March 16, 2004

  • War and Peace — or “How a Doctor Saves Vs. How a Soldier Saves”

    What does it cost to have peace?

    “The Americans are morally weak and like paper tigers, after a few blows they fall. . .”

    – Osama bin Laden

    Could he have been right? I sure hope not.

    I love my grandfather and I respect him for many of the good things he has done. My grandmother says he would go to work, walking along the railroad tracks to the neighboring towns to treat the sick. She had to buy him shirts and shoes often because, he would always come home without them, having given them to his patients who had none. This was after the war.

    My grandfather’s high school education was interrupted by a war.

    People came to Philippines with the intention of changing the way the whole country ran. It would not be Philippines. It would be. . . Japan.

    So my grandfather hid from the terrorists. He and many others from his town took to the mountains when the Japanese came. My grandmother tells me, there was a Japanese soldier who stumbled into their camp one day. They couldn’t understand him very well, but from the looks of it, he was a deserter.

    He asked to have something to drink.

    And the people in the camp pointed to the well.

    As he stood by the well drinking, one of my grandfather’s friends assigned him to cut the man’s head off. Why? Well, if the soldier wasn’t a deserter, he was probably a spy, and if they let him go, he would lead the Japanese to their hidden campsite. (They couldn’t keep him in the camp either, as food was limited during the war.)

    My grandfather is a doctor. And I don’t know whether that part of him that wanted to save people is what kept him from doing it, but he could not bring himself to kill a man.

    So his friend had to do it for him. Using a large knife, he severed the man’s head as he drank from the well. The soldier probably didn’t know what hit him. But, a deserter is not wanted by any side.

    What does it cost to have peace?

    Jesus says to “turn the other cheek.”

    Where does one draw the line?

    Do you tell a woman whose husband is abusing her. . . to “turn the other cheek, dear.”
    Do you teach her children not to fight their father when he beats them?

    Where does one draw the line?

    I’ve got relatives on both sides of my family who ran away from the Japanese during World War II. And the generation before that, they ran from the Communists who were overtaking China and forcing people into war.

    I think sometimes people forget that war is not a choice.
    War is something that is forced upon you.

    Someone does violence upon you or your family. And you can “turn the other cheek” (as my grandfather did). . . or you can protect your family, at the cost of your own soul.

    I really admire all those soldiers who fought for my grandparents in World War II. I am only sorry that so many of them died to save people who have forgotten. . . what they died for.

    It’s strange to see my relatives running away from terrorism, just as they ran away from the Japanese. History repeats itself once more, and I am sad.

    They ran to America. But if America falls to terrorists, where will they run then? Is anything worth fighting for? Or do you use up your time in one country, and then when it is spent, do you toss it away like a used rubber? You’d think they’d get tired of running away all the time. I am not Filipino. I am not Thai. I am not Chinese. I am an American.

    So many people come to this country from Philippines, Thailand, and China and send money back “home.” How do they bite the hand which feeds it? Do you want to know where your U.S. money goes? It goes overseas to help those in other countries. People may make fun of the U.S., but why then do they keep coming here?

    And why does the media make it sound like everyone hates the U.S. After 9-11, one of the first people to email me was one of my friends in Japan, who wanted to make sure that I was okay and that my family was safe.

    This from a country that America bombed less than 60 years ago.
    This from a country that created soldiers that killed my relatives in three separate countries.
    How can war and peace coexist? It just does.

    There was one Japanese soldier that spared my grandmother’s life. Soldiers came into the market one day, and my grandmother hid behind a jar of fermented shrimp paste. One of the soldiers saw her anyway, and came up to her and took her baby from her. According to my grandmother, he held my dad and talked to him and then started to cry. My father thinks that perhaps he had a son back home as well, and that he reminded him of that.

    There are other stories, not so nice, and very cruel.

    My cousin used to take singing lessons when she was in elementary school. I’m not sure that she really understood what she was singing. I doubt many people really do.



    I’m proud to be an American
    Where at least I know I’m free.
    And I won’t forget the men who died
    Who gave that right to me

    And I’d proudly stand up next to her
    And defend her still today.
    ‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land.
    God bless the U.S.A.

    Yeah, I really don’t think anyone listens to the words. It’s just a song written by an over-patriotic hick.