To Die Like an Officer and a Gentleman

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Lieutenant Gillmore and the sailors who had survived the rebel ambush were lined up for execution along the banks of the Baler River. Gillmore, as the story was spun, then defied his captors and refused a blindfold, demanding he be allowed to die like “an officer and a gentleman“. At the last moment, a senior Filipino commander, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Tecson, arrived on the scene to halt the execution, and berated his men for both their both their short-sighted thinking and the potential violation of the rules of war.