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August 10, 2005

It Can't Happen Here . . . can it?

Last weekend brought a visit to the National Museum of the Pacific War, an excellent museum in Fredericksburg, Texas, which is an excellent place, as anyone in San Antonio or Austin will tell you.

Each President who served in the military during the war had a monument detaling his service. Lyndon Johnson had activated himself as a Naval Reservist while still a sitting Congressman. Then this note, "On July 1st, 1942, President Roosevelt ordered all Congressmen serving in the military back to Washington to attend to their legislative duties."

Those were certainly different times.

The museum was excellent and detailed everything very well. All of the large Naval battles were covered in some depth, and the land battles and amphibious invasions in acceptable depth (though i could have used a bit more). Many tangential topics about the home front -- rationing, quick marriages, internments, and all manner of interesting things that usually slip under the radar, like the fact that the Coast Guard conducted horse-mounted patrols of the Oregon and Washington coasts in 1942.

All in all, an excellent depiction of the whole affair. Only when nearing the end of the museum, and seeing the black and white photos of Hiroshima, did I look at my watch and note the date: it had been exactly 60 years prior.

I've been to the Gembaku Dome in Hiroshima, a daytrip I took by myself from Osaka in high school. While certainly doing its part to honor the memory of the dead that day, the Japanese installation did little to place the blast into the context of the overall conflict, which is a recurring problem in Japanese society. Before going, my host-father (who is still a friend) told me that I "would see what your country wanted to do to Japan." The war is taboo over there, but when it is discussed, it is usually in the context of victimhood. From a standpoint of encouraging Japanese pacifism, perhaps that is a good thing in the long run, but given China's rise, I doubt it is any longer in our interest to encourage the Japanese to be passive in world affairs.

I dare say that any Japanese interested in the history of the war would do much better to visit the museum in Fredericksburg than in Hiroshima.

Was Nagasaki the last nuclear blast the world will see?

If you have not yet read the first two parts of "The Sacrifice and The Reckoning" over at American Digest, you must do so immediately: (Part 1, and Part 2). I can't wait for Gerard's next installment, and feel a morbid guilt for saying so.

Posted by Chester at August 10, 2005 12:20 AM