Monday’s embarrassment in Tijuana brings to our mind a stray question as to what local statesman the late Abie Abraham would have thought or said about the migration stand off at the Mexican border.

Abraham, one of Butler County’s two most celebrated military veterans — the county is named after the other one — knew a few things about immigration, sacrifice, hardship and valor.

If his name sounds familiar, it should. The VA Medical Center in Center Township is named in his honor.

Master Sgt. Abraham was recognized for a multitude of military and humanitarian accomplishments. Most of us know he survived the infamous Bataan Death March and a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II. He was widely known for 22 years of volunteer service at the veterans hospital. He amassed a record 38,000 hours of service over 38 years.

Fewer know that Abraham was one of five individuals who were recognized for tracing their roots through the Golden Door of Ellis Island. He was a 2003 recipient of the Ellis Island Family Heritage Award, honored alongside celebrities Yogi Berra, Cicily Tyson, Bob Hope and Dr. Anthony Faucci.

In his book “Oh God Where Are You?” his account of the Bataan Death March, Abraham wrote fondly of his birthplace and childhood home in the Lyndora neighborhood of Butler Township, how the memory sustained him through the most difficult trials.

“My thoughts wandered back to my hometown — my brothers, sisters, friends, and boyhood days. I saw the hillside of Lyndora. Below it I saw the Ukrainian church, saw the old trolley cars, heard the clanging as they slowly rolled away,” he wrote. “As we traveled to school in our bare feet, patched trousers, and bold heads, we would hear other kids, whose fathers had money, yell at us, ‘Hey you Hunkies.’ We so-called Hunkies lived in a large crude building that resembled a boxcar, except it didn’t have any wheels. The only heat was an old coal stove in the kitchen; no heat ever reached upstairs into our bedrooms.”

He recalled how he and other grandchildren acted as interpreters between women from distant lands and cultures, now living side by side as neighbors on that Lyndora Hillside.

From Lyndora’s soil sprung this American champion. When another son of immigrants, President John F. Kennedy, declared, “Ask not what your country can do for you,” he was defining the essence of Abie Abraham.

And we can’t help but wonder what Abraham, who died six years ago, would have thought about the Central American migrants clamoring to cross the border into America after their own march across Mexico. We should consider the debate through Abie’s eyes, Abie’s experience, his wisdom and heart.