Soldier Slaves
Abandoned by the White House, Courts, and Congress
by James W. Parkinson and Lee Benson.
Decades-old war abuses are given up-to-the-minute relevance in this book about World War II American soldiers seeking restitution from Japanese companies that used them as slave laborers during the war. Their struggle is told by the lawyer representing them, James Parkinson as he ties the present to the past by interspersing horrific war narrative with modern-day dramas played out in courtrooms and congressional hearing rooms as lawyers, judges, government officials, senators, and congressmen debate the merits of a case now known as the JPOW case. In the process, wartime brutality confronts peacetime prosperity, and economics, not military might, determines the outcome. Using the personal history of one of the veterans he represents to illustrate what happened, Parkinson traces a path that began with the infamous Bataan Death March of April 1942 and three and a half years of forced labor, followed by years of silence imposed on the veterans by their own government. Readers will be drawn into the case as the extent of the maltreatment by the Japanese is revealed and the POWs' efforts to be compensated for their labor unfold. With the support of such influential senators as Orrin Hatch and Joseph Biden and the publication of this book, Parkinson and coauthor Lee Benson are making certain that the veterans' story becomes widely known.
Hard Back