schofield Barracks working as an arms specialist.

He has been married to the former Maria Batulan for more than 52 years. They have seven children and nine grandchildren.

Igorot or not, I continue to admire Gen. Taguba, a shining example of a man of valor and honor.

Gen. Antonio Taguba: An Igorot Hero in These Troubled Times

A journalist friend forwarded this beautiful article regarding the modern-day heroism of General Antonio Taguba, "the highest-ranking US military officer of Filipino descent. He was born and raised in the Philippines before migrating to the US, and is the son of an Igorot Philippine Scout who survived the Bataan Death March."

I couldn't help but be moved by this man's awe-inspiring sense of integrity as he evealed the damning truth about the abuses committed by his fellow American soldiers at Abu Ghraib. Sir, you make me feel honored to be an Igorot.

The eminent journalist Seymour Hersh has just published a story in the New Yorker on the man who told the truth about Abu Ghraib.

The US government investigation of the Abu Ghraib prison atrocities in 2004 was led by General Antonio Taguba, the highest-ranking US military officer of Filipino descent. He was born and raised in the Philippines before migrating to the US, and is the son of an Igorot Philippine Scout who survived the Bataan Death March.

General Taguba's report on the Abu Ghraib atrocities is lucid, damning and fearless, and shows a trail of responsibility leading to the top levels of the most powerful government in the world.

Only a military man of the greatest integrity could have had the courage to file a report so unflinching in its analysis, and so damning of his superiors and of the military system around which his whole career--his life--was built.

I remember watching on C-SPAN as General Taguba entered a crowded meeting room to testify before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee regarding his findings. It took him a while to make his way to his chair, because so many wanted to shake his hand--the hand of a man who was not afraid to tell the truth.

A Filipino friend who lives in Washington, DC, rode a taxi to the hearing. When the taxi driver learned that she was a Filipino, and where she was headed, he refused payment for the ride.

"The world needs more people like General Taguba," he said.
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>From the article in the New Yorker:

"From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service," Taguba said. "And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable."

Read "The General's Report: How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties by Seymour M. Hersh, New Yorker, 25 June 2007 here.