Death touched Victor Cote, a former prisoner of war, but it did not reach out for a full embrace.
Cote, who was held by the Japanese during World War II, faced torture and starvation. He was stuck in a coal mine, covered with body lice and infected with dysentery and malaria. His captors forced him to work in burial detail.
"I don't know how I survived," said Cote, who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in the Philippines.
World War II veterans Clair Chaffin, Frank Towers and Clif Cormier joined Cote at a panel discussion Monday night at Pugh Hall, where they spoke of their wartime experiences.
Their reflections made up part of "Testimony of War," a presentation by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program that attracted a crowd of about 250 people.
The event also featured a shortened version of the documentary produced by the program's staff members called "I Just Wanted to Live!" which describes the experiences of four POWs held by the Japanese during World War II.
Two of the POWs, Cote and Herbert Pepper, were present for the event.
Pepper, who served as a master sergeant in the 27th bomb group of the U.S. Army Air Corps in the Philippines, summed up the message of all of the veterans who spoke Monday.
"Never give up," he said.
This attitude got him through two years of 10-hour daily shifts in a condemned coal mine in Japan.
His experiences in the coal mine were described in the documentary, as was his time on the Bataan Death March, in which 72,000 Americans and Filipinos made a 65-mile forced march north on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines after it was surrendered to the Japanese.
Diane Fischler, the film's writer, said it was an emotional experience to see how the families of the POWs reacted to the video and to get their feedback about the documentary through e-mail.
Stephanie Schroeder, 22, a UF history senior, said the history of World War II is being lost.
"It's important for younger generations to know about it," Schroeder said.
