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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTortured thoughts... A relative helps liberate a conc camp
the story becomes a family legend, it is a story used to define a family, a self, and to describe and link that family to the fabric of the nation. A true story of the great value of family sacrifice and participation in liberation.
And then, having full knowledge of torture by his immediate predecessors, as president he can yet find strength to grasp and twist his own thoughts to look forward -- to encourage us to do the same -- rather than looking backward as criminal prosecutions and pursuit of justice must.
How tortured must be the thoughts of such a man, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, to say it is better for the nation to look the other way.
This must hurt. A lot.
Autumn
(45,120 posts)Their thoughts may be tortured for a nation to say we should look the other way. That would hurt. Also. There is no easy way through this.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)grasswire
(50,130 posts)He was a P.O.W. for nearly three years. He never spoke to the family about his experiences, but we can deduce them from his skeletal weight at liberation, and by the accounts of others who have written and spoken of the conditions through which he lived.
He told us "Never forget". That's all. "Never forget." And he never bought a thing made in Japan after the war.
But he did welcome into the family his nephew's Hawaiian-born wife of Japanese and Islander heritage.
It's complicated for many.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)What would happen if survivors from WWII, Korea, Vietnam posted a petition on the WH website urging Obama to honor the pledge to Never Forget, what reaction it would get.