Archive - November 8, 2012

The Devil’s Causeway The True Story of America’s First Prisoners of War in Philippines, and the Heroic Expedition Sent to Their Rescue by Matthew Westfall (Philippines 1983-85) Lyons Press $26.95 (hardcover); $12.90 (Kindle) 417 pages 2012 Reviewed by P. David Searles (CD Philippines 1971–74) TO THE EXTENT THAT AMERICANS KNOW anything about the Philippines, they tend to know that the United States played a key role in liberating the country from its 300-year-long Spanish occupation.  They would probably know enough to say that this event took place during the Spanish American War at the end of the nineteenth century.  What they have little or no knowledge about is the fierce, bloody and barbaric war that the United States and the Philippines fought immediately following the dispatch of the Spanish. Even to this day, the United States refuses to give the struggle legitimacy by calling it a ‘War.’  Instead, we insist . . .