Letters from Iwo JIma Ticket (2/10/07)

I hate wars, but I usually enjoy films about them. I went to see Letters from Iwo Jima back in 2007 with my sister Megan, and I thought it was very well done. It made me hate war even more, which is what I think should be the point of any war movie. I write about it today because I’m thinking about Japan…

My grandfather fought in World War II. He was a captain and left my grandmother the day after their wedding. I wear his WWII dog tags every day as part of my “bling”, a daily reminder of the person I was named after.

My mother and aunt sometimes tell me that I was aptly named, usually after I’ve made some sarcastic remark. Another trait that I inherited from “Grampa” (and every other human before him) was that of imperfection.

I only knew him until I was 9, but my mother has filled me in that my grandfather’s time in combat left him rather prejudice against Japanese people. It obviously wasn’t something that was so strong it was passed to my mother and aunt – they are two of the least judgemental people that I know. My mom told me he would sometimes say, “Damn, Jap!” under his breath if an Asian person was driving near them in a way that upset him. I have no idea how he actually felt about Japanese people, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to fight on the front lines against a country that openly surprise attacked mine. I may have fought brain cancer and battle Crohn’s almost daily, but I would take those two burdens every time if the alternative was I had to kill a lot of people and watch people around me get killed for three years straight while not being able to see or talk to the girl I just married.

However it affected his opinions about Japanese people, I am glad to report that I have only good feelings for Japanese people and it makes me sick when I read stories about people like Family Guy Writer Alec Sulkin or Liberty Guard Cappie Pondexter making idiot, insensitive, and public comments about the recent tragedy in Japan. And I can’t believe all the other idiots calling the tsunami “payback” for the Pearl Harbor attack in their Facebook statuses.

If you haven’t, please look here to see what happened. None of those people asked for it, and God/karma had nothing to do with it. No one deserves tragedy of any size no matter what country they are living in. No one deserves to be a victim of war and no one deserves to be a victim of a natural tragedy. But things are going to happen.

All war could end tomorrow, and there would still be tragedy in the world. There would still be cancer and there would still be earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and accidents. Without war, we definitely could work together more effectively to help each other in times of tragedy, but too many of those in power think religion, land, money, and oil are more important than working out differences peacefully.

We are nothing but a fraction of a blip on the universal screen, but all we do is fight, prejudge, and look for ways that people are bad and deserve punishment – www.godhatesfags.com comes into mind as well as the recent comments about Japan.

I am lucky to have never been in the middle of a war or a natural tragedy. I can’t imagine what it was like being in that tsunami, I can only hope that those who survived it are able to put their lives back together somehow….