I do remember Pearl Harbor, as I was not quite 7 years old, and grew up with the constant reminder of "Remember Pearl Harbor". Much too young to serve with the armed forces during that war, but my time came later with Korea.
OK, I and numerous others did what we had to do, and all but 55,000 came back to resume a normal life. Fast forward to late 1980's time period and one of my Sons was going to college.
He absolutely jolted me one evening at the dining room table when he told me his College Professor told him he could not discuss Korea, as it had not happened. My son came home rather confused, as he had seen pictures of me in uniform, with quite a few ribbons for Korean Service, but now was being told, it had not happened.
I was able to dig out my old DD 214, show him the awards of a Combat Infantryman's Badge, two purple hearts, two bronze stars, one with a V for valor, along with the old "been there done that" ribbons.
Then a trip to the Encyclopedia, and after he had read many pages of the Korean Conflict, he realized his professor was full of sh*t, and I was determined to at the very minimum make the SOB do some real study, if he was going to teach such a class.
The following day, I spent time with the President of the College, then entered the class room along with my son, and verbally took on the ignorant one who was supposedly a professor, eventually running him out of his own class room.
Not too long ago, my wife and I were able to spend some 10 days in Hawaii on our 50th wedding anniversery. We made sure we were able to visit the U.S. Arizona memorial, and while I normally do not have a major problem with residents of other countries, was absolutly astounded with the number of Japaneese who vacationed in our State of Hawaii. First of all, they were extremely rude, pushy, would crash lines, jump in front of you, and did almost everything possible to make non Asian folks feel they were intruding on the sons of the rising sun's space.
We spent the time watching various restored films of the day of infamy, then rode the launch out to the memorial, and I along with many other former service men had a hard time controlling ourselves as we were innudated with maybe 40 or so men proudly wearing the white hats with the bright red rising sun and the letters JAPAN, as they visited the shrine of when their countrymen had sucker punched the United States, bringing us into the war.
Later after discussing it with others, we asked several Japaneese citizens, and they were not taught THEY had made the first strike which brought the US into the war. Two different ones told us, we had been the agressor according to their schooling, and I am sure there was confusion when they did return to their own areas, with maybe some attempts to learn the truth.
I have always heard it was up to the victors to establish history, but now have learned, even the losers are able to establish untrue facts to suit themselves.
