"The Chow Dipper" a WW2 Japanese POW survivor's inspiring story

What an amazing story about this guy in my local paper. Worth a read by all:

Huddled in the filthy, cramped and frigid huts of a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Manchuria, American GIs lived for the time the guard would deliver the buckets of slop that passed as their meal for the day.

The prisoners were expected to divide it among themselves, and these starved men were anxious to get as much of the meager ration for themselves as they could.

One prisoner would be selected as the "chow dipper" to dole out the meal into each man's cup as he passed through the line. Fights would break out among the desperate men over the amounts of their servings.

Chow dippers usually didn't last long in the job...

That changed the day a quiet Texan was chosen to dole out the slop and exhibited in that duty the character, wisdom and fairness that earned him the respect he has been accorded throughout his life.

As the chow dipper, Ken Towery filled his own cup first and placed it next to the serving bucket. Then, as each man came through the line, he would fill their cup. If any man complained he was being shorted, Towery would invite them to take his cup and replace it with theirs. None ever took him up on his offer.

He remained chow dipper for the rest of the war.

"Nothing in the secular world, the world apart from my family, has approached the honor of being chosen as chow dipper for starving men," Towery wrote later.

He also said he later realized the honor brought both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was reinforcement of his parents' teaching that we all should "do unto others."

"The curse," he said, "was that it has caused me to judge others, to form opinions about them on the basis of how I think they would have acted in a similar situation."

Few have measured up.

"The curse of the chow dipper, I suppose, is still with me," he said...

(50% rule observed)
Read the rest at:
[link to m.victoriaadvocate.com]