Japan marks 70th anniversary of WWII Battle of Okinawa
Source: AP
TOKYO (AP) — About 5,000 people including Japan's prime minister and the U.S. ambassador to Japan held a memorial service Tuesday to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest conflicts of World War II.
They observed a moment of silence at Peace Memorial Park in Okinawa, a chain of islands at the southern tip of the Japanese archipelago.
Naeko Teruya, a representative of bereaved families, said that remains and unexploded bombs are still found underground and at construction sites.
"Seventy years since the war has ended, we still feel that the war hasn't truly ended," she said. "We continue to find the scars of war in Okinawa today."
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My father fought in the U. S. Navy at Okinawa.
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They're memorializing those who fought on behalf of a nationalist, imperialist, brutally racist government that was, in turn, allied to another nationalist, imperialist, brutally racist government.
Instead, they should be insulting their ancestors and saying how horrible it was that they fought and that they shamed their families and country, and how proud they are that others fighting them killed off their evil, putrid, hate-filled ancestors.
The flag is just a symbol of the underlying putrescence and vileness.
/sarcasm
That's what it looks like when you're not on either side of a particular boundary. Descendants want to honor their dead, even if the cause they fought for is in some sense unjust. They find excuses for justifying their own and should be left to it as long as that hurts nobody else; many times those "excuses" are actually the *real* reason their ancestors fought, whatever those outside with their own agenda and axe to grind want or need to believe for their own purposes. (And while there are the occasional instances of somebody doing bad things over this particular issue, as others, most don't hurt anybody else except by their thoughts. Which is to say, "Most don't hurt anybody else."
As for the Japanese flag, there are two that I can find. Red disk (Hinomaru) and the rising-sun flag. Both are currently in use, and both were in use during the war. In Okinawa both are despised by those who dislike Japan, so neither would be used. I assume there's a nationalist Okinawan flag lurking in the wings somewhere. There wasn't, as far as I can tell, a separate "battle flag" (but many view the naval banner as precisely that, however, and furthermore think of it as only a WWII flag when it preceded WWII and is still or, rather, again in use. May I direct people to Wiki's page on abductive reasoning, which has been termed "fake reasoning" by some. It has it's place, but says nothing about the validity of a conclusion, esp. when the data is limited by circumstances or bias.)
in the 27th Infantry Division. My uncle was on the USS New Orleans during the battle.
I've been to Okinawa. It's a very impressive place and people.
