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To: Zakeet

The only B I ever got in grad school was from a professor whose pet project was demonstrating how Hiroshima was the American equivalent of Auschwitz. I refused to go along, wrote a (I still think, 25 years later) very cogent term paper completely destroying the analogy. He couldn’t refute my arguments, and he couldn’t fail me (it was 25 years ago; today profs would do it with impunity), so he gave me a B in the course without, IIRC, grading the paper. I wear the B as a badge of honor.

P.S. I spent my teen years in Japan, love Japanese culture, spent 30 years studying Japanese tea ceremony, and my screen name means “tea person” in Japanese. If anyone should oppose the bombing, I would be the one, but I have been to Hiroshima, and to much of the rest of Japan, and the only reason it is what it is today is because we stopped WWII short of an invasion of the home islands.


93 posted on 05/10/2016 10:14:53 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: chajin

I lived in Japan for a few years as a military dependent back in the Sixties.

I found a lot to like about the Japanese culture, it was interesting, the people were very friendly (even if it was a culturally forced friendliness)

I have always been amazed that a country that was so capable of appreciating great beauty could be so brutal at war. It is a dichotomy that is hard to reconcile.

I am reminded of the Cruiser USS Astoria that visited Japan right before the war (the LAST US Navy ship to visit prior to Pearl Harbor) to render honor to the Japanese ambassador who died in the USA, and the Astoria brought his ashes back to his homeland. (Apparently, the ambassador was universally respected by all)

There was a big formal dinner, and the Captain of the Astoria sat at a table next to a two star named Yamamoto. After the dinner, one of the officers was heard to remark “How can a country with such beautiful women produce such Son’s of Bitches for men?”


111 posted on 05/10/2016 10:33:50 AM PDT by rlmorel ("Irrational violence against muslims" is a myth, but "Irrational violence against non-muslims" isn't)
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