WORKFORCE
individual and group therapy, but he was hesitant to talk openly about his ordeal and didn’t see much value in group therapy, Tisch said. He also believed the medi- cation side effects would have prevented him from working, so instead, he delayed treatment until after retirement. For years, Mandese powered through what he referred to as his “nervous disability,” when he was suddenly overcome by traumatic memory f lashes of the cold, bedbug- infested prison camp where he always wore the same clothes, slept on a straw mattress and relied on Red Cross food parcels as his only sustenance—typically torn open by prison guards and left outside for the rats to feast on before the prisoners.
Troughout her childhood, Tisch vividly remembers him screaming out in fear during flashbacks when he relived each horrific moment as a POW. “It was a loud scream followed by a long stretch of silence
as he returned to that hell. As a kid, I was just scared and cried every time. It wasn’t until I was older that I began to under- stand the magnitude of the sacrifice my grandfather and other veterans have made and continue to make,” Tisch said. “I’m glad we’re learning more about mental health and seeing a shift for our Soldiers and society at large.”
THE ENDURING BATTLE After 665 days of captivity, escape and evasion, Mandese returned home in 1944 and read an account of his own death in the local newspaper. While he had been gone, the Army notified his parents that he was killed in the Philippines. So his first order of business was to personally inform loved ones that he was, in fact, alive.
Mandese had earned the Bronze Star for bravery. However, because of an admin- istrative oversight, he did not receive it
until 54 years after his ordeal. He (and his family) tried in vain to acquire the well-deserved medal, but they were turned away time and time again.
“For reasons unknown, he did not receive the medal directly after,” said Tisch. Ten, there was a fire at the National Person- nel Records Center in St. Louis, where the military records needed to verify Mandese’s service had been stored, further delaying his acknowledgement. “At differ- ent times in his life, he tried to pursue it and hit roadblocks,” she said. It wasn’t until Robert Cannon, Tisch’s father, contacted his congressman, who referred the matter to Rep. Steve Rothman, that finally,Mandese received his Bronze Star in 1998, at age 79.
“Every holiday, he would dress in his suit and tie all the way through his 90s. He would always wear his American flag and
LONG WAR AHEAD
Prisoners of war at Camp 59 in 1941, in a photo taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross during an inspection. (Photo courtesy of the International Committee of the Red Cross)
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