I keep thinking about the book and the characters. My content area is history so I know the dry facts of the attack, I know some of the stories of Our Noble Military Defenders, I even know some of the stories of the attackers. But the stories of the common people on the island that day was a closed book until this one.
One of my favorite books about the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 is a book that tells the story of the townspeople as the battle raged around their homes and farms. There are always innocents who get caught between the two forces. Sometimes, as at Gettysburg, the turmoil is over in a few days though the trauma lives on for years. Other times the forces engage for years and the trauma lasts for decades if not lifetimes.
Reading Under the Blood-Red Sun during the preparations leading up to Liberation Day brings home all the concern and worry that the war left in its wake. As I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog my Japanese wife has encountered some of that residual hatred and it left her feeling less than secure in the month of July. It only happened once and that was years ago but such prejudice, once experienced, can taint the rest of your life.
Happy Liberation Day to all and may all find forgiveness in their hearts.
Hi Brett.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to share that when I taught Japanese here, I exposed my kids to the book "Sadako", and made them watch an anime called "Grave of the fireflies".
When I was teaching in Japan, I taught some Guam history which included the Japanese occupation, the march, and the Manenggon concentration camp.
When there is a war, many civilians are affected. Since we are both future social studies teachers we must impart the wisdom that war should be avoided as much as possible. It is the government's, societies, communities, and humans' job to protect the innocent. War can be seen as a failure to do so.
I just came back from Hawaii and I had one question... where were the indigenous Hawaiians? I know I stayed in a tourist location but I didn't see too many "Hawaiians". I thought it was so ironic how our story emphasizes the resentment of the Japanese living in there, but as I observed, there were more Japanese people around me than locals. I also noticed the military presence was all around. With the 3+ military bases out there, they acted more like locals than anything. It was interesting to be reading the story as described then, to what I actually observed, now.
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