~ “I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.” Ronald Reagan.
When my family and I first came to Japan, in Spring,1972, we flew on an American contract airline, via Honolulu and Wake Island, from Travis AFB, California.
We arrived at Yokota AFB in the northeast outskirts of greater Tokyo at night. An Army staff car and driver picked us up and took us the two and a half hour trip to Camp Zama, the old Japanese Army military academy grounds, and dropped us off at a BOQ, where we would stay until we received our household goods and could move into quarters.
Other than that I never had any occasion to travel to Yokota, except in 1974 to try a batch of criminal cases for the Air Force when their legal staff there had placed themselves in a conflict-of-interest situation, where they would rotate prosecutors and defense lawyers, so ended up arguing both sides of the case on different days. It was a big Buddha-weed bust on an AF transport heading back to the States. A civilian lawyer caught them at it, called them out, and those cases had to be retried. Egg on the Air Force’s face.
In all, I traveled back and forth to Yokota three times in normal daylight hours and we went through a small city of half a million, actually a suburb of Tokyo, named Hachioji. The first time, I wasn’t prepared.
Driving through what looked like just more endless city, just like the several miles on the south side of Tokyo, where I lived, my driver, a Japanese man in a suit, turned around, and said, “Captain, we are coming to Hachioji City. Please roll up windows, lock door, and look straight ahead. Make no face.”
Shortly, along the narrow streets that Japanese called “two-lane highways”, people began coming out of the shops and little 3-stooler restaurants they would lunch at, and began pounding on the car, shriek curses (I guess), spitting, making hand gestures, with scowls that could cause an exorcist to squirm.
In a couple of minutes they either quit or we left the city[…]
You already know the story of my first visit to Manos, the Russian spy-restaurant in Tokyo. It was 1972. It was run by two brothers from Pittsburgh, former OSS officers during WWII, and within shouting distance of the Soviet embassy, where, at the end of every visit, I’d pause to take a leak on their gate.
A small restaurant, Manos was known Tokyo-wide not for its borscht, which was horrible, but that it was the single place in all Tokyo that the upper echelons of the Japanese business, military and political community could meet, then know, (in the biblical sense) a bevy of foreign, many Caucasian, women. Maj Guy, my neighbor, and who’d gotten his CIB as an advisor to the Montagnards in Vietnam, and chief liaison officer in our G2 section, was a regular at Manos, and had first introduced me to the girls there..
Guy’s wife Penny, of course, knew of Manos. It was part of his job. And she also knew, on a major’s pay, he could never afford any of the merchandise offered there. But my wife was leery. A couple of days after we came back from that night at Manos, we were all sitting around behind our quarters in the housing area having a beer on one of those big wooden spools they used to run the power lines on the post. He was talking about Faye, the Australian girl who introduced me to all the others, and how most would come over and sit for a few minutes in between other chores, including hustling potential clients. (Every Japanese high-roller, the john, was escorted by another man, often a company official who was actually bankrolling the liaison, and as Guy had pointed out to me earlier, each person had his own personal tastes, and that the majority seemed to prefer the fair haired maidens of European extraction.)
My wife, no prude herself, had studied in Europe, from money, was not so much angry as cynical and disbelieving. No matter what Penny thought, she couldn’t believe that I, much less Guy and I, could go to a vineyard and not want to taste the wine. Guy used his “not on a major’s pay” argument, but she was having none of it. She was the daughter of an executive in a major manufacturing company (who Guy and I would introduce to Manos a year or so later) and just sort of assumed that if Guy were steering so much business their way, “commissions” might be involved. You know, freebies[…]
Immigration is a sensitive issue everywhere and especially in Japan, where many citizens fear foreigners will bring crime and disorder. So why did Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a nationalist, right-of-center leader, decide last week to admit 500,000 blue-collar guest workers by 2025?
In a word, demographics. Japan’s persistently low fertility rate, 1.43 last year, caused the work force to shrink by 13% since 2000. Companies are screaming for workers, with an average of 1.59 jobs available for each applicant. The unemployment rate was 2.5% in April, the lowest among G-7 nations.
The labor shortage is one reason Mr. Abe’s program of economic reform hasn’t revived animal spirits, with GDP contracting 0.2% in the first quarter. The lack of hotel staff is holding back a boom in tourism. The average age of the Japanese farmer is 67. The lack of workers is hampering construction projects for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020[…]
Donald Trump has a habit of heading down a rabbit hole where only he knows he hopes it will lead. He keeps friend and foe alike guessing, so even when he comes out of that hole smelling like a rose, no one can be sure whether he just got lucky, or that was how he planned it all along. Even Rachel Maddow, the most pragmatic of his media enemies, will have to admit he’s done this quite a few times.
I don’t know what President Trump’s knowledge about how large “face” plays in the cultures and politics of the Far East. But it’s Yuge. Moreover, no one is really sure if Kim Jung Un really runs the North Korean crime machine, or is the face of a larger collective. Personally, I lean toward the latter.
Either way, Face matters.
And by agreeing to meet with Kim face-to-face what has been proffered is a kind of Face never offered to the North Korean regime before. And since the South Koreans served as the middleman, no one even knows who actually laid this rabbit hole on the table.
We were at war with Kim’s grandfather for nearly three years in the 1950s, ending with an armistice that locked North Korea away from decent society, literally, a condition that persists today. It was Kim’s father who made the giant strides toward developing a nuclear capability, only no one is absolutely certain why. Self-defense? A source of income? Or the Korean idea of equality in the comity of nations? The Nuclear Club and the bragging rights?
Bill Clinton sent Madeleine Albright, his Secretary of State, to iron out a deal with Kim Jung Il’s representatives, which turned out to be a masterful swindle, where we gave them billions, boatloads of frozen chicken wings, and they gave us a promise on a piece of paper which they never truly intended to keep and we never intended to enforce. And they knew it.
Madeleine may as well have been Stormy Daniels, her signature was so worthless[…]
The attacking planes came in two waves; the first hit its target at 7:53 AM, the second at 8:55. By 9:55 it was all over. By 1:00 PM the carriers that launched the planes from 274 miles off the coast of Oahu were heading back to Japan.
Behind them they left chaos, 2,403 dead, 188 destroyed planes and a crippled Pacific Fleet that included 8 damaged or destroyed battleships. In one stroke the Japanese action silenced the debate that had divided Americans ever since the German defeat of France left England alone in the fight against the Nazi terror.
Approximately three hours later, Japanese planes began a day-long attack on American facilities in the Philippines. (Because the islands are located across the International Dateline, the local Philippine time was just after 5 AM on December 8.) Farther to the west, the Japanese struck at Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand in a coordinated attempt to use surprise in order inflict as much damage as quickly as possible to strategic targets.
Although stunned by the attack at Pearl Harbor, the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers, submarines and, most importantly, its fuel oil storage facilities emerged unscathed. These assets formed the foundation for the American response that led to victory at the Battle of Midway the following June and ultimately to the total destruction of the Japanese Empire four years later.
Aboard the USS Arizona
The battleships moored along ‘Battleship Row’ are the primary target of the attack’s first wave. Ten minutes after the beginning of the attack a bomb crashes through the Arizona’s two armored decks igniting its magazine….
Honors: Distinguished Unit Citations: 1 (all units). MH-3.
Commanders:
Maj. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright (November 1940-December 1941)
Brig. Gen. Mason S. Lough (December 1941-May 1942).
Inactivated: 30 April 1947 in the Philippine Islands.
Combat Chronicle
Units of the Philippine Division were on security missions at Manila, Fort McKinley, and Bataan prior to the declaration of war in the Pacific, 8 December 1941. After undergoing 2 days of bombings, the Division moved into the field to cover the withdrawal of troops to Bataan and to resist the enemy in the Subic Bay area. From 11 to 23 December, positions were organized and strengthened and on 23 December the Division was assigned to the Bataan Defense Forces….
I am writing this blog for the benefit of my children and grand children and the new generations of Filipinos who have no knowledge or memory of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. It was 13 days before my 7th birthday when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in the morning, Sunday , December 7, 1941. That same day in the evening, Japanese planes had taken off to attack several targets in the Philippines. The Japanese had planned six landings: Bataan, Aparri, Vigan, Legaspi, Davao and Jolo Island. For the sake of clarity in this narrative, here are the important dates of that war:…
…When Japan started bombing the Philippines, I was in 2nd grade at the Jaro Elementary School,Iloilo. When my family heard of the bombings, we all panic and decided we moved from the city of Jaro, a most likely bombing target to our farm in Barotac Viejo, least likely target for bombing and Japanese occupation. Barotac Viejo,my mother’s ancestral town is a small town about 60 Km North of Jaro, Iloilo City.
I remember every one in my family was in chaotic mood and within a couple of days we packed all the essentials we could take and the rest of our household goods we left behind at our residence in Arguelles Street. I remember clearly my mother ordered all her china and sterling silver buried at the backyard of our house. We left all the furnitures and household goods that were heavy and cumbersome….
Let us remember this day that changed the lives of Americans forever 70 years ago.
Remember all those who perished that day and the terrible destruction brought about by those who sought to destruct this great nation.
Let us also remember and thank all those who made the ultimate sacrifice and the sacrifice of their families and loved ones so that we could be free. For they are our heroes America.
There are entities who would apologize for the bravery, sacrifice and heroic efforts of the U. S. Military as if these brave souls had committed an act most unforgivable.
Nothing could be further from the truth and our heroes have nothing for which to apologize.
In fact, we as a nation, seventy years later, still owe them the greatest of debt and no attempts at re-writing history can dictate otherwise. We will not allow it.
We honor the men, women, their families and friends on this day, seventy years later.
(1) Lord, Walter, Day of Infamy (1957), Prange, Gordon, At Dawn We Slept (1981), Wallin, VAdm. Homer N. Pearl Harbor: Why, How, Fleet Salvage and Final Appraisal (1968).
(2) [Nota Bene: These combat chronicles, current as of October 1948, are reproduced from The Army Almanac: A Book of Facts Concerning the Army of the United States, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950, pp. 510-592.]
Sound like another conspiracy theory? Think again. Remember the millions of tons of ammunition purchased over the years by various federal government agencies?
The Department of Health and Human Services has ordered 14 million doses of potassium iodide, the compound that protects the body from radioactive poisoning in the aftermath of severe nuclear accidents, to be delivered before the beginning of February.
According to a solicitation posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the DHHS asks contractors to supply, “potassium iodide tablet, 65mg, unit dose package of 20s; 700,000 packages (of 20s),” a total of 14 million tablets. The packages must be delivered on or before February 1, 2014….
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