Tag Archives: USS Arizona Memorial

International news, military news, national news

No apology for attack, but still a profound promise

As the son of a gallant World War II veteran who jumped into the fight just weeks after a treacherous attack against the United States, I was hoping for an apology.

It didn’t come. Instead, the prime minister of Japan — the nation that yanked us into a global bloodbath — offered something that came pretty close to an apology.

Shinzo Abe visited the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu as the guest of President Obama, who is on vacation there with his family. He spoke of the “precious souls” who died during the Japanese air attack on our naval and air forces on Dec. 7, 1941.

He vowed that Japan never again would go to war. Abe offered a statement of condolence that he said, in effect, will never end.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/world/asia/shinzo-abe-text-pearl-harbor.html?_r=0

The prime minister also expressed his gratitude for the generosity that Americans have extended to his people in the years since the “date which will live in infamy.”

“On behalf of the Japanese people, I hereby wish to express once again my heartfelt gratitude to the United States and to the world for the tolerance extended to Japan,” Abe said.

An actual apology would have been the best outcome of this first-ever visit to Pearl Harbor by a Japanese head of government.

This American, though, will accept the prime minister’s statement of eternal condolence.

International news, military news

Our former enemy shares his wisdom

Kaname Harada once fought against the United States of America.

He was a Japanese fighter pilot. He’s 98 now. Frail. Near the end of the line … apparently.

Harada has some wisdom for his government, one that sent him and other young warriors to fight in World War II: Don’t get involved again, ever, in war.

Harada is concerned that Japan might rewrite its constitution to allow its fighting forces to deploy abroad. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is thinking about revising the document, which prohibits Japanese armed forces from doing anything other than protecting the island nation from attack.

Abe was incensed at the Islamic State’s brutal murder of two Japanese journalists. Indeed, the world was incensed.

He ought to heed to advice of an aging Japanese Zero pilot.

Harada spoke recently to an audience about his experience in WorAS ld War II. They were enthralling and chilling all at once. According to the New York Times: “Nothing is as terrifying as war,” he began, before spending the next 90 minutes recounting his role in battles, from Japan’s early triumph at Pearl Harbor to its disastrous reversals at Midway and Guadalcanal. “I want to tell you my experiences in war so that younger generations don’t have to go through the same horrors that I did.”

Indeed, I have learned in recent years that the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor is attracting aging Japanese warriors who are coming to the United States to pay their respects at the memorial that stands over the sunken hulk of the battleship sunk during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack — which brought the United States into the world war. These men are now getting old, just as our brave men and women are aging. They were following orders and doing their duty as they saw it.

As Harada told the Times: “I fought the war from the cockpit of a Zero, and can still remember the faces of those I killed,” said Mr. Harada, who said he was able to meet and befriend some of his foes who survived the war. “They were fathers and sons, too. I didn’t hate them or even know them.”

This old man’s wisdom is profound. It is gripping. It needs to be heard by all those who believe war ever is a sane option to any dispute between or among nations.

It isn’t.