Another passing worth noting.

Frank Muther

SALINAS, Calif. (AP) - Frank Muther, a survivor of the Bataan Death March who helped establish a memorial for soldiers who died in the World War II atrocity, has died. He was 86.

Muther, a longtime dairy farmer, died of heart and lung failure Thursday, his son David told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Frank Muther's Army unit was captured in the Philippines in 1942 and forced to march to a prison camp about 70 miles away. The soldiers were given little food and water, and stragglers were executed. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March.

Only 47 of the 105 Salinas soldiers who joined Company C of the Army's 194th Tank Battalion returned home after surviving the march and years in Japanese slave-labor camps.

Muther spent 44 months as a prisoner of war, the last two years in Japan, where he was forced to build bridges and shovel coal, and suffered starvation and torture.

What man could not do, time did- I tip my hat sir.

--WP