A story about the 200th

 Some stories can make you think about the scale of tragedy.

During the Depression, a lot of men in New Mexico picked up extra money by serving in the National Guard. The main unit was a cavalry outfit. The Army still had horses in the 1930s. But with world war coming, the Army didn’t need another cavalry outfit. The New Mexicans became the 200^th Coastal Artillery Regiment. Training was heavy on antiaircraft guns, a new concept for coastal protection units.

With Japan bent on empire, the regiment was called to service and shipped to the Philippines.

The fate the American and Filipino forces is well known. They were bottled up on the Bataan Peninsula and forced to surrender in April 1942. The men were marched to a prison camp. More than 16,000 died or were killed along the way.

The scale of the tragedy is so large it’s hard to grasp. But New Mexico, by population, was a small state. The regiment had 1,800 soldiers from all over the state. About 900 died on the Bataan Death March.

After the war, the survivors returned. While some veterans did fine, others struggled with alcoholism and mental illness. Abuse can prompt abuse, and such problems have a way of lingering, passed down from generation to generation. A man with an addiction turns out to be a descendent of a veteran of the 200^th.

It’s fascinating —how different people can experience the same catastrophe and react in different ways. Some are fine. Others are undone. I would love to better understand that.