For years, visitors to the old VA Medical Center, 325 New Castle Road, were greeted by volunteer Abie Abraham, of Renfrew, as he worked at the outpatient entrance information desk.

In the 22 years Abraham worked five days a week at the center, it’s doubtful many of the people who encountered him knew that they were being helped by a survivor of World War II’s infamous Bataan Death March and almost 3.5 years as a prisoner of war in a Japanese prison camp under hellish conditions.

Abraham was born on July 31, 1913, in Lyndora to Syrian immigrants Elias and Esther Thomson Abraham, the third of 11 children.

His journey to his ordeal in the Philippines began in 1934, when he enlisted in the Army and was stationed with the 18th infantry in New York, served with the 15th infantry in China and with the 30th infantry in San Francisco. While stationed in Panama, he became a lightweight boxing champion and trainer. With a record of 54-6, he won the 14th Infantry Division LightWeight Champion Trophy.

Abraham and his family, his first wife, Felicidad, and their three daughters, were with him when he was stationed in the Philippines with the 31st Infantry.

When the Japanese invaded the Philippines after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Abraham and the 2nd and 3rd Battlions of the 31st Infantry were sent to the Bataan Pennisula, During the Battle of Bataan, which lasted from Jan. 9 to April 9, 1942, American and Filipino troops fought a delaying action to buy the Allies time.

The Japanese had cut supply lines of food, medicine, and ammunition to the American and Filipino soldiers. Abraham and his fellow soldiers were forced to eat anything they could find such as monkeys, horses and snakes to survive. With the troops starving and suffering from dysentery, malaria and other tropical diseases, U.S. commanders surrendered, leaving more than 12,000 American soldiers and 65,000 Filipino troops to be taken prisoner by the Japanese on Bataan, thus beginning the Bataan Death March.

The Japanese refused to provide their captives food and water for six days as they marched under a blistering tropical sun toward the prison, Camp O’Donnell. The exact number of deaths is unknown, but it is estimated that approximately 6,000-18,000 Filipinos and 500-650 Americans died on the march.

In 1967, Abraham learned a Japanese newspaper contended the Death March was a lie to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment. He felt compelled to write a book, “Ghost of Bataan Speaks,” published in 1971.

It makes for grim reading. The American and Filipino prisoners were marched from Mariveles at the southern tip of Bataan to Camp O’Donnell 65 miles away under oppressive heat.

Abraham wrote the Japanese guards shot or bayoneted any man who fell, attempted to escape, or stopped to drink water from ditches or springs. Abraham witnessed men shot for no reason, another run over by a tank. Four hundred officers and non-commissioned officers of the 91st Division of the Philippine Army were singled out and bayoneted to death.

Abraham reported hearing gunshots at the rear of the marchers, as Japanese cleanup squads shot any prisoners too weak to continue who had fallen out of the column.

Filipino civilians who tried to pass food or water to the prisoners along the route were chased away, beaten or shot themselves. Filipino civilians redoubled their efforts to aid the prisoners.

Abraham wrote, “All along the way from Balanga, Bataan, even up to the railway lines in Capas, Tarlac, sprang up ghost stores filled with everything edible. The strangest part of it was they were always in spots where it would be miles and miles to the next house or town; set in between unharvested, abandoned rice fields, making it difficult for the Japanese to carry out their orderers to shoot to kill. These stores continued showing up all along the march.”

Finally after six days of marching, the prisoners reached San Fernando where after standing in the hot sun for hours, the prisoners were packed into box cars 100 to 150 at a time. The heat and the smell of the diseased sweating men were further torture, Abraham wrote.

In a second book, “Oh, God Where Are You?” published in 1997, Abraham wrote of the march, “The agonies of the long march were almost indescribable. It was the deprivation of every basic need for survival. Its purpose was to make the situation so unbearable that the mind became completely obedient to every Jap command.”

Conditions weren’t much better at the prison camp. Food and water were scarce. There were daily deaths among the prisoners from dysentery and other diseases because there were no medicines to treat the suffering soldiers. Abraham wrote a trip to the Zero Ward meant prisoners were near death.

The sick and malnourished prisoners were set to work in rice fields or cutting trees. Japanese guards slapped, punched and sometimes murdered prisoners outright.

An American captain at the camp kept death records, and wrote that 1,565 American and 26,000 Filipino men died in the camp.

Abraham wrote in “Ghost,” “Most of the prisoners lost their hold on life and despair destroyed the self. They plodded aimlessly along, waiting for death. Talking to them of their homes and loved ones evoked no memories. Memory had been obliterated by fear. With their memories, their identities as human beings vanished. In the mornings, more friends would be missing, all having gone to Zero Ward.”

In a cruel irony, Abraham wrote the Japanese began taking prisoners out of the Philippines on ship that weren’t marked with the Red Cross indicating they were had prisoners of war onboard. Many of these ships were torpedoed and sunk by American submarines. Abraham wrote that many of his friends died on these ships.

Abraham was a prisoner of war for three and a half years. During his time in the camp he was shot in the leg, stabbed, and suffered from malaria.

Abraham wrote in January 1945 the U.S. Army recaptured Camp O’Donnell and he and the other prisoners were freed.

While recuperating at the 92nd Evacuation Hospital, Abraham was found by one of the Army Rangers who helped rescue the prisoners.

The Ranger told him, Abraham wrote, “’I’m Oliver (Joe) Youngblood from your hometown and my mother lives in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania.’

“Oliver planked himself down and we talked and talked. We talked about the raid, friends and our plans. It took hours to relive our days in Pennsylvania. It was so good to meet someone from home, and he actually handed me a copy of the Butler Eagle that had been sent from Butler, a town about thirty miles from Pittsburgh.”

But Abraham’s return to Butler was delayed by two and a half years. After reuniting with his family who had been held in an internment camp, Abraham stayed in the Philippines at the request of Gen. Douglas MacArthur to help recover the remains of American servicemen who died along the Death March so they could receive a proper burial.

While Abraham was still working to find the soldiers’ remains, the Japanese general, Masaharu Homma, was arrested and charged with 43 different counts of crimes against humanity for his role in the Bataan Death March. Abraham testified as a chief witness during the trial, helping to convict the general. In his testimony, Abraham claimed to have already found 300 bodies, and expected to continue to find hundreds more.

Homma was convicted and shot in 1946.

After two and a half years of this grueling work, Abraham finally returned home to his small farm in Renfrew.

His time in the Army was not finished. Abraham worked as a recruiter and then served as a judge for troubled youth to decide who should be permitted to attend the George Junior Republic school near Grove City, a school dedicated to helping “at-risk” teenagers become successful adults. He helped guide many of the older boys toward successful military careers. He then served a two-year stint in Germany as first sergeant before retiring from the Army in 1955.

As a civilian he worked as a bartender and as a foreman for the state Department of Transportation in the 1960s.

But the end of his military career didn’t mean he was done trying to help veterans. Beginning in 1988, he began volunteering the VA center.

His second wife, Chris Abraham said, “Abie worked from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. as a volunteer at the VA center as a volunteer.

“He always wanted to be out there when the bus left for Pittsburgh. He was always very good at telling people where to go,” she said.

Chris Abraham said, “He helped the vets, too. If they had problems. He was able to get them to the right doctors. His long years as a master sergeant taught him how to get things done. Abe said, ‘Pain supersedes everything.’”

“He was smart. He knew how to work the system. He knew how to get things done. He was good at being in charge. He retired as a master sergeant in charge of 2,000 men in Germany,” she said.

As a volunteer, Abraham racked up 38,000 hours of volunteer work.

“He used to keep track on a calendar. He wanted to help the vets because of his time as a prisoner of war,” said Chris Abraham.

He also opened his 50-acre farm to special-needs children who were allowed to fish in the pond on his property. The farm also served as the site of his annual picnic, usually held around the time of his birthday on July 31. The picnic was open to friends, family, veterans and members of the staff at the VA center.

One of those who attended was Ginny Reichenbach of Clay Township, a fellow volunteer at the VA Center.

Reichenbach said Abraham “took to me and Art (her husband) like a magnet.”

“I had lunch with him three times a week. He would always mention something about the war,” Reichenbach said.

“He talked to everyone and helped a lot of people,” she said.

And he would share his war experiences to anyone who asked, Chris Abraham said.

“He talked to book clubs, school kids, any kind of group that asked him. He did all kinds of organizations,” she said. “She wanted the public to know what happened over there in the Philippines, the Death March. All that anybody heard was Pearl Harbor.”

He appeared in documentaries on the History Channel and the Discovery Channel.

He received numerous medals.

“He was shot in the leg, stabbed in the gut. He has shrapnel removed from his left shoulder blade. He was proudest of his Purple Heart,” Chris Abraham said.

After his death at the age of 98 on March 22, 2012, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, introduced a bill in 2017 to designate the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Center at 353 Duffy Road in Center Township as the Abie Abraham VA Clinic.

In introducing the bill, Kelly stated, “As he got into his later years, in his 80s and his 90s, going to Butler’s VA center every single day to help fellow veterans. His sole purpose in life was to help other American citizens, to help other veterans, to bring a little light into their life, to bring a little happiness into their life.”

In August 2017, a new facility opened and was called the Abie Abraham Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Center.