Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood
Just keep it safe and simple pretending to remember something about the ‘fighting’ by Allied troops across the planet. Hug yourself with some feelgood to help you feel sensitive and patriotic.
Carefully remember today ONLY the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor carrying some vague message we should remain prepared against similar future events.
Carefully do NOT remember the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the savage treatment of Allied POWs and civilians in occupied territories of The Greater-East-Asian-Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Carefully do NOT remember the beheading of hundreds, maybe thousands of prisoners, the starvation and death by disease of a huge percentage of other prisoners compared to elsewhere, almost anywhere among the armies of either side.
Carefully do NOT remember the overwhelming percentage of that conduct was perpetrated by enlisted men and officers below the rank of captain. Men who returned to their homes to be accepted within a couple of years as allies and fast friends of the US and other nations they fought, invaded, raped, pillaged and slaughtered only months earlier.
Carefully do NOT remember the Marshall Plan and the rebuilding of Japanese industry and infrastructure destroyed by the war, rendering much of US industry obsolete or absolescent. DON’T remember the 20,000 suicide-before-surrender Japanese cliff-jumps at Okinawa.
And while you’re at it see if you can find a feelgood argument with someone about the ethical and moral side of the atomic bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Better to forget all of it than pretend to remember some of it. Crank up your Mazda, turn on the FM and listen to some oldies while you remember what it was like to have a job. What happened 1941 – 1945 had nothing at all to do with anything happening today.
You don’t remember a damned thing about anything that happened to other people. Just remember Santy’s coming to town.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
Carrying a grudge against past generations of any ethnic group for crimes commited in the past does nothing to move us forward. There comes a time to forgive and forget, or the entire human race will be at odds with each other forever. The blacks hating the whites for slavery, the Native Americans hating the Europeans, Jews hating Muslums, Muslums hating Jews, etc etc etc, where does it end if we keep dredging up past sins?
quietsolopursuits: I don’t disagree. But occasionally I think someone needs to point out in the barrel of remembering syrup all the ‘rememberers’ profess and swim in to use it as a rhetorical, melodramatic and self-aggrandizing implication it has bearing on today, patriotism, 21st Century wars and 21st Century military adventures, are only doing what they’re doing. Not what they proclaim themselves to be doing. Not actually remembering in any sense of the word, whether they’re ‘remembering’ the Alamo, 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Dixie, or Wounded Knee. It’s all theater. Even in the case of 9/11 except for the people who were there, experienced it and the web of direct consequences. Thanks for the reply. J
Beautiful voice. I have heard some stories from people who served in WWII an suffered at the hands of the Japanese. One of them ended up in the home of an old Japanese lady for a meal with a fellow officer some years after the war. He was an American racked with hate for the Japanese and when I heard his story there was no doubt that if anyone had a right to hate them he did. He sat in stony silence through the meal. At some point the conversation changed to English. He learned the depth of the lady’s sorrow and all she had suffered. She had lost several family members to the war and was the only survivor. None of her family had wanted the war, they like he were dragged into war and suffered greatly all because of the leaders of both nations. Her story touched him and he could no longer hold the anger he once had because he came to understand that the people of Japan like the American people were thrown into something they didn’t invite. Governments can foster such unbelievable horrors on their people. I.e., Germany during WWII, USSR under many of their leaders, Cuba under Castro, China under the communist, the middle east under various leaders. History is full of examples through out time and the most horrible during the 20 century. I fear we are to see more in the 21st century and probably while you and I are still around to see it. May God be on our side. Mary
Mary: We humans have left a trail of blood along our trail from the beginning. That’s something worth remembering. If we manage to stagger through this life without becoming a part, an instrument of anyone elses blood trail we probably ought to count ourselves heroes. That might be the only hero worth remembering. Gracias, Jules
It’s the humans that are fundamentally flawed and I believe it’s fatal. It’s just a matter of time.
Keep your head down.
By the way I remember those events and many others in just that war alone I just don’t bring them up anymore. I tired of being that “crazy old fool”. The human species will not survive if it doesn’t remember it’s past and correct it’s mistakes and I don’t do give a damn if it does or not.
Oldfool: Wise words. Thanks for coming for a visit. Hope you dodge the steamroller. Gracias, Jules
Bravo, sir.
annegreye: Thank you. J
All war is about imperialism. Sending young poor men to war to make old rich men richer. Killing for acquisition.
elroypjones: There’s enough truth in what you’ve said to say it without indulging in a lot of falsehood, overall. Gracias, Jules
Jules,
I can’t (and I mean can’t) tell you what that song does to/for me. So deep. So old. So raw.
Thanks
angrymanspeaks: Glad it worked for you and tickled you came by for a visit. Gracias, J
Kind of rough, but appropriate, me thinks. Thank you, Jules.
seekraz: Life’s a rough place sometimes. I reckons it was probably rough there and then. I’m obliged you came for a visit. J
Thank you Jules you awesome man, were you in pearl harbor on december 7?
elpolocothecrazychickeneatsthegoodfood: I wasn’t born until 1943. I remember Pearl Harbor from the deck of a troop ship, the USNS Sullivans, in 1963 loaded with a couple of thousand GIs headed for Korea. No bombs dropped on us because the Japanese didn’t lead enough and the interesting stuff had gone off 20 years earlier. Gracias, Jules
By the way, {Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood} is true photograph?
The observers’ the left-most person do not putting on a Japanese soldier uniforms.
The facts were rieally true, I’ll try to find out.
Anonymous: I’m not certain what you intended to say here, but thanks for coming by for a read. Gracias, J
I found a very interesting article.
Is there something in common in one of the photos on this page？
http://www.nanking-massacre.com/Nanking_Massacre_Photo_Group_Three.html
Anonymous: I have no idea. Thanks for the visit. gracias, J