** A story based upon forgiveness and reconciliation! This shows how former enemies can over come their differences and thur forgiveness learn how to live to gether in peace!

Date:   8/7/2020 2:38:02 PM ( 4 y ago)

Personal Account By:
Patrick Whited USN

Apologies in advance for the novella, but this was one very strange day.. On August 6th, 1973, we were tied up at our dock in Yokosuka, Japan. At 8:15 in the morning, all the Japanese shipyard workers left their stations and lined up all over the base to stare into the sky for a minute. It was totally silent and eerie as hell. That was the time that the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, 28 years earlier.

So.. That evening my wife and I were having a drink when someone knocked on our door. I opened it and there was an older Japanese gentleman standing there wearing a black kimono and carrying a huge bottle of plum wine. In broken english he said, "My house, next door. You come." We accepted out of politeness, but I was fairly certain that we were both about to be ritually murdered.

His house had white shag carpet,all western furnishings, and a big console television which was showing The Mod Squad and later Medical Center, all dubbed into Japanese of course. He invited us to sit, and his wife brought out a tray of drinks and snacks. The gentleman then produced a model of a Japanese fighter plane, and makes the sounds all kids make when playing airplane, 'nnuuuuuuu tut tut tut tut tut..."

He says, "Me, Pearl Harbor, so sorry, so sorry". I nearly shit myself and *knew* we were about to die. He did that several times, and I had no idea what to say or do. After a couple drinks he stood and motioned to me to follow him into a back room, no doubt where the murders were to occur.

It was dark outside and in, and he pointed out a window and started talking in Japanese. It went on for a few minutes until I stopped him by saying, "hachigatsu roku" (August 6) then, "geijin bakudon" (foreigner/round eye bomb) He was looking at me with old Japanese eyes that had seen far more than I, and I could only shake my head.

Then this man took me in his arms and said, "Brothers, brothers".. Then he pointed at a futon in another room where a young boy was sleeping and said "My son."
And now, as they say, the rest of the story:

It turned out that someone had stolen a housecoat off of their clothes line and he was asking if I'd seen anyone or knew anything about it. We had not, but my wife had lost a bra in the same manner. I also found out later that he had *not* been at Pearl Harbor, but had been an underwater demolition man in the Japanese Navy.

One day that I will never forget, and don't get me wrong. I've always felt that those two bombs were justified and that they saved millions of lives, both American and Japanese. Still, it was one of the strangest days of my life



 

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