Since this is almost Memorial Day in the USA, a personal remembrance. My dad was a Marine in combat in the South Pacific. Just once did he ever mention running across the airfield at Peleliu (Palau) under machine gun fire, calmly unfolding the battlefield maps he had drawn on onion skin paper, recounting every detail as I listened for hours. Just once did he mention anything about landing on Okinawa. Only after he died I found out he had taken dozens of photos while he was waiting his turn to jump into the surf and run ashore. Dad had a cousin who had been a POW working in a subbasement in Hiroshima the day the atomic bomb dropped. He survived and lived another 20 years. Mom had relatives who had gone to practice medicine who got the last boat out of Shanghai only to be captured and put in prison camp for three years in Manila. But the amazing thing about my parents was they were never bitter. In 1949 they sponsored a Japanese woman to come to the US to get degrees in English and Christian education. They helped her go back to teach in Japan in 1953. My parents even dressed me in a baby boy kimono she made for me, and we had Ainu wood blocks next to our picture of JFK on the living room wall.
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 16:29:15 +0000
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