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Oh Corregidor

                Oh Corregidor....Your shores, your mountains, your hidden recesses,
                        they enchant me.
                I close my eyes and your soft breezes whisper to me.....whisper
                        of secrets past.
                How you trembled.....how the air was filled with the thunder
                        of guns and bombs.
                How young men, yearning for home and families.....battled
                        desperately.
                With no hope of victory or rescue....with bodies and minds exhausted,
                        they fought on.
                I feel the anguish....the terror of those who loved them.....
                        wept for them.
                You sheltered them, fed them.....cradled their broken bodies
                        beneath your mountains.
                And now it is over.   Your wounds have healed....You have again
                        given birth to beauty.
                Oh Corregidor....You, and your legacy of valor....will live in our
                        hearts forever.


                                                                                        Jerry Harrison
                                                                                        September, 1997



    Jerry writes:
    "I'm an engineer by profession and very rarely attempt anything literary.   In this case, my consciousness was consumed by Corregidor and its history.   I wrote the poem as a release.

    I visited Corregidor for 3 days in September of 1997.   I went to see the things my father has described to me (he served on Corregidor from 7/38 to 7/40 as an enlisted man in the 60th Coastal Artillery).

    The tour guide talked so much about the war-related history that I became fascinated with the island's history.   I couldn't rest until I drafted "Oh Corregidor".   I sent the poem to President Joseph Estrada in the Fall of 1998 and, through the efforts of his staff, it has been published on a billboard near Gen. MacArthur's statue on Bottomside.

    My father is Philip H. Harrison and he lives in Leesville, South Carolina.
    Best of wishes to the survivors of Corregidor and Bataan and their families.

    Jerry Harrison
    Chapin, S. C.
    E-Mail