Pearl Harbor...U.S.S. Arizona...The Japanese
Some time back I hired a black man in my sales department, a delightful fellow, who was in my employ until our company dumped all of us out on the street at once.
Timid at first, we talked over a drink one night about his attending a Blank Panther party meeting. he spoke briefly about it, saying, "I don't know how we are going to cure the ills of the world, but I know one thing: HATE is not the answer."
He never attended another meeting, and I became his friend forever. And, i changed my feelings about black people from that day forward.
Hate, the Japanese, the Arizona all wrap themselves together in a series of stories I am hearing current day as a docent in a B-17 museum in Tucson. it draws visitors from all over the world. I get to talk to people from every country: Japan, Australia, Germany (dozens, believe it or not-38 in August 2011 alone), and I have heard over a half dozen stories about the Japanese citizens on the deck of the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor that sickens me.
Many WW II vets, some Americans, Some Europeans and others have told me this past summer consistently similar stories that when visiting the deck of the Arizona in the harbor, they witness Japanese visitors also on the deck.
The Japanese joke, laugh, throw trash over the side of the bridge into the water, make a nuisance out of themselves and general disrespect the memorial with the names of the dead buried below decks.
One veteran told me he charged a half dozen Japanese and ordered off the ship lest he throw them in the water. They were said to have left immediately.
Another group, watching the theatre movie shown before they boarded the skiff taking them out to the Arizona, laughed out loud when the Zeros attacked the Arizona, and the American crews fell into the water dead and wounded.
Australian visitors claimed the Japanese citizens they witnessed actually cheered and laughed when the picture showed the zeros straffing the decks and bombing the ships. No explanation offered for the wartime Japanese machine gunning 20 Australian nurses on the northern shores of New Guineau at the outset of the war, still today's youngsters laugh and cheer at the barbarism of the film. Perhaps because in Japanese schools avoid teaching their children of the beheadings of helpless POW's, the slaughter of innocents in China, the Rape of Nanking.
Never mind...more light bulbs to make, more computers, there is a GNP to look after, modern science now, the world is catching up. Or is it? What is it these kids know? Or don't know?
All groups who told me these stories said the Japanese were disgusting, and they were angry about it. Of course, I felt the same way, but said nothing to them.
Hate...The War. When will it go away? Will it ever? They were conquered and obviously they still resent it. American Indians in the deepest of hearts still feel the same way about the "White" man. You haven't lived as a " northerner" visiting the south until you've been called a " YANKEE, ' or a Carpetbagger, a term not in use since ten years after our own Civil War, still termed in Charleston, South Carolina as the " War of northern aggression. (curious, since the south attacked Fort Sumter)
Hate.
###
Timid at first, we talked over a drink one night about his attending a Blank Panther party meeting. he spoke briefly about it, saying, "I don't know how we are going to cure the ills of the world, but I know one thing: HATE is not the answer."
He never attended another meeting, and I became his friend forever. And, i changed my feelings about black people from that day forward.
Hate, the Japanese, the Arizona all wrap themselves together in a series of stories I am hearing current day as a docent in a B-17 museum in Tucson. it draws visitors from all over the world. I get to talk to people from every country: Japan, Australia, Germany (dozens, believe it or not-38 in August 2011 alone), and I have heard over a half dozen stories about the Japanese citizens on the deck of the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor that sickens me.
Many WW II vets, some Americans, Some Europeans and others have told me this past summer consistently similar stories that when visiting the deck of the Arizona in the harbor, they witness Japanese visitors also on the deck.
The Japanese joke, laugh, throw trash over the side of the bridge into the water, make a nuisance out of themselves and general disrespect the memorial with the names of the dead buried below decks.
One veteran told me he charged a half dozen Japanese and ordered off the ship lest he throw them in the water. They were said to have left immediately.
Another group, watching the theatre movie shown before they boarded the skiff taking them out to the Arizona, laughed out loud when the Zeros attacked the Arizona, and the American crews fell into the water dead and wounded.
Australian visitors claimed the Japanese citizens they witnessed actually cheered and laughed when the picture showed the zeros straffing the decks and bombing the ships. No explanation offered for the wartime Japanese machine gunning 20 Australian nurses on the northern shores of New Guineau at the outset of the war, still today's youngsters laugh and cheer at the barbarism of the film. Perhaps because in Japanese schools avoid teaching their children of the beheadings of helpless POW's, the slaughter of innocents in China, the Rape of Nanking.
Never mind...more light bulbs to make, more computers, there is a GNP to look after, modern science now, the world is catching up. Or is it? What is it these kids know? Or don't know?
All groups who told me these stories said the Japanese were disgusting, and they were angry about it. Of course, I felt the same way, but said nothing to them.
Hate...The War. When will it go away? Will it ever? They were conquered and obviously they still resent it. American Indians in the deepest of hearts still feel the same way about the "White" man. You haven't lived as a " northerner" visiting the south until you've been called a " YANKEE, ' or a Carpetbagger, a term not in use since ten years after our own Civil War, still termed in Charleston, South Carolina as the " War of northern aggression. (curious, since the south attacked Fort Sumter)
Hate.
###
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