Page 59 - WashingtonSyCip_Bio_Excerpt_2nd_Edition

Passenger on a Ship

The other SyCips didn’t fare so well. The Japanese had also imprisoned Albino’s older
brother Alfonso. But on the Japanese emperor’s birthday he pardoned and released
all prisoners over the age of 65. Upon his release, Alfonso decided to bring his entire
family to Fuga Island in Batanes, which he partly owned. He invited Albino’s children
and wife to join them there, but Alex wanted to be able to see his father in prison. As
it happened, that island was later bombed, and several of Alfonso’s family members
died. Albino had known General Douglas MacArthur before the war, and now he
asked the general for help, which MacArthur granted by sending a PT boat to rescue
the surviving SyCips on Fuga.

Their eldest brother David was also in the US when the war started. An engineer by
profession, David attempted to join the US Air Force, but was rejected on account of
a kidney problem. So instead, David joined the Chinese Air Force, which had a unit
that accepted ethnic Chinese on the US mainland, and whose physical standards were
a bit more lax. He couldn’t fly, but he was posted to Chengdu in Sichuan province
and put to work as a ground engineer. He secured a release and rejoined his family a
month after Wash did.

And now, with the return of Washington, the Albino SyCips were going to be a
family again, and face the uncertain future together.

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