Corregidor paratrooper can't get passport

War vet in a battle against time to make reunion - The Denver Post

War vet in a battle against time to make reunion
By Mike McPhee
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/10/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 02/11/2010 03:36:38 PM MST

World War II veteran Tony Lopez says his combat experiences are among the proudest highlights of his long life. His house is filled with photographs of him and his war buddies. But when the U.S. Army paratrooper applied for a passport for the first time in December — so he could attend a reunion with his war buddies in the Philippines — the government told him his birth certificate wasn't valid.

"What's this all about?" Lopez asked in amazement. "I can't believe this happened. I'm 85 years old."

The Denver resident wanted to return to the scene of his final battle — tiny Corregidor Island, which guards the entrance to Manila Bay in the Philippines.

Feb. 16 marks the 65th anniversary of the Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor. His compatriots offered to honor him by having him "raise the colors" in memory of the 173 Americans who died during the 10-day battle to take back the island from the Japanese.

So Lopez and his wife, Mary Louise, applied for passports. He submitted his birth certificate, driver's license and military-discharge papers.
On Friday, Mary Louise received her passport. But Tony got a rejection notice.

In the letter, the U.S. State Department in Charleston, S.C., said Lopez's birth certificate — issued by the state of New Mexico when he was 65 — was not valid because it hadn't been issued within a year of his birth. Lopez said he was born in the "two-street village" of Rodey, N.M. "The Catholic church burned down, and all the records were lost," he said. "In 1990, my brother and I traced our baptismal records to Santa Fe. The state took those and gave us our birth certificates based on that."

Late Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette's office called to say a one-year passport had been issued for Lopez, thanks to string-pulling by Sen. Michael Bennet's offices.

The promised passport still had not reached Lopez by Tuesday night, making family members worry that he still may not be able to attend the reunion.

Lopez's combat experiences are among the proudest highlights of his long life. His house is filled with photographs of him and his war buddies. His scrapbook contains photos of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with whom Lopez spoke twice during the war.

On a wall in Lopez's office is a box frame displaying his 13 war medals, including a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. In his front yard, a small replica of a DC-3, the airplane from which he parachuted into invasions, flies atop a 7-foot metal pole.

Lopez spent three of his Army years overseas. He made three amphibious landings and twice parachuted into hot combat zones. His last jump was onto Corregidor. The Army attacked the heavily fortified island from the sea and from the air on Feb. 16, 1945. The island was so small that paratroopers had a difficult time landing in a drop zone the size of a football field — minuscule for fully loaded DC-3s dropping hundreds of paratroopers. Lopez said he was so nervous that he jumped the green light inside the plane and landed in a small tree outside the drop zone.

When Lopez returned stateside, he healed his wounds and was honorably discharged.

"I never had any desire to return to the Philippines," he said recently. "I didn't leave anything there that I wanted to see." But late last year, his surviving war buddies organized the reunion on Corregidor.

After talking with his wife and family, Lopez decided they would go and raise the flags, as he was asked. The five family members who were going to make the trip decided to wait for the passports before booking flights and hotels.

Lopez and his family aren't sure they'll be able to make the trip, even if the short-term passport does come through, said his daughter, Yolanda Goad, a retired Denver police officer.

"My brother, Tom, who was a paratrooper in Vietnam, really wants my father to go," she said. "But it's getting so late. I don't know."
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com

 

Decorated vet's passport arrives too late for reunion - The Denver Post

Decorated vet's passport arrives too late for reunion
By Mike McPhee
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/12/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 02/12/2010 01:31:06 PM MST

Tony Lopez, a decorated World War II paratrooper, talks with Romaine Pacheco, a staff member for U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, after receiving his passport Thursday, too late to attend a military reunion in the Philippines. His application for the passport had been denied earlier, and glitches at the Passport Office and Postal Service delayed attempts to expedite the paperwork. Lopez was disappointed but philosophical.

Because of bureaucratic glitches in the U.S. Passport Office and in the U.S. Postal Service, Lopez didn't receive his passport until Thursday morning.
"It's too late," a dejected Lopez said in his living room Thursday afternoon. "Maybe it's an omen; something bad could happen."

His wife, Mary Louise, who's waiting for a second knee replacement, didn't want the hassle of rushing halfway around the world. His daughter, Yolanda, a retired Denver police officer, initially encouraged him to go but accepted his loss of enthusiasm.

Lopez, who graduated from Manual High School in 1943, was only 20 when his unit, the 503rd Paratroop Regiment Combat Team, fought five deadly battles to retake the Philippines.

On Feb. 16, 1945, Lopez and his unit parachuted onto Corregidor Island, which guarded the entrance to Manila Bay and was a favorite tactical goal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Lopez was awarded the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.
He returned from the war, raised five kids and owned and operated a transmission repair shop for 50 years at West 32nd Avenue and Clay Street. He never returned to the Philippines.

In December, he was invited to the 65th reunion and was asked to "raise the colors" to commemorate the 173 Americans killed in the 10-day Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor. But the passport office told him, six weeks after he applied, that his birth certificate was invalid because it hadn't been issued within a year of his birth.

A story about Lopez's plight in Wednesday's Denver Post produced a storm of readers angry at the government's treatment of a veteran. It also produced a number of people whose relatives had fought, and some who had died, during the battle on Corregidor and wanted to connect with Lopez.

"It's all right. There's another reunion on March 3, the anniversary of MacArthur accepting the island back from the Japanese," he said. "Maybe I can get to that one."
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com

 

nice story

 

Cross posting from the Corregidor forum (posted by EXO)... a heart-warming ending to the story

 

Some more pictures.

 

Great story here, thanks for sharing with us. I know what you mean about "records" in a one-horse town. My own Dad was born here in Montana just outside of a town that ceased to exist about three years after his birth, and he was born at home not in a hospital of course. When he was three the Great Northern Railroad decided to make a town about five miles east of his own Dad's land into the "town" with a depot and everything, and the whole town picked up, buildings and all, and moved east.

He had fortunately served in WW2 in the USAAF, and had records from that experience and they had duplicates of his stuff on file. When he applied for a passport in the sixties, the requirements weren't so strick (no terrorism as such) and he got his passport with no problems.

He wanted to take my Mom on a world cruise since she had been diagnosed with cancer, and he had always promised her they would "sail around the world someday", and he figured he'd better do it now!

They had a wonderful time, sailed on the first Queen Elizabeth on a tour that took them almost all of the summer of 1965.

 

great story and good photos too - thanks for sharing