STILL DEEP HURTFUL AND ANGRY FEELINGS

STILL DEEP HURTFUL AND ANGRY FEELINGS

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Asia & Pacific, Reuters)

(Jeoffrey A. Hosking, Rudiger Overmans, Frazer Chronicle)

 

It’s funny the things that you can learn in a coffee shop with friends holding a mild conversations, where the topics run the gamut, from sports to political topics, the work-day adventures to the waitress and her cute little swivel in her walk. This day, Saturday 17, 2013 wasn’t any different than the couple times a month that we meet.

 

The topic this particular day didn’t even cover sports, it was about basically real-estate, the hurdles and hoops that Bill, (one of my friends) had to go through to collect the rental fees on his properties around Green Bay.

 

Dean, our other friend, really didn’t have much to say, apparently he’d had a close encounter with the female of the species and had consumed a solid six pack…..and of course was feeling a bit under the weather. He however did mention the fact that he had taken his three kids to a minor league baseball game this past Thursday…..and forgot to turn off his car, and lock it up…..you gotta know Dean to understand the story.

 

Always fishing around for an issue or idea for a blog I mentioned the fact that it had been (68 years) this past Thursday, August 15, since Japan had surrendered to the allies, effectively ending World War 2. There was a grunt from Dean, and a passive huh-uh from Bill, and both wanted to move on. However I persisted, I wondered if any of us really understood the gravity of the 68 year anniversary, and how we might have reacted.

 

As I pressured the subject, I was surprised to find out that not only didn’t Bill or Dean have a comprehension regarding the war time deaths suffered by the Japanese, but neither did I, in fact I was far worse the culprit in my almost complete misunderstanding about the numbers of deaths suffered then either Bill or Dean.

 

LOOKING UP THE FACTS

I try and write my blogs in a timely and up to date manner, relying on up to 30 on-line publications, and hopefully relate all views, liberal, conservative, and some opinions that, to say the least…..are out there. I pride myself on basically knowing the bare facts of issues, or instances in time. But I gotta admit, I really didn’t have an idea with regards to the casualties suffered by the Axis, and Allied powers during World War 2.

 

Japan lost an incredible 2.6 to 3.1 million people between 1940 and 1945, the numbers suffered when Japan had a total population of 71,380,000, or a rate of 3.6 to 4.3 deaths per every 100,000 citizens. The military deaths during the war-time years were 2,120,000, meaning that between half a million and 1 million civilians lost their lives.

 

Korea and the South Pacific Mandate, an area which included modern day Palau, Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, which came under Japanese control as prescribed by the treaty of Versailles in 1919 after the conclusion of World War 1. These tributaries, and occupied countries also suffered casualties, Korea between 378,000 and 483,000 civilian deaths, and the Mandate suffered another 57,000 deaths, all civilian.

 

 

 

My guess for war-time casualties that Japan and her occupied areas suffered was like 40 or 50 million, thank God I was way the hell off. But my guess and its huge misrepresentation of the actual numbers did serve a purpose….it made me look up the real and sobering number of deaths suffered at the hand of mankind.

 

Who was at fault doesn’t matter, or the cause, does anybody really remember, what should come out of man’s inhumanity towards man is that nothing, absolutely nothing was solved by World War 2, and the millions that died. The United States military still occupies Japan, Germany, Italy, and Korea. There is still a festering sore, and a smoldering hatred that remains between all of the combatants.

 

I think for people like U.S. citizens, people who have only a passing interest in the history of World War 2 don’t quite grasp the effects of a war torn country like the Japanese islands suffered. The degradation not only to the infrastructure of the country, but the deaths, injuries and illnesses that were directly the result of the war have to give a different perspective to the people and the ancestors of those who lived through it.

 

THE YASUKUNI SHRINE

The edifice that is the Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, and was created by Emperor Meiji to commemorate the individuals who had died in service of the Empire of Japan during the Meiji Restoration. The shrine lists the names, origin, birth date and place of death of 2,466,532 men, women, and children and spans from the Boshin War of 1867 to World War 2.

 

The shrine and the neighboring buildings and gardens do not in any way celebrate the history of wars that the Japanese emperors waged, quite the contrary; the Yasukuni is a solemn reminder of why war should be avoided at all costs.

 

The surrender by the Japanese in August of 1945 actually has very little to do with the Second World War, and the gathering at the shrine, it is however a celebration of the accomplishments and the achievements that the Japanese did have from 1867 through the middle of World War 2. That fact cannot be denied, and today the thousands who visit the site do so out of respect for those who fell, and reaffirm their conviction to never enter war again.

 

NO MORE EMPERORS, JUST A PRIME MINISTER

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits the Yasukuni periodically, but chose to send an aide this past Thursday to the ceremony for the 68 anniversary of the surrender that ended the war. There was a tree branch that was delivered by the aide as a ritual offering on behalf of the Prime Minister.

 

Shinzo Abe downplayed the 14 war criminals that are interred on the shrine grounds, as he continues his attempts to repair ties with Japan’s neighbors. Leaders in China and South Korea still believe Japan has never made proper amends for invading and then occupying their territories in the run-up to World War 2

 

Old wounds take a long time to heal, but after 68 years, I was one year old, and I’ll bet you the milk money that very, very few people are old enough to remember what happened on the run-up to World War 2! Like my mother used to say…..”let go and let God”. Isn’t it time?

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!