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| "With these Hands -- Wonder" Oil on acrylic underpainting |
It's the 4th of July; Independence Day, and I'm going to repeat a blog in memory of the veterans and troops throughout the years who have fought for our freedom. My inspiration came from reading “Unbroken; a World War II
Story of Survival,” by Laura Hillenbrand. In that blog, I mentioned that
it was hard for me to read more than a few chapters a day.
The material is so
raw, so cruel and emotional that I had to quit reading in order to regain my
composure. I’m not a crier; people who know me know that I don’t cry easily,
especially in front of others. But I will tell you this. While reading this
book, my eyes filled with tears and my heart experienced the agony of shared empathy.
As POWs, these men tried to retain their dignity as human beings
under cruel and inhumane circumstances. Struggling to maintain scraps of
freedom their defiance kept them going. Their bodies would be starved and
beaten. They would be forced into submission, but their souls, their attitudes
and minds would soar above on silent prayers of hope and endurance.
Their struggles reminded me of this passage from the Book of Job in
the Bible: “I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it. My
conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.” (Job 27:6 NIV)
Educators always refer to the Jewish Holocaust under Hitler as the
worst example in history of human degradation and deprivation. And well they
should. But its relevance has been broadcast on the wings of a political agenda
labeled “Anti-Semitism.” Yet the fact that thousands and millions of Soldiers
suffered under the tyrannical hands of the Japanese in the brutal POW camps is
little known. Why? Because the power of the elite has deemed America an
“Imperialist” country and these facts do not suit their political agenda.
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| (first great granddaughter) |
I went to Wickipedia hoping to find some historical and accurate
information. To my surprise their main focus was on the Japanese Internment
Camps in the US and Japanese POWs where the prisoners were treated humanely
compared to the treatment of US prisoners in Japanese camps. This is how
history has been manipulated for political purposes.
Most of the US and Allied POWs in Japan died from starvation. They
became slave labor and worked long hours on rice or seaweed broth having
neither protein nor vegetables. They suffered preventable diseases such as
beriberi and scurvy. These valiant men helped each other, protected each other; and when
they could, shared what little food they had in order to keep their buddies
alive.
“Courage is fear that has said its prayers,” Karl Barth a theologian of
the 20th century once said. Those who survived were sometimes hourly
on their knees.
These prisoners were beaten daily, beaten for pleasure, and if they were
officers or men of stature beaten extensively. They were coverless and barefoot
in winter; their bodies covered only with shreds of cloth that were once the clothing
they wore when captured. International law regarding Prisoners of War was
ignored. The Red Cross dropped food supplies in the camps, but the Japanese
guards horded them for themselves or sold them on the black market.
Link for historical story: http://www.stripes.com/military-life/taiwan-horrors-of-japanese-pow-camps-revealed-to-visitors-at-kinkaseki-1.218978
Sadly, their suffering and torture in the POW camps was
overshadowed by the “bomb” that finally made Japan stand still. How do you stop
a tyrant? How do you bring down the planes raining bombs on your own soil and
stop an aggressive enemy intent on conquering the world? How do you stop a
bully with an arsenal who is out to cleanse the world of unwanted races,
ethnicities, or religions? How do you stop a mad man, a dictator from implementing
his hatred?
During the course of the war, Japanese civilians also suffered as
their country began to collapse at war’s end. A quote from the book states:
“Near the end of the war, the civilians
(not the guards or hierarchy) were in shocking conditions. The limbs of the
adults were grotesquely swollen from beriberi; a condition the POWs knew well.
Their children were emaciated…But Japan was a long way from giving up.”
The Japanese considered “surrender” shameful, and they were
prepared to fight to the end at all costs. They had also decided that no
prisoners would be released to their allied forces. They intended to kill every
last one. Hundreds of POWs were shot and dumped in the nearby jungles. There
were few options open to the POWs for escape or rescue.
There’s another side to the story. What enemy would warn their
adversary of an upcoming attack? American B29s “showered leaflets over 35
Japanese cities warning civilians of coming bombings and urging them to warn
others and to evacuate. “But the Japanese authorities punished those who had leaflets or
who gave them to their neighbors and tried to warn them. Two of the cities
warned and mentioned in the leaflets were Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Today, my blog is long. This war, this book has deeply affected me.
I am incensed by “man’s inhumanity to man.” Sadly, those who served our country,
who suffered and endured, were forgotten to satisfy a contemporary ideology intent
on promoting equality, diversity and inclusion. It has taken America several decades
to honor those who served in the World War II arena. There are very few of them
who still remain.
To add insult to injury, those surviving American heroes were
insulted once again when the “mock government shut-down” denied them passage
into the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. that was built specifically
to honor them.
I am ashamed of our leaders in Washington. I am outraged at how
they toy with our lives and tinker with the greatest thing we have going for
us: our Constitution. May God bless America. She needs it now more than ever!
