Re: Unsung Heroes, Lost

Date: April 21, 2004

"Advocate for families of soldiers killed in action dies of cancer

AUBURN, Ala. -- Julia Compton Moore, 75, a military wife whose care for the families of soldiers killed in war was portrayed in the Mel Gibson movie We Were Soldiers, died Sunday of cancer.

Her husband of 55 years, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Harold G. Moore, was wounded in Korea and Vietnam and later wrote a book based on his combat experience, We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young, which Gibson turned into the 2002 movie. Her father fought in Europe in World War II and one of her sons fought with the 82nd Airborne Division in Panama and the Gulf War.

By her family's account, Mrs. Moore challenged the Army's informal practice of delivering combat death notices by taxi to wives and families in small apartments or trailers. She urged the Army to deliver more compassionate notices with uniformed staff, and she helped build support networks for families of slain soldiers.

SEATTLE -- Cecil Waldo Parrott, 83, a survivor of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines who unsuccessfully sought reparations from Japanese corporations for forced labor as a World War II prisoner, died Thursday, his family said.

Mr. Parrott was a corporal in the Army Signal Corps when the Bataan Peninsula fell on April 9, 1942.

More than 10,000 of the 70,000 soldiers who surrendered to the Japanese died of exhaustion, thirst, disease and abuse in the 70-mile Death March.

Mr. Parrott endured 1,228 days in Japanese captivity."