Posted on 12/09/2006 9:31:30 AM PST by Zakeet
TOKYO - Hiromasa Murakami went to see Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" to find out if an American could tell the Japanese side of a battle that became a symbol of U.S. patriotism, but for Japan was a bitter memory of defeat.
After viewing the film on Saturday when it opened it Tokyo, Murakami thinks Eastwood got it right.
"It was marvelous," the 50-year-old carpenter said as he emerged from the theater. "How should I express it? It was the same for both sides, for them and us. Everyone was a victim."
[Snip]
For many Japanese, the battle that killed 6,800 U.S. Marines and 21,000 Japanese has long been a tragedy best forgotten.
"Iwo Jima was a defeat. It was miserable and no Japanese movie company wanted to try to show it," said Eichi Tsukada, a 71-year-old retiree whose father died in World War Two.
Six decades after its defeat, Japan is still trying to come to grips with the Pacific War and who was to blame.
[Snip]
Few young Japanese these days know much about the battle for the tiny, tear-shaped island 700 miles south of Tokyo.
But after watching the film on Saturday, 17-year-old high school student Satoshi Koyama said he had learned something.
"American and Japanese soldiers were fighting with the same emotion. Both wanted to return to their homelands," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I agree with you regarding generations of today but as the article states, a large portion have no idea or will admit the atrocities that occured but will certainly be the first revisionist regardin our dropping the bomb.
Could it be the same for our country? I don't know anyone who owns a slave. Furthermore, one could be so cold as to say we beat the American Indians and continue to give them favor. Now, it is the Mexicans want their territory back and the some blacks who want reparations. Will it end for us and will the world like us again.
It may be hard for victims to forget or even forgive, but I do believe the sins of the father cannot be placed on the son and the nations, and national psyche, of both Japan and Germany today are not the nations we went to war against.
I only wish they were aware of all the sins of their fathers so they could comprehend and understand why the family of their fathers' victims in our Nation do not forgive and wish the bomb had been dropped earlier.
Or why us suthners would buy anything from those nasty oppressive damn yankees.
It wasn't training, it was brainwashing- to serve the human God emperor.
THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.
Yeah. Just like the civil war here.
All wars can be condensed into a single jingle. By the victors.
"How should I express it? It was the same for both sides, for them and us. Everyone was a victim."
****
Tojo as victim! What a great idea for a t-shirt! /sarc
The Japanese tortured men for days for the fun of it, through babies in the air to see if they could catch them on their bayonets, killed more civilians with swords than both atomic bombs killed, raped women and then ate them. How far into that mind do you want to go?
They also had the emotion of racial superiorty and the need for Japan to dominate Asia.
Everyone should read "Fly Boys" and "Ghost Soldiers."
That is true, training does not fully describe what they instilled in their population.
Kind of like Islam
Yeah. Just like the civil war here. All wars can be condensed into a single jingle. By the victors.
Okay, Let the record show that "sam_paine" thinks the following: The phrase, "They initiated attack -- we defended freedom" is nothing more than a catchy-light phrase when used to describe Japan's attack of us, and our defense of it.
Yes.
I won't see either of Eastwood's movies which are nothing more than sob stories about the plight of poor Indians and misunderstood Japanese.
Bump!
I read Ghost Soldiers. Great book. Fly Boys, on the other hand seemed to start as an anti-war work. I never finished it. Should I?
One of the results of this "coming to grips" is that the public education system does little to expose the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during WWII. Not unlike some of the stupid things that come out of the mouths of 17 year olds in this country, the student quoted in this article is a product of his education.
I was stationed in Japan for three years, traveled the country quite a bit, had many Japanese friends, both civilian and in the JSDF. In a majority of the people there is a conflicted sense of guilt over WWII. They tend to know Japan was in the wrong, even if their worst atrocities are suppressed in the public conscience.
My impression was that the grinning Japanese at the Arizona memorial and those visiting the shrine to the war criminals in Tokyo were in the minority. I only had one face to face encounter with one of these people and he was immediately confronted by complete strangers who happened to be walking by.
One exception to this is the "why us" mentality that still prevails in Hiroshima. If you were to have no knowledge of WWII (public education) and visited the "Peace" Museum you would come away with the following impression. Japan and the U.S. had conflicting interests in Asia, and somehow a war broke out, and then America nuked us, now look at the pictures of the victims and devastation. Even after a serious revamping of the exhibits, this mentality still prevails. It turns out that the army garrison from Hiroshima was responsible for Nanking. When referring to Nanking the exhibits say that some historians have asserted that some atrocities may have been committed by the Japanese troops.
Overall, I wouldn't make too much of this article. One statement by a 17 year old does not reflect the feelings of a whole society. Japan is one of our strongest allies and its issues with the truth of WWII won't hurt its relationship with the U.S. as much as it continues to hurt its relationships with its Asian neighbors.
It was neither. What happened to Ira Hayes is probably the most pathetic story of a human to come along. He was thrown into a limelight he felt that he did not deserver to be in, only to be found dead in a ditch.
"I simply do not understand how any of the Vets can forgive them. I would never own a Japanese made car."
My dad was on Okinawa and came back with an abiding hatred of anything Japanese. It wasn't until I was grown that he softened up somewhat and didn't curse the television during war movies.
My husband's WWII vet uncle was vehemently anti-Japanese until the birth of his 1/2 Japanese great-grandson whom he adores; + the child's daddy is (God willing) very close to accepting the Lord because of the witness of the awesome, loving Christian family he married into.
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