Memorial Day weekend has past and it consisted of doing absolutely nothing. Did not partake in any mall activities nor honor my fallen comrades by buying a new car or furniture. I realize it is an American holiday but the crass commercialism we attach to anything is truly American. Therefore, it should not be blasphemous that the general population forgot the real meaning of Memorial Day. They should feel free to tie it to barbecues, beaches, and beginning of summer. Why not, as it seems they forgot everything else.
When I was growing up in Japan in the 60’s and returned as a teenager in the 70’s I recall seeing World War II Japanese veterans, some of them with missing limbs, begging on the street corner for change from people walking by. I was in Hiratsuka for a festival in the summer of 76 and I gave some money to a Japanese war veteran, wearing the Imperial Army cap, humbly thanked me for the change. Most of the passersby seem to view this poor man as a symbol of humiliation and defeat and in an un-Japanese like characteristic, fend for himself. Whenever I visit my grandfather’s grave in Numazu, I would also see the headstones of local men who had died in World War II. Most of those men were my grandfather’s friends and classmates drafted at an older age, had families, and lost their lives fighting on Saipan. In the 80’s many Japanese children left behind in China and raised by Chinese families, in their 40’s returned to Japan for that miniscule chance they may run into a surviving relative. Therefore, Memorial Day for me holds enemies and think of those who had to suffer the unfortunate stupidity called war.
Having grown up in a military environment, Memorial Day weekend brings back memories of the adolescent years. I used to watch “The Wonder Years” on television years ago because the main characters were the same age as me but they portrayed the type of American life I did not experience as a GI brat. Despite of it, the lifestyle portrayed on that show was alien to me. The Vietnam War was close to many dependents living at Clark Air Base as fathers went TDY to the front in Vietnam or support bases in Thailand. Several of my classmates had fathers who piloted B-57 bombers in Vietnam. Ambulance buses ferried the wounded from aircraft parked on the tarmac to the base hospital. There would be call for blood donations of rare types of blood during dinner hour at the NCO club.
A classmate was pulled out of class after a visit from several Air Force officers. We found out later that her father was shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. We saw her several months later hugging her father in the US in a photo in Life Magazine. Years later, I was to hear that his release was controversial.
The daily newspaper Stars and Stripes listed personnel killed, wounded, or missing in action in Vietnam. Some of the names I remember as they were less than a decade older than I. Armed Forces Radio and Television carried reports from the front as well as World War II like bond drive ads. Radio personalities abound such as Chris Noel, whose mini-skirted pictures adorned the Stars and Stripes and walls of GIs living in barracks at the time.
We returned in 1969 and it seems people were on the homefront were against the war or indifferent to it. My father had his twilight tout before retirement in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I attended an actual public school, not a DOD sponsored one, and this was my first exposure to “Wonder Years” portrayed American life during the late 60’s and early 70’s. Upon father’s retirement from the Air Force, the “culture shock” was worse as we moved to San Diego. The war “ended” in 1973 for the Americans and I recall seeing a photo on the cover of the San Diego Union showing a widow and her son beside the flag draped casket of the “last American killed in combat” in Vietnam.
My active duty and reserve time in the Navy was nothing to boast about. I did nothing exciting or significant. No attempts to steal valor with exaggerated tales of being a Navy SEAL or Special Forces in the Middle East. I did none of those and did my job as an avionics tech and collateral duty Navy Counselor. After 9/11, I received handshakes and gratitude from many for serving after I had retired from the Naval Reserves a year earlier. Why they did, I do not know but it was patriotism and flag waving time then. The only reward I enjoyed was attending Veteran’s Days assembly at my daughter’s school and receiving a homemade ribbon/medal from her class. Now that meant something.
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