The Bataan Memorial Building will honor Valdemar DeHerrera, New Mexico’s last living survivor of Bataan Death March, who passed away July of last year at the age of 105, on Thursday, April 9.

At the ripe age of 17-years-old, DeHerrera was a sheepherder from ranching community of Costilla, north of Questa in Taos County. The military then drafted him to be sent to Asia in 1941, where Japanese forces took him captive for years.

Rescuers found him under the jungle canopy of the Philippines, among some of the same plants and herbs he grew up with.

While out on work, he would pick plants and smuggle it back to his fellow prisoners to treat their complications during their captivity.

DeHerrera, the last living survivor of the state, passed away in July of last year.

In honor of his legacy as a lifelong rancher and his service in the 200th and 515th Coast Artillery Units, the Department of Veterans Services selected him for a new commemorative exhibition as part of the state’s annual tribute.

The walkway of the Bataan Memorial Building in downtown Santa Fe, outside the DVS, now displays DeHerrera’s collection of regalia—from local to congressional figures, and his extensive military marks of esteem to the lifelong rancher and his years of service.

The exhibit opens Thursday with a ceremony, a lecture by officials from the New Mexico Military Museum, and family remarks.

It will run until April 2027, after which organizers will honor a new veteran to commemorate the Bataan Death March, which significantly impacted New Mexico, where only half of the 1,800 New Mexicans sent to fight in the Philippines returned home.

Life During War

He regularly attended the memorial in Alamogordo until his later years but did not participate in the Bataan Death March that the Japanese forced U.S. and Filipino soldiers to endure after their surrender in the Philippines.

Instead, he and others fled into the jungle, where they hid from Japanese forces for months as guerrilla fighters before being captured in an abandoned bunker, making him a captive for the remaining years.

Every American soldier experienced what he endured—forced marches and boarding “hell ships,” which Imperial Japan used to transport prisoners to conduct forced labor.

Imperial Japan brought DeHerrera to Manchuria, China, where they made him work in a textile factory until the end of the war.

Life After War

Upon his liberation, DeHerrera returned to New Mexico to resume ranching in Taos, and eventually married and had seven children.

Valerie Rael, one of DeHerrera’s daughters, described her dad as an amazing man and said he cared deeply for his fellow soldiers.

Rael reminisced about spending time with her father and sibling, who imparted knowledge about local plants, including boiling chamiso evergreen shrubs for colds and cooking wild spinach for meals.

She said her father grew up doing that, and that was all he knew when he became a prisoner.

DeHerrera seldom discussed his military service or his almost four-year captivity, revealing only snippets of his experiences.

He followed his doctor’s guidance to face memories from the Pacific Theater during World War II to aid in his coping.

Rael presumed that his father, a devout Catholic, might have felt conflicted about the violence he had participated in during the war. Still, he felt proud of his service, and toward the end of his time, he would, unprompted, sing “God Bless America.”

DeHerrera’s dog tag now lay in the entryway of the state building along his father’s—just two of a five-generation tradition of U.S. military service, which included DeHerrera’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Rael, while looking upon the items, only sees “a man who gave to his country without even hesitating.”

Aaron Kresbach emphasized the ordinary aspects underlying the heroism of the individuals he honored, drawing a parallel to DeHerrera, who reflected on his purple hearts, uniforms, and images of himself on his ranch.

“An  average guy in an extraordinary situation who managed to find a way to survive,” said Krebsbach.

“Kind of in a nutshell, that’s what a lot of history is.” he added.