He shared with students and fellow veterans the misery and triumph that came with his World War II experience. He spoke about fighting the Japanese in the Philippines, surviving three years of captivity after the brutal Bataan Death March and the joy of sailing into San Francisco Bay as a free man at the war's conclusion.
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"The hate I had for the Japanese helped me survive. When I got home, everyone told me they didn't blame me for hating them, but it turned against me," Frazier told a packed gymnasium at BA.
Frazier's hate for his captors began with captivity. He was one of around 75,000 American and Filipino servicemen who, weakened by disease and critically short of supplies, were forced to surrender on the Bataan Peninsula in early 1942. The surrendering prisoners of war were forced to march more than 60 miles through the tropical heat of the Philippines without rest or water, and thousands died from exposure and murder at the hands of their captors.
"They treated us worse than animals," Frazier recalled. "They told us they didn't have to abide by (the Geneva Conventions), and they treated us any way they wanted to treat us."
Frazier and his fellow POWs used their hatred to fight back. The prisoners formed sabotage groups and began hitting the Japanese behind their backs, and under their noses. Frazier recalled that, when POWs were used as slaves to manufacture munitions for the Japanese military, the factory had a "good" pile and a "bad" pile. The prisoners began putting proper munitions in the "bad" pile and working parts in the "bad" pile and switching the mark for each.
"By the end of the month, we only had three good ones," Frazier said. "We stole everything of value, and we tried everything in the world to destroy everything."
Frazier's hate even saved his life. As detailed in his best-selling book, "Hell's Guest," Frazier told a Japanese commander who was about to execute him that his spirit would come back and haunt the commander's body forever. He spent a week in solitary confinement, but he lived.
Once free and back home in Mobile, Ala., however, Frazier's hatred caused problems.
"I had nightmares for 30 years," he said. "I had problems with marriage. My wife bought a Toyota once, and when she drove it home, I said, 'Where are you going to park it? You ain't going to park it here.'"
With the help of his pastor and more than two years of trying, Frazier said he abandoned his decades-old hate and his health and life improved.
"The best lesson is forgiveness," he said. "If anyone in this room, young or old, hates anybody, get rid of it."
Veterans in the audience Wednesday appreciated Frazier's speech. Bill Miller, a U.S. Air Force veteran who flew KC-135 tankers in Vietnam, said Frazier's story is one that students should hear.
"It teaches kids something," he said. "When you sign up, you sign up to give your life for your country."
Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Ankesheiln, who works in Brookhaven's Army Reserve Center, said the service of veterans like Frazier could not be thanked enough.
"It was a great opportunity to meet a gentleman like that," he said. "There's not too many opportunities like that left. We sometimes take for granted the freedoms we have."
