Washington, D.C. –
Shortly after graduating from high school in June 1939, Francis Bania enlisted in the U.S. Army as a wire chief, specializing in telephone and telegraph. Bania immediately fell in love with the job, and especially enjoyed working on radios.
When called upon to deploy to the Philippines as a member of the 228th Signal Corps in April 1941, the Detroit native stood at 5 feet,10 inches tall and 201 pounds.
Eight days after his 19th birthday, Bania was one of the approximately 75,000 U.S. and Filipino service members of World War II forced by the Japanese Army to march 65 miles through jungle terrain while enduring torture. Thousands died during the Bataan Death March, due to the harsh conditions, while many others died in Japanese prison camps.
Over the next three-and-a-half years, Bania was moved from prison camp to prison camp, where he was regularly beaten and bruised. According to his family, Bania suffered multiple fractures – including to his fibula, kneecaps and even his skull – during his more than 1,200 days in captivity.
Due to parasites, malnutrition and a lack of medical treatment, Bania weighed just 94 pounds when he finally returned home. He left a teenager on the cusp of his prime, but the physical and mental trauma of the entire experience left Bania with a body equivalent to that of someone in their 40s, according to his doctors.
After learning Bania’s story, Chief Master Sgt. Benjamin “Jake” Higginbotham, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s command senior enlisted leader, reached out to the veteran’s family.
“I just said, ‘Hey, my name's Jake Higginbotham. I've been doing the Bataan Memorial Death March for a few years. It's my annual pilgrimage. I'd be more than happy to pick you up some Bataan memorabilia and mail it to you as a thank you for your father’s sacrifice and a thank you for your sacrifice,’" Higginbotham recalled.
That simple message was the start of a powerful bond between the service member and Bania’s daughters, Kay and Beth. Each year since then, Higginbotham has completed the march in Bania’s honor.
AGAINST BETTER JUDGMENT
When Higginbotham began training for the 2019 Bataan Memorial Death March, he extended an invitation to the entire DIA workforce to join him as he trekked 26.2 miles through the desert and mountains of White Sands, New Mexico. As Higginbotham quickly discovered, the opportunity to honor military veterans, like Bania, clearly resonated with many of DIA’s service members and civilians.
“I instantly started receiving emails and, all said and told, probably received hundreds of responses,” he said. “I quickly became overwhelmed.”
Ultimately, 24 members of DIA joined the more than 8,600 people who participated in the 30th annual Bataan Memorial Death March, March 17. While Higginbotham honored Bania for the fourth-consecutive year, seemingly each member of Team DIA had a different reason for wanting to partake in the event.
“My first two deployments in the Army were with Joint Special Operations Task Force – Philippines,” said Team DIA member Jonathan Nease. “Not that our experiences there were remotely similar, but I’d like to think that I have at least a small personal connection to the World War II veterans who served in that theater.”
Petty Officer 1st Class Aretha Carmouche simply wanted to travel somewhere new while challenging herself physically and mentally. Staff Sgt. Toyelle Rickson marched in honor of her grandfather, Gerald Vivalvo, a Vietnam veteran. And then, just weeks before the event, Master Sgt. Russell Waymack felt compelled to march in honor of Scott Wirtz, the former Navy SEAL and DIA civilian who was killed during a terrorist attack in Manbij, Syria, Jan. 16.
“I didn't know him at all, but I felt connected to him because he was a SEAL,” Waymack said. “As a Green Beret, I've worked with many SEALs throughout my career and it’s a tight-knit community.
“Another thing that made me feel close to him was the fact that we both worked at DIA,” he added.
Once everyone committed to participating in this year’s event, it was time for each person to dive into their individual training program. In a perfect world, Higginbotham suggests participants begin training four to six months out. That wasn’t the case for many of DIA’s participants.
Rickson was unable to do any training whatsoever because she was in the process of moving, and had too many other things going on in her life leading up to the march. Waymack didn’t even know he was participating until three weeks out, which limited how much training he was able to do in advance of the event. And then there was Higginbotham.
“Six weeks prior to the event, I was rucking on a Saturday,” he began. “I had already gone about 10 miles or so and was coming in for the homestretch. About a mile and a half from my house, I felt a sharp pain in my right lower leg and pulled off to the side of the road. I didn't know what was wrong, so I hobbled my way back to the house.”
Turns out, Higginbotham had a pretty severe case of Achilles tendinosis, which put his participation in the 2019 Bataan Memorial Death March in jeopardy.
“Years of doing these types of events, have apparently been hard on my body and my heel,” Higginbotham said. “My physician told me that my Achilles tendon has taken some trauma and I've never given it the requisite time to heal.”
Roughly a month out, time was not something Higginbotham had to give. His doctor wanted him to adhere to a strict no-running profile and immediately begin physical therapy. Higginbotham explained that he needed to participate in a 26.2-mile march through the mountains and deserts of New Mexico. This, obviously, was a great concern to the medical professional in the room. If Higginbotham overdid it and tore the tendon, the recovery process would take at least a year.
“I talked him through and, I think against his better judgment, he says, ‘If you promise you'll take care of yourself and you won't run – you just walk – it will probably be okay,” Higginbotham recalled. “But, if you do feel some significant stress down there, you need to pull yourself off. Live to fight another day.’"
THERE ARE NO WORDS
With so many obstacles in their way leading up to the event, it would have been reasonable for doubt to creep in the minds of Team DIA. And yet, for the first time in Higginbotham’s seven years participating in the Bataan Memorial Death March, 100 percent of those who started the march, completed it.
“I was only marching a small portion of the trek compared to the survivors, so I definitely didn’t want to let them down,” said Carmouche, who credited an old-school musical playlist and a newfound friendship made during the event as key factors in her ability to finish her first Bataan Memorial Death March.
Rather than listening to music on her phone, Rickson decided to go a different route. She started calling cadence.
“I don't think it's normal, but cadence pumps me up,” Rickson admitted. “It's just an Army thing. Even in the suckiest moments, if you someone calls good cadence, it pumps me up. I just feel like, when somebody's calling some good cadence, it’s going to push me over the top.”
So Rickson embraced her inner drill sergeant and began barking out cadences, which was clearly not something other participants were prepared for.
“I got all kind of looks,” she said, with a laugh. “They were not good ones.”
They might have come from different backgrounds and had different reasons for participating, but when everyone from Team DIA crossed the finish line, they accepted their finisher’s medal and then waited to congratulate the next finisher.
As an added bonus, Beth and Kay Bania, the daughters of Francis Bania, traveled from Walker, Michigan, to attend their first Bataan Memorial Death March. As each member of Team DIA crossed the finish line, they were greeted with a hug or a handshake from the Banias.
“We didn’t even know this existed until three or four years ago, and then Jake offered to march in honor of our dad,” said Kay, as she fought back tears trying to articulate what the weekend meant to her and her family.
The opportunity to meet Higginbotham in person for the first time, and to show appreciation to those willing to honor POWs, like their father, by taking on such a physically and mentally challenging event was too much to pass up according to Kay.
“Most of the people marching here don't have a soul, even distantly related to them, who was in World War II, and they still want to march,” she said. "And yet, they're marching in their honor. I can't even say what that means. It's amazing. It's just amazing. There are no words.”
Most of them had never met before the march began. By that evening, DIA’s participants were exchanging contact information and already planning to do it all again next year.
“That is just amazing and a testament to all of them,” Higginbotham said. “Every man and woman who attended that event and went through it has their own story, about themselves or a teammate or someone they helped along the course.
“That's the beautiful thing about Bataan – the comradery and the fact that we're all in this together. I'm so proud of this group,” he said. “Seeing the smiles, the slaps on the back and the joking when everyone was done. It's just a remarkable feeling to sit back and watch all that.”