Posted on 08/13/2003 11:07:05 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:06:49 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The day Japan gave up in World War II, Aug. 14, 1945, was exactly a week before I was to celebrate my 11th birthday. Up until President Truman's announcement at 7 p.m. Eastern time, I had really thought the war was going to last long enough for me to become a GI and achieve various heroic deeds of derring-do. Of such things are adolescent dreams and delusions made.
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To all who served in the Pacific Theater, my undying respect and thanks.
God Bless you and yours.
One of Dad's cousins was a Chaplain on a hospital ship.Despite the white paint and the huge red crosses on the sides, the Japanese torpedoed and sank it.There were no survivors.
My cousin Tom came home,wearing Sergeant's stripes,and many ribbons for valor.We thanked God he had escaped any serious wounds,but did not know he was one of the "walking wounded". Within a few weeks of his return, he was committed to the local psychiatric hospital.They got him stabilized and sent him home;but,within a month he had "suicided out" .
On the day they dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, we were "haying";but when the news was announced on the radio,we sort of suspended work to contemplate the shape of the new world ahead.I can remember sitting on the hay wagon,eating Hershey's ice cream, and talking quietly about the new bomb-hotter and brighter than the sun they said-and rejoicing in a scared kind of way, because the war would soon be over.
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