"Friends of the Ring"
    the story of POW Art Bressi
    written by his daughter Barb Bressi Donohue
    was first published in Reader's Digest in 1999 and
    later was shown on television, February 10, 2000.

    PAX TV aired the story on the
    "It's A Miracle"
    segment of the program.

    The story was retold by Max Lucado in his book,
    "A Love Worth Giving", published in August 2002.

    It then became the subject in the
    Lenten Series “Faithful Followers”
    on March 26, 2003 by Pastor Tom Kadel


    Pastor Kadel told the story as follows:

    "I would like to think that I would have done the same.   But I don’t know.   In a story first published in Reader’s Digest in 1999 and later retold by Max Lucado in his book, A Love Worth Giving, Arthur Bressi did something that I would like to believe I would do, but I really don’t know.

    Arthur and his friend Skinner grew up not all that far from here in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania.   In the Second World War, they were both Marines and, as fate would have it, were both captured by the Japanese in 1942.   Arthur learned through the POW camp grapevine that his friend Skinner was near death in the same camp.   He somehow received permission to go to the other side of the camp  –  the sick side where the prisoners were not expected to live  –  and visit his friend for five minutes.

    Bressi described the scene this way:  “I stood at the wire fence of the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp on Luzon and watched my childhood buddy, caked in filth and racked with the pain of multiple diseases, totter toward me.   He was dead; only his boisterous spirit hadn’t left his body.   I wanted to look away, but couldn’t.”

    With time running out on his five minute visit, Arthur found the high school class ring he had smuggled into the camp and slipped it into his friend’s hand.   Such things were useful for bribing the guards and for escaping torture.   Arthur pressed the ring into his friend’s hand and said to him, “Wheel and deal with it.”   With that he turned and left, assuming he would never see his friend again.

    The next day Skinner took the biggest risk of his life.   With his feeble hand, he passed the ring to the kindest of his guards.   The guard took it.   Later, as the same guard walked by, he dropped a small packet.   It contained medicine.   The next day, more medicine.   Somehow, Skinner survived.   Somehow Arthur survived.   Somehow they both were able to return to Mount Carmel.


    Barb's E-Mail
    bdbdkd@earthlink.net