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Originally Posted by Dimasalang
Definitely heroic people on both sides of the coin thats for sure...
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Indeed!
Like on the American side, Prof. Borrinaga in his
The Balangiga Conflict Revisited (2003) devotes one chapter to the heroism of Pvt. Adolph Gamlin, a survivor of the encounter.
On a related matter, Jean Wall (Gamlin's daughter) who has visited Balangiga several times described to Borrinaga the profile of the soldiers of Company C. She said that most of the soldiers were actually very young boys from the Midwest who had never been away from home before and did not have the benefit of good education.
[Of course the officers were well educated. Capt. Connell is a West Point graduate. Lt. Bumpus (second-in-command) studied in Harvard. And Maj. Griswold is a surgeon.]
In fact just a few days before the encounter, one soldier committed suicide apparently due to depression, while another deserted.
Just the same, when the surprise attack came, the soldiers fought valiantly, as exemplified by Gamlin's courage.
The survivors apparently also did not take things personally against the Filipinos. Three of the survivors were sergeants. One of them was Frank Betron. After his discharge from the army, he married a Filipina and settled in the Philippines.
Betron was also the only soldier cited by Abanador (the Balangiga police chief who led the attack, and who's also a tournament-caliber arnis master) as having truly learned arnis. Abanador apparently earlier tutored interested American soldiers arnis ...