The army had long been supreme in the Philippines. Every function of
government had been performed by its officers and men, if performed at
all. Our troops had been combating an elusive and cruel enemy. If they
were human it is to be presumed that they still harbored animosities,
born of these conditions, toward the people with whom they had
so recently been fighting. Had the work of pacification been then
turned over to them it would have meant that often in the localities
in which they had been fighting, and in dealing with the men to whom
they had very recently been actively opposed in armed conflict, they
would have been called upon to perform tasks and to entertain feelings
radically different from those of the preceding two or three years.
A detachment, marching through Leyte, found an American who had
disappeared a short time before crucified, head down. His abdominal
wall had been carefully opened so that his intestines might hang down
in his face.
Another American prisoner, found on the same trip, had been buried in
the ground with only his head projecting. His mouth had been propped
open with a stick, a trail of sugar laid to it through the forest,
and a handful thrown into it.
Millions of ants had done the rest.
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