I sit in a classroom, cooled by the slow turning of wall fans, while the scorching heat still seeps in through the windows.
My teacher likes to share facts before the real lesson begins, and I always write them down in my notebook. It feels light to learn small things, because I know they actually matter to me.
But then I heard the date. April 9. The start of the Bataan Death March.
She speaks of soldiers now commemorated every year, honored for their bravery: for those who fought, who survived, and those who never made it back. The room stays silent, as if the knowledge of it settles somewhere as we listen.
I write it down in my notebook, the word bravery staining the page in black ink. Bravery. And then I pause.
Because I start to imagine them. Because if I were there, would I survive? If I were there, could I be as brave as they are?
The same heat presses against my skin, but now it burns instead—it clings to me as I walk along a road that does not seem to end. My throat dries, cracked from the absence of water. Hunger settles into my hollow stomach while I watch the Japanese soldiers receive their food, as if they are the only ones meant to be sustained. Here, we are no longer soldiers. We are reduced to something lesser: we are just prisoners moving forward because we are absolutely forced to.
I knew the ground wasn’t clean, because I saw bodies.
Some are shot for asking, for resisting, for simply reaching the edge of their strength. Some collapse from exhaustion, their legs already giving way beneath them, only to be executed for failing to keep pace. Whether Filipino or American, it does not matter. The outcome is still the same.
And I keep thinking, how are we supposed to keep walking like this? There are no fans. No rest. Not even the mercy of slowing down. It is just the endless command to move forward, until the body breaks or disappears entirely. All I hear are dragging footsteps and ragged breathing, struggling to keep up. All I hear is the sound of people collapsing, one after another.
We honor their bravery now.
But when I try to stand where they once stood, it feels terrifying. My legs feel weak just imagining it. My chest tightens at the uncertainty of when I will eat again, of whether I will ever see my family again, or whether I will survive even the next hour.
And I begin to wonder, were they thinking of home, too? Did they hold onto the image of their families just to keep going? Did they imagine the feeling of being back, of seeing familiar faces, of touching something that did not hurt?
Even now, I still feel the weight of that question, because I don’t know if I could endure that kind of pain. I don’t know if I would keep walking.
We call them strong. We call them brave. But bravery does not always look like strength. Sometimes, it only looks like raw and desperate fear, and still choosing to move forward anyway.
Because if I am honest, I don’t know what I would do. Would I endure, or would I try to run? Would I hold onto hope, or would I break beneath it?
I want to believe that I would be brave enough. I want to believe that I could survive it. But there is a larger part of me that hesitates, and that is the hardest thing to admit.
That if I were there,
I don’t know if I would be a hero.
The classroom slowly returns to me. The fan is still humming. The pages are still open. My pen, somehow, is still in my hand. Nothing has really changed. My teacher just continues her lesson as if the world has not shifted at all.
But something in me has. Because the word bravery no longer feels simple.
I understand now that bravery is not always certainty. It is not even always about strength. Maybe it is simply continuing forward even when your body is failing, even when your mind is afraid, and even when you do not know if you will ever make it home.
I close my notebook and look at the word I wrote earlier. Bravery. And this time, I do not question it.
Because even if I do not know who I would be if I were there,
I know who they were.
