2. Story from book The History of Prayer in America One Nation Under God by James P. Moore Jr: On the eve of the battle that preceded the brutal Death march of Bataan. The Reverend William Thomas Cummings, a Catholic Priest, delivered a stirring field sermon. Looking into the faces of the troops, trying to reach them in a meaningful way, uttered one of the most famous wartime lines ever: ‘remember, there are no atheists in foxholes.’ Pressing his men to face their own mortality through prayer, he helped brace many of them for what would be the greatest challenge of their lives…12,000 Americans and 64,000 Filipino troops had little choice but to surrender in April of 1942. With the prisoner –of-war camp some fifty miles away, the Japanese forced all 76,000 men to march the distance on foot, providing little food or water along the way. The chronicles of that march as Japanese troops bound, tortured, and killed Allied forces at will have made for some of the most wrenching stories in modern military history. Only 56 thousand men reached camp; 20,000 soldiers died en route. For those who survived, the ordeal would continue in Japanese prison camps for another 3 ½ years, until General Douglas MacArthur and his troops retook the
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