Japan Apologizes To War Prisoners

[Flashermac]

http://www.filestube...d+safe+out+here

 

 

 

p.s. Got to agree with him on the 19th century, certainly more interesting. And as nasty as things could get, they didn't come close to the horrible deeds that were done in the 1930s and '40s, or in China during the "cultural revolution". I've written mostly on 19th century events. Sells well too, especially local history. 

[Flashermac]

Got the book downloaded. From the first paragraph it is pure Fraser.

 

Makes me think of Kipling as I read it. Some of my mother's family went off to India in the 1860s and British India has always fascinated me. (Modern India does not.)

 

Ironically enough, I stumbled on a bunker complex very early in my time in RVN. I was assigned as security for a work party patching up a large hole Charlie had blown in the road from Kontum to Dak To. It was better than working, but I soon got bored and decided to do some exploring. I wandered into the underbrush, and eventually came upon the bunkers, dug into a hillside and overlooking the road. They were quite impressive.

 

Like an idiot, I flipped my M14 to fully automatic and inspected them by myself. Fortunately, they were long abandoned with just old shell cases and rubbish around. No booby traps either.

 

You do stupid things when you are young and immortal.

 

 

 

[Julian2]

Fraser disappointed a few people by not increasing his Flashman output after promising stories on the American and Mexican civil wars.

In an interview he remarked the books were relatively easy to write after a few months research.

I enjoyed his McAuslen series, based on his time spent as an officer after WW2.

[Flashermac]

The first book I read was titled something like "The General Danced at Dawn". McAuslen was a gem. He did indeed disappoint by not doing his Civil War book. He dropped hints here and there in other books, but we were left waiting for the stories that will never be told.

 

 

 

 

Ever read this by him?

 

 

Absolutely spot on!

 

 

[Julian2]

Yes, I think I've read most of his newspaper jottings.

Unlike many people I know I don't feel obliged to refuse to be entertained by someone's creative side because I don't agree with their political views.

I'd feel sorry, for example, for someone who refused to read Steinbeck because of his leftist opinions, or Pat Conroy because of what he thought of the military.

[think_too_mut]

What a Japan bashing thread we have here.

 

Based on books and about things 70 years ago. By authors and here posters who have never understood Japanese.

 

Japan has since 1945. made this world a better place.

 

The collective Japanese mind got skewed by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Kanto is Tokyo and around, total devastation, one would thing the pictures from Yokohama were from Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. Then Japan turned into militarism. But that was over 1945.

 

Now what? Many nations have had dark periods in their history.

 

Good chance you are reading this on a Japanese made screen of your computer, that your TV is Japanese or you may even drive a Japanese car.

Your iPod, iPad and iPhone have Toshiba screens and the most important internal guts are Japanese.

 

Forever war criminals and crooks do not do that for the humanity.

 

Myself, living and working (even managing Japanese nationals) for 8 years, my Thai wife and our daughter feel in Japan better than anywhere.

[Flashermac]

Why all the Japan bashing? I suspect it has something to do with the Japanese government's attitude today.

[think_too_mut]

Why all the Japan bashing? I suspect it has something to do with the Japanese government's attitude.

 

What is it?

 

Have they attacked or occupied anyone? Have they imposed or tried to force it, their point of view (or their "values") on anyone?

 

Or their sin is helping all and sundry in whatever trouble they might be in?

[Flashermac]

No, but the government's handling of past misdeed is abominable. The Japanese government's refusal to accept responsibility for the "comfort women", for instance. Yet while insisting it wasn't their doing, they set up a fund to "compensate" those who were forced into prostitution for years. Most of the women refused to accept the money without a genuine apology. Japan generated extremely negative publicity around the world from this incident.

 

No one hates the Japanese today, at least I have never met anyone. But as I said, the prime minister's visits to the graves of war criminals is simply unbelievable. Can you imagine a German leader paying respects to the graves of Nazi war criminals? The Italian PM honouring Mussolini's fascists? The Japanese government simply does not seem to understand how the world views their actions.

[think_too_mut]

Why all the Japan bashing? I suspect it has something to do with the Japanese government's attitude today.

 

You know that old Stallinist coin phrase: "If you are not guilty, you have nothing to fear"?

 

Here we are. Asian airlines have never replaced their catering accessories with plastic. Maybe when they go to the US, forced by the US laws, by someone "who feels guilty" and does not understan why.

 

ANA, (All Nippon Airways, NH code) year 2003:

 

 

All the metal is there, enroute to BKK. They fear nothing. Nobody hates them. Apart from few irrelevant characters on this board who would do armchair snipping at anything.