Rodriguez, Manuel P., b. 17 Aug 1922, d. 26 Jan 1942, "US Army; World War II PH"

This is a memorial to Manuel P. Rodriguez. Manuel lived on the corner of Fourth and Olive street with his family. The house is gone now but as the plaque says he was “incorrigible”. But in fact the whole family was incorrigible. My parents lived behind them and the police would be at their house about 3 times a month for one reason or another. He quit school and was hanging around Victorville. There was a timekeeper here at the cement plant, it was Riverside cement plant at the time, was killed and robbed. They found his body down at the railroad tracks. He’d been robbed, he wore a money belt and he was the time keeper so he had a big clock with him, so they took him in and accused him of that and along the way he was exonerated more or less because the person who actually did the deed turned himself in. But being WWII and he was Hispanic they rather than just let him go they told him that he could join the army or go to jail, so of course he joined the army. And in a couple of months of being in the army he was in the March of Bataan in the Philippines which is the famous death march where the Japanese were killing prisoners of war like they were just flies and they would run over them with tanks, run over them with trucks, or if they were too slow they would just shoot them right there where they were. He was involved in that so he lost his life and he was buried over there in the Philippines. A high school student named Kenny Bloum and his dad in 1975 decided to put this memorial in here for him so that's why he is here and that's why for many years we’ve got a memorial day service here for about 40 years. We still have a little one but not like it used to be, but it's in honor of him basically.