ORANGEVALE, CALIF. — Over the years, Ben Waldron's weathered World War II journal has been in its share of tough spots: hidden inside a dank latrine, stowed in the false bottom of a soldier's wooden trunk, tucked among the fronds of a banana-leaf roof.
But now the dog-eared, secretly written chronicle of the former Army corporal's brutal 3 1/2 years as a Japanese prisoner of war is in its toughest fix yet.
The small canvas-bound book filled with Waldron's heart-wrenching cursive scribblings was stolen from his home in this Sacramento suburb last month -- by a thief who, police say, did not know either its contents or its emotional hold on the 84-year-old decorated veteran.
The theft -- not just of the journal, but also of cash, jewelry and a POW medal -- has outraged U.S. veterans as far away as Iraq. One California National Guardsman in Baghdad offered $1,000 for the diary's return. Others took up collections.
Saying the theft "crushed my heart," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently met with Waldron and ceremonially presented him with a replacement medal, along with a $5,000 check for the reward fund, written from his personal account.
Last week, Carl Joseph Brew, 19, turned himself in to police and was charged with possession of stolen property in the case. He offered no information about Waldron's book, which police believe he simply threw away.
The veteran said he remains "heartsick" over the loss of the journal, which detailed his wartime exploits, including his capture at Corregidor, a tadpole-shaped island at the entrance of the Philippines' Manila Bay.
His daily entries evoked the nightmares of one of the most brutal campaigns of the Pacific Theater, describing life at three prison camps. Often they amounted to a grim log: executions, prisoners being forced to burn the bodies of fallen comrades, beatings so severe that they left the former anti-aircraft gunner unable to have children.
The irony, he says, is that while he kept the diary intact during countless searches by his cunning Japanese captors, he could not protect it from a suburban American burglar who stumbled across the white security box in which he kept his valuables under his bed.
The white-haired retiree is hard of hearing and says he suffers from the onset of Alzheimer's. Take his money, even his Rolex watch, Waldron says, but let his memories be.
