One thing I’m glad to reflect on with this horrendous event is that after 80 years, the peoples of Japan and the United States have evolved into being friends. The brutal battles which followed for the next three years were awful. Thousands on every side died. It’s also pretty easy to accuse the US of dropping two nuclear weapons on Japan as revenge killings.
I remember how my grandparents continued to use racial slurs about the Japanese. They continued to have a grudge for what happened to the US Navy. I’m pretty confident my friends Ayako and Yuichi had grandparents with equally ugly language to say regarding what America did to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Even in the Eighties, St. Reagan would continue to demonize the Japanese people for economic policies yet I know in his black heart, it was leftover hate from the war.
But with each passing generation, the animosity lessens which I think is great. Many other parts of the world have two groups carrying on conflicts dating back generations so the current participants probably forget what was the original beef? It made Northern Ireland a blemish for the UK and Europe. It led to Yugoslavia’s descent into chaos and civil wars. It keeps India and Pakistan at each other’s throats. Hell, within America, we continue to hear assholes waving Confederate flags and saying the North (really, the US) invaded the 11 Southern states…165-plus years later.
So I will take this date in time as an opportunity to reflect and be grateful. Grateful the anger, hate and bloodlust it created long ago is fading. I hope the Japanese people feel the same. Sure we both quickly found new, mutual enemies after 1945 yet it doesn’t matter, the bond of friendship between us was the best outcome imaginable.