[Ax]

When I was in high school in the late fifties, I spent an inordinate amount of time reading about WW2 in the Pacific, much to the detriment of my other subjects. Shortly after graduation, and with no danger of college on my radar, I enlisted in the Mighty United States Air Force. After finishing radio School, I was assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

I loved the PI. I found the people to be very warm and friendly; to this day I go out of my way to greet Filipinos that I happen to meet in Tagalog. I couldn't understand then or now how one group of people could be so cruel to them.

Several years later, I got an assignment to Japan. I couldn't look at a Japanese man that I assumed to be in their 40s or 50s and wonder if he was one of those unspeakably monstrous people who lopped off the heads of innocent civilians or our GIs from Bataan. Not surprisingly, I was never able to form any kind of friendship with any Japanese person.

[nickedknack]

I was Navy and visited the PI many times during multiple deployments to the Western Pacific. I too have a warm spot in my heart for the Filipino people. Received jungle survival training from tough-as-nails Negritos who fought against the Japanese (Naval aviator). My father was with the 31st Infantry “Dixie” Division and was on Mindanao keeping the Sons of Nippon bottled up & starving in the interior and preparing for the invasion of Japan when the war ended.