What my father's clock remembers

In memory of Jose Quinene Taitague 1929-2023

By Telo Taitague

My father kept an old brass ship’s clock for most of his life even though it no longer worked.

He rarely spoke about how it came into his possession. The memories were too painful. He would only tell us the story around Liberation Day, when the memories of the war were hardest to avoid.

He was about 12 years old during the Japanese occupation when a damaged ship grounded in Talo’fo’fo’ Bay. Although the Japanese had forbidden anyone from going near the wreckage, he waited until sunset, when he believed the guards would be eating and no one would be on lookout, and slipped down to the beach. From a box, he recovered the clock, a pair of tennis shoes, Carnation milk, and corned beef.

To us, these are just ordinary objects. Under occupation, however, nothing was ordinary.

The tennis shoes were too large for him, but he wore them anyway. One day, Japanese soldiers surrounded him near his family’s ranch in Malojloj and demanded to know where he had gotten them. They suspected that he might be collaborating with the United States. A Japanese sergeant who had become friendly with the family ordered the soldiers away, which my father believed may have saved his life.

The corned beef became more than food. My father carried it when Japanese forces marched him, his father, his grandfather, and other males older than nine from Inalåhan toward Ordot to carry explosives. Someone warned them to abandon what they were carrying and run. He escaped through the jungle with his father and grandfather, eventually reaching Talo’fo’fo’. The corned beef helped sustain them along the way.

Others did not escape unharmed. His friends Jose S.N. Flores and Juan A. Aguon were killed in an explosion during the march. Another friend, Joaquin Cruz, was blinded.

The clock wasn’t just an instrument of time. It remains with me today, carrying the memory of a childhood in which a pair of shoes could threaten a boy’s life, a can of food could help keep a family alive, and friends could be taken in an instant.

The clock stopped working long ago, but it never stopped marking that time in my father’s life.

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For those of us who have never lived under occupation, it is difficult to imagine how quickly freedom can be taken away. My father’s story reminds me that freedom is never guaranteed. Peace can be broken. Childhood can be stolen. The freedoms that feel so secure, such as the ability to move without fear, to feed our families, and to watch our children grow, can disappear more quickly than we could imagine.

Liberation Day gave my father a time each year to speak about memories he otherwise carried in silence. Now that he is gone, I understand that his silence was also part of the story. Liberation ended the occupation, but it did not erase what survivors had seen, lost, and carried with them.

When my father shared his account, he dedicated it to his friends Jose S.N. Flores, Juan A. Aguon, and Joaquin Cruz. I write this in memory of him, grateful that he found the strength to tell us what the clock meant.

It no longer tells time, but it still marks the cost of freedom and the responsibility we have to remember it.

Sen. Telo T. Taitague is a member of the 38th Guam Legislature.

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