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To: El Cid

I was a youth in Phoenix when one day I saw a couple of busses pullup -in front of the YMCA. I heard the people, all Japanese were going/being taken to a relocation camp. I had serious misgivings about what I saw. As the war progressed and I was drafted and my brother was killed on Okinawa and I had more insight, I thought about the people on the busses a bit differently. The USA was fighting for It’s very existance not some border conflict, no doubt about that. The Japs( war time soldiers language) had been in Hawaii, Alaska and had even brought the war to the mainland by bombs and submarines. In the dire days this Nation could not afford any fifth column Japanese. Like today with the Muslims when and if push came to shove who would stand with whom? As much as Roosevelt’s decision to intern Japanese,not all were citizens, seemed too gross as a defence against a possible calamity it took into account a possibility that would have been worse than at Nanking ,Shanghai and other occupied cities . After Wake Island when the USA did not have such fear of Jap sea power invading the USA or even Hawaii perhaps the internment camps could have/should have been closed. As with much of happenings in life the little words ‘if only’ could be asked . With this being said there should be many thanks to the Japanese who served this Nation to highest honors in spite of the bitter sweet experience of the internment camps. For me though the cost of my brother’s life along with so many other young men to make sure there would be no Jap invasion of our soil softens my memory of that day in Phoenix.


43 posted on 03/08/2011 6:04:56 PM PST by noinfringers2
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To: noinfringers2
Michelle Malkin had a good book called 'The Case for Internment'. Of course she got excoriated from writing it - but it does show that it was a very complex issue, and without knowing all the facts its pretty arrogant to condemn these actions from the safety of being 70 years away from the disasters of Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and the invasion throughout the Pacific.

As you said, God Bless the Japanese Americans who fought bravely for their Country while their families were in internment camps -- but I don't denigrate the men that set up the internment camps. It was a difficult time and difficult decisions had to be made with the focus on ensuring the security of the Nation.
You ought to get Mrs. Malkin's book - she brings up a lot of facts and adds additional color to this decision. Which beats the one-dimensional bilge we get today - which is basically: 'Americans bad, all others good'.

44 posted on 03/08/2011 6:22:43 PM PST by El Cid (Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house...)
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