Looking back: a time remembered

To the editor:

This marks the 70th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities between the United States and Japan, an event hastened by the atomic bombs that wreaked unbelievable havoc on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Seventy years ago our P.T. boat squadron was stationed on the island of Okinawa. This gave me something of a front-row seat (or at least one in the lower balcony) as the events of August unfolded.

In war it is 'kill or be killed.” The Japanese forces were the enemy. We did not think of them in the context of humans with feelings or emotions or hopes or fears or loved ones back home. They were the enemy. Their defeats were our victories, and vice versa. And, as almost always, the combatants were not the instigators - merely the messengers.

Fast forward 37 years to the fall of 1982. The Cedar Rapids school district was hosting a delegation of Japanese educators. I was one of the local staff people assigned to squire them around. For a culminating activity our guests hosted a banquet at the Amanas. We transported six of their members in a school station wagon. None of the six had a working knowledge of the English language. But we discovered a common denominator - music. (Stephen Foster worked extremely well.)

For me, the personal highlight, was standing arm in arm singing songs with new found Japanese friends; friends with feelings, emotions, hopes, fears and loved ones back home.

A chapter was opened. A chapter was closed.

Robert C. 'Bob” Arnold

Cedar Rapids