I am 56. I was named after an uncle who was blown to pieces invading Luzon.
I don’t want the Jap prime minister to apologize. I want the emperor to apologize.
And now, after years of tainting my childrens’ minds, they too refuse to buy Jap cars.
I can forgive people who are dead for things they did. But I won’t forget.
Similar experience here; my uncle was wounded, survived the Philippines. He and his platoon were awaiting discharge orders at Pearl Harbor when it was struck. He lost all but two of his men, he was devoted to. Practically, on the spot, he re-uped, and eventually was killed in the Guadalcanal campaign.
I too, hold a hatred of the Japanese. I’ve been *working* on my long held hostility, and come to peace with it. To help, I watch a lot of NHK network. They have a lot of programming related to the Japanese culture. I’m enjoying learning. It is helping soften the negative that is so hard to shake.
Both my mom (Hawaiian) and my father-in-law (Hawaii born Japanese) went through Pearl Harbor as civilians and survived. My father-in-law then signed up for the famed 442 regiment of Japanese-Americans and fought in Italy and France and got the Bronze Star for Valor, among other things (didn’t find out he got that medal until after he died, he never talked about any of that). He was a rifleman and forward observer, protecting the radio team that would radio in positions of the enemy for artillery attack. Very dangerous, essentially you had to sneak up to the enemy position unobserved, direct the artillery fire in, and then escape without being killed or captured. As soon as that first shell came in, the enemy knew you were close by and immediately sent out troops to try find and kill you.
My father was in the Pacific in the Navy in WWII, two of my uncles were Marines and fought at Iwo Jima and similar places. They both luckily survived the war.
My wife of course is Japanese-American. She has relatives in Japan, including Hawaii Japanese cousins who unfortunately by coincidence were visiting Japan at the beginning of the war and were trapped there.
The Japanese of today are not the same people as those who were responsible for WWII. Most are very nice. Sometimes it baffles me how a country whose people today are so polite and civilized could have been so barbaric and cruel before and during WWII. I guess you could say that about Germany as well.