Memorial Day

Memorial Day In China……..A three day holiday that is called the Dragon Boat festival. Nothing to do with honoring soldiers of wars past & present. Something about a dead poet.

I am a student of history, WW2 fascinates me. It was our parent’s world as young men and women. I remember the parades in our town, the stories still fresh in the minds of fathers who participated. It took me awhile as a stupid little kid to understand, a friend of the family always asked me if I wanted to go on safari in Africa. Years later, I finally was told, he killed a lot of Germans fighting in North Africa.

         All of us, 18-19 years old. Our fathers faught for this picture to happen. 1972

I got to spend a few months traveling the Philippines with a man that landed on the beaches of Normandy. We both explored past battle fields of Mindanao, still touching remains of the Japanese occupation. One day walking on a remote tropical, white sand beach, finding a bronze plaque, “The US Marines Landed on this Beach in 1944 to liberate the people of Mindanao”. A few short steps into the palm tree jungle, the remains of all the Japanese cement Pill Boxes. It was a bad day to be landing on that beach in 1944 for young Marines. They “overcame, adapted, improvised, fought on” Won.

The stories from my travel friend, who has since passed, well, they made movies about it all.

In the last years of visits with my father, living at aretirementhome, I would get coffee from the coffee room and sit and listen to all the men, last years of life, talking about those days, flying bombing raids in Europe, landing on far away islands, all like it just happened. One man saying it was the greatest adventure of his life, simple, you do and go where you are told, you take what you want when you find something of need, and you kill to survive, move on. Simple.

Footnote…….I am living with Joys Mother & Father, both 90, talking about the days of hiding in the mountains to escape the Japanese. Returning to the village to find family members lined up and executed. Still, all so real to this day.

Aloha from China.