Pearl Harbor, Memorial Day, and drop's inability to NOT start a fight

Great Debates
21

Perhaps ANZAC Day in New Zealand is different from Memorial Day in the US…

Here in the US, Memorial Day is generally understood to commemorate the dead who fell in all wars in which US troops participated.* World War II is the earliest of those that still has a sizeable number of living veterans (no cite - if somebody disagrees, I’d welcome correction), so it and other wars since tend to get the most attention.

The conflict in Vietnam is most certainly included in the commemoration - a war which we didn’t “win”.

I’m still having trouble understanding your apparent claim that celebrating Memorial Day is offensive/insulting to the Japanese. Are we as a nation not to pause for a day and remember those who died? Out of fear that descendants of those who killed them will take offense? I find this idea obscene. Quite frankly, if somebody is offended that I choose to remember my countrymen who died in wars, I’ve little sympathy for him. Like I said, perhaps ANZAC Day celebrations are different, but I’ve never seen a Memorial Day commemoration expressing any kind of pride in the number of enemy killed.

You mention that commemorating WWII did not stop subsequent wars from occurring. This is (obviously) true, but I fail to see how that invalidates the holiday.

I’m not sure just why you feel this way, but I couldn’t disagree more. Vietnam and the Gulf War are hardly “ancient battles”. Observing a national holiday bringing the human cost of these struggles out into the open is the precise antithesis of “not taking personal responsibility for our human natures,” IMO. We, today, cannot change what happened in the past, but we damn well can pay attention to it, realize how awful it was for all concerned, and try not to repeat it. You do sagely point out that holidays don’t seem to succeed in this aim, but I’m adamant that they do more towards that end than simply sweeping matters under the rug would.

    • Opinions on this may vary. I’m having trouble pinning down a good citation for just what Congress intended when is created the holiday.
22

After every Anzac Day you can be sure the Press will claim it was “better than ever”. There is a sports arena in my town where, on Friday nights from time to time, 30,000 people turn up to watch rugby. In the same town between 1000 and 3000 people commemmorate Anzac Day each year. If the Anzac people were rugby’s only fans the sport would have the status of women’s archery. The point I was trying to make was not that memorial days are insulting to Japanese or unnecessary. I am saying that post war generations are unable to relate to the World Wars in ways that older people would wish. It is idealistic to think otherwise. Younger people need an alternative anti-war focus or at least they need to be integrated more effectively into Memorial services as they exist now. I’d like to know what someone like Spoofe (who is still a teenager) really feels about Memorial Days because I’m sure most people over 60 would be really surprised.

23

I think Spoofe may remember the Gulf war, and may well know people who fought in it. It wasn’t that long ago. And I’m sure that there are teens who can appreciate the fact that some of their countrymen died in service even if they don’t agree with why our country was involved in the fight.

24

**

I’m really confused here, G. Nome. What are you trying to say?

Have you been to a Memorial Day service in the States? You seem to be very hostile towards the idea, and I’m not certain why.
dropzone Sorry, but it looks like you may have been completely hijacked! :slight_smile:

25

I have seen the film and I do not think it is racist. The Japanese did attack the fleet in Pearl Harbor without warning. The attack led to a war with both sides suffering many losses.

I don’t think it is improper to remember history, to change or ignore history merely to be “politically correct” is ludicrous. Memorial day is set aside to remember those who gave their all for their country and those who have gone before us.

26

Very true, so I am lodging an official request to have this moved to GD.

27

No, we commemorate the war because of all the attrocities that may never be forgotten. The lives lost on both sides. The reminder of what may never happen again. That’s what it is about in all memorial days I have some knowledge about. I’m waiting for the second Kiwi to confirm your point of view, G. Nome. But I don’t think one will come along.

Well, God wasn’t available, so some people decided to do something for themselves. Since the early 90’s, the Dutch have celebrated the liberation, and commemorated the dead, alongside those of many nationalities. Including Germans. From the website of the Dutch National Committee 4 and 5 May:

Hoo boy, we’re rubbing it in to those Germans eh? Neener neener, we won the war!

Not bloody likely.

We can expect them to feel said empathy only if we commemorate the war and those who have fallen.
This thread has 210 replies. You’d be surprised at how many people in there were born after 1945.
[/quote]
And at the request of the OP, I shall now move this thread to Great Debates. drop, do you want the title changed to reflect the new content? Just post the desired title, I’ll change it for you.

28

I suppose something along the lines of “Pearl Harbor, Memorial Day, and drop’s inability to NOT start a fight” might be appropriate. :wink:

In the US, the Memorial Day that is NOT ALSO a celebration of kicking Germany’s or Japan’s butt is a fairly recent development. When I was a kid it was awfully jingoistic. Perhaps it was because most of the celebrants were WWII vets. Maybe it was a backlash at the anti-Vietnam War protesters. And, at the time, Vietnam wasn’t considered a “real” war so its losses were not commemorated. For the same reason, its vets weren’t allowed in the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization until late in the '70s. I guess somebody realized that there wasn’t going to BE a VFW soon if the vets of “police actions,” like Korea and Vietnam, weren’t allowed in. Then they went whole hog with the MIA/POW flags and all, even though they had previously dismissed the same people as not having fought in a real war. Yes, it still pisses me off.

Now, those WWII vets still alive are staring death in the face and have developed a little more perspective. That, and treatment for Delayed Stress has improved and they can finally allow themselves to break down and cry over their lost friends, their lost youth, and their lost innocence. I never used to see these guys weeping over the poor bastards they had killed. They were far too macho. But they can now.

All together, this new Memorial Day is far healthier than the ones of my youth. And it is no longer the celebration of wars won that it once was—maybe not winning a few since '45 has helped the US mature some. But it’s a lot more depressing. Those guys were more fun when they spent the day self-medicating their depression.

29

Title changed at the OP’s request. :smiley:

30

As for the new title, that was (sorta) intended as a joke. I guess you are just trying to get back at me for my cranky email last week. :wink:

BTW, sorry about that.

31

http://www.theonion.com/onion3720/infograph_3720.html :wink:

32

I don’t know about you but I don’t recall a single Memorial Day where anyone mentioned soldiers from other countries. I’ve never seen people in German, Japanese, Spanish, or Mexican uniforms in any of our Memorial Day celebrations. I’m pretty sure that Memorial Day in the United States is there to honor/celebrate all those who died fighting for our country not any others. Not that I think this is a bad thing.

Marc

33

How about a little less histrionics here, and a little more history.

Memorial Day, originally Decoration Day, is the creature of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization for Union veterans of the American Civil War. The GAR was an outfit very like the American Legion. Memorial Day was the occasion to put flowers and flags on the graves of Union veterans in general and on the graves of GAR members in particular. There was a competing Confederate Memorial Day that was a state holiday in some Southern States when I was a kid, and may still be as far as I know. John Logan, Congressman from Illinois and formerly a general in the Union Army, as the president of the GAR, championed Memorial Day’s recognition as a national holiday. Memorial Day was a big deal in Northern States well before the turn of the 19th Century. Its initial purpose was to honor and celebrate the lives and sacrifice of the Northern dead of the Civil War. This is why it was typical for the town orator or some fresh scrubbed school kid to recite the Gettysburg Address as a part of the ceremony at the local cemetery just as important as the three volleys of musketry and the funeral bugle call. Rather than being a posturing over victory, it was a return to mourning and appreciation of sacrifice.

With WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts and with the passing of the Civil War veterans, the regional nature of the day was transformed into a national remembrance day for all war dead, and to a lesser extent for all the dead, military and civilian alike. While the release of the new Pearl Harbor movie over the Memorial Day weekend may have been a slick marketing stunt, it hardly changes the nature of the holiday.

I don’t know anything about ANZAC Day, except that the initials stand for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and that its formations suffered terribly at Gallipoli and in Palestine in WWI, and in North Africa and Italy in WWII. I am familiar with Remembrance Day in the UK and Canada. I cannot imagine that ANZAC Day is much different.

You can deplore war all you want. You can argue all you want that warfare is not an acceptable way to resolve problems between nations. You can deplore the obscenity of the butchery and slaughter of war as well as its futility. Given all that, however, it does not advance your cause to try to characterize honest respect given to the men and boys (for the most part they were men and boys) who actually endured the butchery and never got to enjoy the fruits of their sacrifice, as vainglorious posturing over the victory and the extent of suffering inflicted on the enemy. It will, however, expose you as a perverse ingrate with little respect for what your country’s soldiers, sailors and airmen (people not unlike your father) sacrificed for your benefit.

34

Sorry, G. Nome, I was only stating the simple case. The war in the Pacific was not the focus of the New Zealand armed forces in WWII and the NZ Army fought through Nth. Africa, Crete, Italy, etc. That doesn’t mean there can’t have been Kiwis fighting in the Pacific – but the NZ Armed forces per se did not fight there.

The ANZACs and ANZAC day came out of WWI, and the horrific campaign in the Dardenelles.

From enZed Ancient and Modern History:

Over 33000 Allied and 86000 Turkish troops died in the eight-month Gallipoli campaign of world war I which achieved none of its objectives. Though the campaign was a failure, Anzac (initials of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps ) has come to stand, in the words of the historian, C.E.W. Bean, “for reckless valour in a good cause, for enterprise, recourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance”, remembered each year on April 25th".

Lines of a poem, ‘For the Fallen’, by Laurence Binyon, are read at ANZAC commemoration services:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

(The full text of the poem, and lots of other interesting ANZAC links can be found at this Anzac Day site.

Also on the enZed Ancient and Modern History site we can find this link to a site dedicated to the Turkish viewpoint on the war in Gallipolli, and this poem by Ataturk, group commander of
Anafartalar and the founder of Modern Turkey:

*Those heroes that shed their blood and
lost their lives…! You are now lying in
the soul of a friendly country, therefore
rest in peace. There is no differences between
the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they
lie side by side here in this country of ours…
You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away
countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now
lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having
lost their lives on this land they have become
our sons as well."
ATATURK, (1934). *

“When experience is not retained . . . infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
George Santayana

35

Memorial days are not about preventing future wars.

Memorial Days are not about rubbing our victory in the faces of old enemies.

Memorial days are there so that when we slap a gun into the hands of an eighteen year old child and tell him to run up a hill into enemy fire, ignoring every instinct in his body for the greater good, it is so that that child will know that if he dies or is maimed, that death will be remembered, and that even though he didn’t really have time in his life to do much of anything, he will be honored as a hero.

Now, the cynical part of me calls that manipulation and the other part of me calls that simply making a promise, but either way, commemorating the dead has everything to do with the living.

36

Well, instead of that, some Japanese Self-Defense Force members attend US Military schools. There are a couple attending the US Naval Postgraduate School just down the highway from me right now. There are also JSDF members assigned to the Japanse Embassy and Consulates in the US.

Yeah, and I bet you think the Hawaiian Tourism Board (or whatever they call it in Hawaii) had nothing to do with trying to get people from Japan to spend their cash in Hawaii.

It’s not a strange sound to many Japanese. You see, there are both Japanese and US military bases throughout Japan. Even the JSDF use bugle calls. The people living in the towns near the US military bases not only hear the bugle calls there but they also take part in the base open house events.

Gloom? I spent 20 years in uniform, and 5 1/2 of those years were in Japan, and I remembered seeing both US and Japanese servicemembers looking rather sharp, not gloomy, in their uniforms.

Or maybe the last time they saw someone “like me” in uniform was during the Navy Ball when the colors were presented. The Japanese colors were presented at the same time, and they were held by a JMSDF* Sailor who was part of the Color Guard.

Or they’re just recognizing that the US has national holidays, as does Japan. You lost me about the friends. A lot of Japanese weren’t killed during the war.

Funny thing, during those open house events I mentioned above, I distinctly remember seeing a lot of Japanese youngsters. Not only were they not crying, they thoroughly enjoyed the event - to include getting some pretty nifty souvenirs from the US military units.

*JMSDF = Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force.

37

Damn, he had his flaws as person and a politician, but the boy could talk. That was a beautiful and different view I had never taken before. Thank you.

38

If it’s poetry and rhetoric you want, try this:

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory
The old lie….

Wilfred Owen, KIA Nov., 1918

Or Rudyard Kipling, that old trumpeter of the Empire, on the death of his only son, John, at the Battle of Loos, Sep., 1915:

My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew
What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.

There is no boasting triumph in this.

39

KAZAM!!! I am here.

How do I feel about Memorial Day? Well, let’s look at it… a day to remember that thousands of men and women gave their lives in an attempt to protect millions of other people. A day to remember the fightingk, the horror, the trauma they went through. A day to remember that, despite how good things can be for us, all our happiness, joy, love, and contentment can be shattered in an instant. A day to remember that we must always be vigilant in protecting our freedoms while also embracing those who also wish to be free.

Yeah. Memorial Day gets the thumbs-up in my book.

KAZAM!!! I depart again.

40

My personal favourite amongst poems expressing the pointlessness of war – perhaps because I have heard the lines from Binyon’s poem read at Anzac day ceremonies – is by Roger McGough:

On Picnics

at the goingdown of the sun
and in the morning
i try to remember them
but their names are ordinary names
and their causes are thighbones
tugged excitedly from the soil
by frenchchildren
on picnics